It was a clean, comfortable, fresh room and nothing was ever out of place in it.
Marian was sitting under a high vase of pink canterbury-bells; by some happy chance her dress was the same pale pink as the bells. She looked, with her hands in her lap, her throat lifted, and the sun on her hair, like a flower of the same family. Her manner was a charming mixture of ease and diffidence.
Stella was late, and Lady Verny and Julian had arrived before her.
Lady Verny was like her son. She was very tall and graceful, and carried herself as if she had never had to stoop. Her eyes had the steady, frosty blueness of Julian's, with lightly chiseled edges; her lips were ironic, curved, and a little thin.
She had piles of white hair drawn back over her forehead. When Marian introduced her to Stella, she rose and turned away from the tea-table.
"I hope you will come and talk to me a little," she said in a clear, musical voice. "We can leave Julian and Marian to themselves."
Lady Verny leaned back in the chair she had chosen for herself and regarded Stella with steady, imperturbable eyes. It struck Stella as a little alarming that they should all know where they wanted to sit, and with whom they wanted to talk, without any indecision. She thought that chairs would walk across the room to Lady Verny if she looked at them, and kettles boil the moment Julian thought that it was time for tea. But though she was even more frightened at this calm, unconscious competency than she had expected to be, she saw it didn't matter about her clothes. She knew they were all wrong, as cheap clothes always are, particularly cheap clothes that you've been in a hurry over and not clever enough to match. Her boots and her gloves weren't good, and her hat was horrid and probably on the back of her head. Her blue-serge coat and skirt had indefinite edges. But Stella was aware that Lady Verny, beautifully dressed as she was, was taking no notice whatever of Stella's clothes. They might make an extra point against her if she didn't like her. Stella could hear her saying, "Funny that Marian should make friends with a sloppy little scarecrow." But if she did like her, she would say nothing about Stella's clothes. As far as the Vernys were concerned, the appearances of things were always subsidiary.
"Engagements are such interrupted times," Lady Verny observed, with a charming smile. "One likes to poke a little opportunity toward the poor dears when one can."
"Yes," said Stella, eagerly, with her little, rapid flight of words. "You're always running away when you're engaged, and never getting there, aren't you? And then, of course, when you're married, you're there, and can't run away. It's such a pity they can't be more mixed up."
"Perhaps," said Lady Verny, still smiling. "But marriage is like a delicate clock; it has to be wound up very carefully, and the less you take its works to pieces afterward the better. Have you known Marian a long time?"