'Why,' thought Gudrun churlishly, 'don't they have the manners to put
their coats on, and not to assume such intimacy in their appearance.'
She abhorred the ordinary young man, with his hair plastered back, and
his easy-going chumminess.
Hermione Roddice came up, in a handsome gown of white lace, trailing an
enormous silk shawl blotched with great embroidered flowers, and
balancing an enormous plain hat on her head. She looked striking,
astonishing, almost macabre, so tall, with the fringe of her great
cream-coloured vividly-blotched shawl trailing on the ground after her,
her thick hair coming low over her eyes, her face strange and long and
pale, and the blotches of brilliant colour drawn round her.
'Doesn't she look WEIRD!' Gudrun heard some girls titter behind her.
And she could have killed them.
'How do you do!' sang Hermione, coming up very kindly, and glancing
slowly over Gudrun's father and mother. It was a trying moment,
exasperating for Gudrun. Hermione was really so strongly entrenched in
her class superiority, she could come up and know people out of simple
curiosity, as if they were creatures on exhibition.
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