The deep hearth was filled with arum
lilies and azalias, like a font at Easter.
Lady Kirkbank, who pretended to adore genius, was affectionately
effusive to Miss Fitzherbert, the popular actress, but she rather
ignored the sister. Lesbia was less cordial, and was not enchanted at
finding that Miss Fitzherbert shone and sparkled at the breakfast table
by the gaiety of her spirits and the brightness of her conversation.
There was something frank and joyous, almost to childishness, in the
actress's manner, which was full of fascination; and Lesbia felt herself
at a disadvantage almost for the first time since she had been in
London.
The editor, the wit, the poet, the actress, had a language of their own;
and Lesbia felt herself out in the cold, unable to catch the ball as it
glanced past her, not quick enough to follow the wit that evoked those
ripples of silvery laughter from the two fair-haired, pale-faced girls
in sea-green cashmere. She felt as an Englishman may feel who has made
himself master of academical French, and who takes up one of Zola's
novels, or goes into artistic society, and finds that there is another
French, a complete and copious language, of which he knows not a word.
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