Lady Holme was not exquisitely sly. Her voice was
not like a choir-boy's; her manner was not like the manner of an image;
her eyes were not for ever cast down. Even her characteristic silence was
far less perpetual than the equally characteristic silence of Miss
Schley. But men said they were the same colour. What men said women began
to think, and it was not an assertion wholly without foundation. At a
little distance there was an odd resemblance in the one white face and
fair hair to the other. Miss Schley's way of moving, too, had a sort of
reference to Lady Holme's individual walk. There were several things
characteristic of Lady Holme which Miss Schley seemed to reproduce, as it
were, with a sly exaggeration. Her hair was similar, but paler, her
whiteness more dead, her silence more perpetual, her composure more
enigmatically serene, her gait slower, with diminished steps.
It was all a little like an imitation, with just a touch of caricature
added.
One or two friends remarked upon it to Lady Holme, who heard them very
airily.
"Are we alike?" she said. "I daresay, but you mustn't expect me to see
it. One never knows the sort of impression one produces on the world. I
think Miss Schley a very attractive little creature, and as to her social
gifts, I bow to them."
"But she has none," cried Mrs. Wolfstein, who was one of those who had
drawn Lady Holme's attention to the likeness.
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