Here, before her friends, was set a woman strangely like her, but
evidently a bad woman. Lady Holme was certain that the result of Miss
Schley's performance would be that were she to do things now which, done
before the Arkell House ball and this first night, would not have been
noticed, or would have been merely smiled at, they would be commented
upon with acrimony, exaggerated, even condemned.
Miss Schley was turning upon her one of those mirrors which distorts by
enlarging. Society would be likely to see her permanently distorted, and
not only in mannerisms but in character.
It happened that this fact was specially offensive to her on this
particular evening, and at this particular moment of her life.
While she sat there and watched the scene run its course, and saw,
without seeming to see, the effect it had upon those whom she knew well
in the house--saw Mrs. Wolfstein's eager delight in it, Lady Manby's
broad amusement, Robin Pierce's carefully-controlled indignation, Mr.
Bry's sardonic and always cold gratification, Lady Cardington's
surprised, half-tragic wonder--she was oscillating between two courses,
one a course of reserve, of stern self-control and abnegation, the other
a course of defiance, of reckless indulgence of the strong temper that
dwelt within her, and that occasionally showed itself for a moment, as it
had on the evening of Miss Filberte's fiasco. That temper was flaming now
unseen.
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