For the rest, the people were of the usual type one has got accustomed to in what is termed 'smart' society nowadays,--listless, lazy, more or less hypocritical and malicious,--apathetic and indifferent to most things and most persons, save and except those with whom unsavoury intrigues might or would be possible,--sneering and salacious in conversation, bitter and carping of criticism, generally blase, and suffering from the incurable ennui of utter selfishness,--the men concentrating their thoughts chiefly on racing, gaining, and Other Men's Wives,--the women dividing all their stock of emotions between Bridge, Dress, and Other Women's Husbands. And when Julian Adderley, as an author in embryo, found himself seated at luncheon with this particular set of persons, all of whom were more or less well known in the small orbit wherein they moved, he felt considerably enlivened and exhilarated. Life was worth living, he said to himself, when one might study at leisure the little tell-tale lines of vice and animalism on the exquisite features of Lady Beaulyon, and at the same time note admiringly how completely the united forces of massage and self-complacency had eradicated every wrinkle from the expressionless countenance of Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay. These two women were, in a way, notorious as 'leaders' of their own special coteries of social scandalmongers and political brokers; Lady Beaulyon was known best among Jew financiers; Mrs. Courtenay among American 'Kings' of oil and steel. Each was in her own line a 'power,'--each could coax large advances of money out of the pockets of millionaires to further certain 'schemes' which were vaguely talked about, but which never came to fruition,--each had a little bevy of young journalists in attendance,--press boys whom they petted and flattered, and persuaded to write paragraphs concerning their wit, wisdom and beauty, and how they 'looked radiant in pink' or 'dazzling in pea green.' Contemplating first one and then the other of these ladies, Julian almost resolved to compose a poem about them, entitled 'The Sirens' and, dividing it into Two Cantos, to dedicate the First Canto to Lady Beaulyon and the Second to Mrs. Courtenay.
"It would be so new--so fresh!" he mused, with a bland anticipation of the flutter such a work might possibly cause among society dove- cots--"And if ALL the truth were told, so much more risque than 'Don Juan'!"
Glancing up and down, and across the hospitable board, exquisitely arranged with the loveliest flowers and fruit, and the most priceless old silver, he noticed that every woman of the party was painted and powdered except Maryllia, and her young protegee, Cicely. The dining-room of Abbot's Manor was not a light apartment,- -its oak-panelled walls and raftered ceiling created shadow rather than luminance,--and though the windows were large and lofty, rising from the floor to the cornice, their topmost panes were of very old stained glass, so that the brightest sunshine only filtered, as it were, through the deeply-encrusted hues of rose and amber and amethyst squares, painted with the arms of the Vancourts, and heraldic emblems of bygone days. Grateful and beautiful indeed was this mysteriously softened light to the ladies round the table,--and for a brief space they almost LOVED Maryllia. For HER face was flushed, and quite uncooled by powder--'like a dairymaid's--she will get so coarse if she lives in the country always!' Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay confided softly to Lord Charlemont, who vaguely murmured-- 'Ah! Yes! I daresay!' quite without any idea of what the woman was talking about. Maryllia's pretty hair too was ruffled, she having merely taken off her hat in the hall on her return from church, without troubling to go up to her room and 'touch up' her appearance as all the other ladies who had suffered from walking exercise had done,--and her eyes looked just a trifle tired. Adderley found her charming with this shade of fatigue and listlessness upon her,--more charming than in her most radiant phases of vivacity. Her peach-like skin, warmed as it was by the sun, was tinted with Nature's own exquisite colouring, and compared most favourably with the cosmetic art so freely displayed by her female friends on either side of her. Julian began to con verses in his head, and he recalled the lines of seventeeth-century Eichard Crashaw:-"A Face that's best By its own beauty drest, And can alone command the rest."