Even across the lawn Jane could discern trouble in Miss Collett's face. But Miss Collett's face was plastic in readjustments, and by the time she was fairly on the scene it had recaptured the habit of its smile. The smile, in greeting, covered and carried off the betraying reluctance of her hand. It implied that, if Miss Holland was to be set up in a high place and worshipped, Miss Collett was anxious to observe the appropriate ritual. Having observed it, she took, with her quiet, inconspicuous assurance, the place that was her own. She gave but one sign of her trouble when Dr. Brodrick was heard congratulating their guest on the great serial which, said he, by "saving" the magazine, had "saved" his brother. Then Gertrude quivered slightly, and the blood flushed in her set face and passed as fierce heat passes through iron.
While they were talking Jane had opportunity to watch and wonder at the firm, consolidated society that was Brodrick's family. These faces proclaimed by their resemblance the material link. Mr. John Brodrick was a more thick-set, an older, graver-lined, and grizzled Hugh, a Hugh who had lost his sombre fixity of gaze. Dr. Henry Brodrick was a tall, attenuated John, with a slightly, ever so slightly receding chin. Mrs. Heron was Hugh again made feminine and slender. She had Hugh's features, refined and diminished. She had Hugh's eyes, filled with some tragic sorrow of her own. Her hair was white, every thread of it, though she could not have been more than forty-five.
These likenesses were not so apparent at first sight in Mrs. Levine, the golden, full-blown flower of the Brodricks. They had mixed so thoroughly and subtly that they merged in her smoothness and her roundness. And still the facial substance showed in the firm opacity of her skin, the racial soul asserted itself in her poised complacence and decision.
"You don't know," she was saying, "how we're all sitting at your feet."
"We are indeed," said Mr. John Brodrick.
"Very much so," said the Doctor.
"Even little Cissy," said Hugh.
For little Cissy was bringing all her stalkless flowers to Jane; smiling at her as if she alone possessed the secret of this play. Brodrick watched, well-pleased, the silent traffic of their tendernesses.
The others were talking about Hambleby now. They had all read him. They had all enjoyed him. They all wanted more of him.
"If we could only have had Hambleby, Miss Holland," said Levine. "It wasn't my fault that we didn't get him."