Lady Holme started. She had not been listening to the conversation but had been looking at Miss Schley. She had noticed instantly the effect created in the room by the actress’s presence in it. The magic of a name flits, like a migratory bird, across the Atlantic. Numbers of the youthful loungers of London had been waiting impatiently during the last weeks for the arrival of this pale and demure star. Now that she had come their interest in her was keen. Her peculiar reputation for ingeniously tricking Mrs. Bowdler, secretary to Mrs. Grundy, rendered her very piquant, and this piquancy was increased by her ostentatiously vestal appearance.
Lady Holme was sometimes clairvoyante. At this moment every nerve in her body seemed telling her that the silent girl, who sat there nibbling her lunch composedly, was going to be the rage in London. It did not matter at all whether she had talent or not. Lady Holme saw that directly, as she glanced from one little table to another at the observant, whispering men.
She felt angry with Miss Schley for resembling her in colouring, for resembling her in another respect—capacity for remaining calmly silent in the midst of fashionable chatterboxes.
“Will she?” she said to Mrs. Wolfstein.
“Yes. If she’d never been shipwrecked she’d have been almost entertaining, but—there’s Sir Donald Ulford trying to attract your attention.”
“Where?”
She looked and saw Sir Donald sitting opposite to the large young man with the contemptuous blue eyes and the chubby mouth. They both seemed very bored. Sir Donald bowed.
“Who is that with him?” asked Lady Holme.
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Wolfstein. “He looks like a Cupid who’s been through Sandow’s school. He oughtn’t to wear anything but wings.”
“It’s Sir Donald’s son, Leo,” said Lady Cardington.