Hungerford had a
fashion of looking at me searchingly from under his heavy brows, and I
saw that he did so now with impatience, perhaps contempt. I was certain
that he longed to thrash me. That was his idea of punishment and penalty.
He linked his arm in those of the other two men, and they moved on,
Colonel Ryder saying that he would keep the story till I came and would
wait in the smoking-room for me.
The concert was still on when I sat down beside Mrs. Falchion. "You
seemed to enjoy Miss Treherne's singing?" she said cordially enough as
she folded her hands in her lap.
"Yes, I thought it beautiful. Didn't you?"
"Pretty, most pretty; and admirable in technique and tone; but she has
too much feeling to be really artistic. She felt the thing, instead of
pretending to feel it--which makes all the difference. She belongs to a
race of delightful women, who never do any harm, whom everybody calls
good, and who are very severe on those who do not pretend to be good.
Still, all of that pleasant race will read their husband's letters and
smuggle. They have no civic virtues. Yet they would be shocked to bathe
on the beach without a machine, as American women do,--and they look for
a new fall of Jerusalem when one of their sex smokes a cigarette after
dinner.
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