'How can you stand it?' said Vida, under her breath.
'Oh, I don't mind his going away,' said the other, dully.
'One of the things I'm grateful to Donald for'--she spoke as if there were plenty more--'he is very good to you, Vida.' And in her tone there was criticism of the beneficiary.
'You mean, he's not as rude to me as he is to you?'
'He is even forbearing. And you--you rather frighten me sometimes.'
'It would be very terrible for _me_ if he took it into his head not to like you.'
'If he took it into his head to forbid your having me here, you mean.'
'But even when you aren't polite he just laughs. Still, he's not a patient man.'
'No, dear, only to remind you not to try him too far. For my sake, Vida, don't ever do that.'
She put out her yellow, parchment-like hand, and her sister closed hers over it an instant.
'Here's the hot milk,' said Vida. 'Now we'll have some more coffee.'
'Are you coming with me to-day?' Mrs. Fox-Moore asked quite cheerfully for her as the servant shut the door.
'Oh, is this Friday? N--no.' The younger woman looked at the chill grey world through the window, and followed up the hesitating negative with a quite definite, 'I couldn't stand slums to-day.' The two exchanged the look that means, 'Here we are again up against this recurring difference.' But there was no ill-humour in either face as their eyes met.
Between these two daughters of one father existed that sort of haunting family resemblance often seen between two closely related persons, despite one being attractive and the other in some way repellent. The observer traces the same lines in each face, the same intensification of 'the family look' in the smile, and yet knows that the slight disparity in age fails to account for a difference wide as the poles.
And not alone difference of taste, of environment and experience, not these alone make up the sum of their unlikeness. You had only to look from the fresh simplicity of white muslin blouse and olive-coloured cloth in the one case, to the ungainly expensiveness of the black silk gown of the married woman, in order to get from the first a sense of dainty morning freshness, and from Mrs. Fox-Moore not alone a lugubrious _memento mori_ sort of impression, but that more disquieting reminder of the ugly and over-elaborate thing life is to many an estimable soul. Janet Fox-Moore had the art of rubbing this dark fact in till, so to speak, the black came off. She seemed to achieve it partly by dint of wearing (instead of any relief of lace or even of linen at her throat) a hard band of that passementerie secretly so despised of the little Tunbridges. This device did not so much 'finish off' the neck of Mrs. Fox-Moore's gowns, as allow the funereal dulness of them to overflow on to her brown neck. It even cast an added shadow on her sallow cheek. The figure of the older woman, gaunt and thin enough, announced the further constriction of the corset. By way of revenge the sharp shoulder-blades poked the corset out till it defined a ridge in the black silk back. In front, too, the slab-like figure declined co-operation with the corset, and withdrew, leaving a hiatus that the silk bodice clothed though it did not conceal. You could not have told whether the other woman wore that ancient invention for a figure insufficient or over-exuberant. As you followed her movements, easy with the ease of a child, while she walked or stooped or caught up the fragile Doris, or raised her arm to take a book from the shelf, you got an impression of a physique in perfect because unconscious harmony with its environment. If, on the contrary, you watched but so much as the nervous, uncertain hand of the other woman, you would know here was one who had spent her years in alternately grasping the nettle and letting it go--reaping only stings in life's fair fields. Easy for any one seeing her in these days (though she wasn't thirty-six) to share Mrs. Freddy's incredulous astonishment at hearing from Haycroft the night before that Janet Levering had been 'the beauty of her family.' Mrs. Freddy's answer had been, 'Oh, don't make fun of her!' and Haycroft had had to assure her of his seriousness, while the little hostess still stared uncertain.