The thing was a regular
performance; the practice of unlimited chatter had made her perfect. She
rested upon her audience and held it together, and the sight of half
a dozen pairs of amused and fascinated faces led her from one piece of
folly to another. On this occasion, her audience was far from failing
her, for they were all greatly interested. Captain Lovelock's interest,
as we know, was chronic, and our three other friends were much occupied
with a matter with which Blanche was intimately connected. Bernard,
as he listened to her, smiling mechanically, was not encouraged. He
remembered what Mrs. Vivian had said shortly before she came in, and it
was not pleasant to him to think that Gordon had been occupied half
the day in contrasting the finest girl in the world with this magnified
butterfly. The contrast was sufficiently striking as Angela sat there
near her, very still, bending her handsome head a little, with her hands
crossed in her lap, and on her lips a kind but inscrutable smile. Mrs.
Vivian was on the sofa next to Blanche, one of whose hands, when it was
not otherwise occupied, she occasionally took into her own.
"Dear little Blanche!" she softly murmured, at intervals.
These few remarks represent a longer pause than Mrs.
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