She was at least as tall as Mary St. John, and very handsome--only
with somewhat masculine features and expression. She had very
sloping shoulders and a long neck, which took its finest curves when
she was talking to inferiors: condescension was her forte. Of the
admiration of the men, she had had more than enough, although either
they were afraid to go farther, or she was hard to please.
She had never contemplated anything admirable long enough to
comprehend it; she had never looked up to man or woman with anything
like reverence; she saw too quickly and too keenly into the foibles
of all who came near her to care to look farther for their virtues.
If she had ever been humbled, and thence taught to look up, she
might by this time have been a grand woman, worthy of a great man's
worship. She patronized Miss St. John, considerably to her
amusement, and nothing to her indignation. Of course she could not
understand her. She had a vague notion of how she spent her time;
and believing a certain amount of fanaticism essential to religion,
wondered how so sensible and ladylike a person as Miss St. John
could go in for it.
Meeting Falconer at Lady Janet's, she was taken with him. Possibly
she recognized in him a strength that would have made him her
master, if he had cared for such a distinction; but nothing she
could say attracted more than a passing attention on his part.
Falconer was out of her sphere, and her influences were powerless
to reach him.
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