She was always at
her ease, and to be always at your ease makes a deep impression upon
London, which is full of self-consciousness.
She began to be the fashion at once. A great lady, who had a passion for
supplying smart men with what they wanted, saw that they were going to
want Miss Schley and promptly took her up. Other women followed suit.
Miss Schley had a double triumph. She was run after by women as well as
by men. She got her little foot in everywhere, and in no time. Her
personal character was not notoriously bad. The slyness had taken care of
that. But even if it had been, if only the papers had not been too busy
in the matter, she might have had success. Some people do whose names
have figured upon the evening bills exposed at the street corners. Hers
had not and was not likely to. It was her art to look deliberately pure
and good, and to suggest, in a way almost indefinable and very perpetual,
that she could be anything and everything, and perhaps had been, under
the perfumed shadow of the rose. The fact that the suggestion seemed to
be conveyed with intention was the thing that took corrupt old London's
fancy and made Miss Schley a pet.
Her name of Pimpernel was not against her.
Men liked it for its innocence, and laughed as they mentioned it in the
clubs, as who should say:
"We know the sort of Pimpernel we mean."
Miss Schley's social success brought her into Lady Holme's set, and
people noticed, what Lady Holme had been the first to notice, the faint
likeness between them.
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