Féodorovna Prince is a prettyish girl, long and reedy, with a skin, hair, and hands whose merits make the casual looker forgive the thumblike shape of her nose and the washiness of her foolish eyes.
“Yes, I have.”
“And what is your opinion of it?”
“I think I had rather not say.”
Miss Prince is standing before the fireplace, a hand on each side of her phenomenally long eighteen-inch waist.
“You need not be afraid of hurting my feelings,” she says, with a self-satisfied smile.
“I do not think I am at all afraid of that.”
Féodorovna ceases to smile, but continues to balance herself gracefully.
“I was born quite unlike other people! I have always been keenly conscious of that. I have a right and wrong of my own; and they are not the conventional ones.”
Lavinia listens in ireful silence; but no one glancing at the conflagration in her eyes could mistake her speechlessness for approval.