"Yes, as a rule."
"Why not now? She ought to have dived deeper than ever this time."
"She ought, of course. I perfectly understand that. But it's very odd, I think we often marry the man we understand less than any one else in the world. Mystery is so very attractive."
Miss Townly sighed. She was emaciated, dark, and always dressed to look mysterious.
"Maurice Delarey is scarcely my idea of a mystery," said Mrs. Creswick, taking joyously a marron glacé. "In my opinion he's an ordinarily intelligent but an extraordinarily handsome man. Hermione is exactly the reverse, extraordinarily intelligent and almost ugly."
"Oh no, not ugly!" said Miss Townly, with unexpected warmth.
Though of a tepid personality, she was a worshipper at Hermione's shrine.
"Her eyes are beautiful," she added.
"Good eyes don't make a beauty," said Mrs. Creswick again, looking at her three-quarters face in the glass. "Hermione is too large, and her face is too square, and—but as I said before, it doesn't matter the least. Hermione's got a temperament that carries all before it."
"I do wish I had a temperament," said Miss Townly. "I try to cultivate one."