"Hermione is extraordinary," said Mrs. Creswick, trying to look at her

profile in the glass and making her face as Roman as she could, "I know

all London, but I never met another Hermione. She can do things that

other women can't dream of even, and nobody minds."

"Well, now she is going to do a thing we all dream of and a great many of

us do. Will it answer? He's ten years younger than she is. Can it

answer?"

"One can never tell whether a union of two human mysteries will answer,"

said Mrs. Creswick, judicially. "Maurice Delarey is wonderfully

good-looking."

"Yes, and Hermione isn't."

"That has never mattered in the least."

"I know. I didn't say it had. But will it now?"

"Why should it?"

"Men care so much for looks. Do you think Hermione loves Mr. Delarey for

his?"

"She dives deep."

"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."

"You might as well try to cultivate a mustache," Mrs. Creswick rather

brutally rejoined. "If it's there, it's there, but if it isn't one prays

in vain."

"I used to think Hermione would do something," continued Miss Townly,

finishing her second cup of tea with thirsty languor.

"Do something?"




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