“Only one-fourth of them.”

Lady Caroline turned her head.  She looked up at them a moment, surprised to see them so much younger than they had seemed that day at the club, and so much less unattractive.  Indeed, they were really almost quite attractive, if any one could ever be really quite attractive in the wrong clothes.  Her eyes, swiftly glancing over them, took in every inch of each of them in the half second before she smiled and waved her hand and called out Good-morning.  There was nothing, she saw at once to be hoped for in the way of interest from their clothes.  She did not consciously think this, for she was having a violent reaction against beautiful clothes and the slavery they impose on one, her experience being that the instant one had got them they took one in hand and gave one no peace till they had been everywhere and been seen by everybody.  You didn’t take your clothes to parties; they took you.  It was quite a mistake to think that a woman, a really well-dressed woman, wore out her clothes; it was the clothes that wore out the woman—­dragging her about at all hours of the day and night.  No wonder men stayed younger longer.  Just new trousers couldn’t excite them.  She couldn’t suppose that even the newest trousers ever behaved like that, taking the bit between their teeth.  Her images were disorderly, but she thought as she chose, she used what images she like.  As she got off the wall and came towards the window, it seemed a restful thing to know she was going to spend an entire month with people in dresses made as she dimly remembered dresses used to be made five summers ago.

“I got here yesterday morning,” she said, looking up at them and smiling.  She really was bewitching.  She had everything, even a dimple.

“It’s a great pity,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot, smiling back, “because we were going to choose the nicest room for you.”

“Oh, but I’ve done that,” said Lady Caroline.  “At least, I think it’s the nicest.  It looks two ways—­I adore a room that looks two ways, don’t you?  Over the sea to the west, and over this Judas tree to the north.”

“And we had meant to make it pretty for you with flowers,” said Mrs. Wilkins.

“Oh, Domenico did that.  I told him to directly I got here.  He’s the gardener.  He’s wonderful.”

“It’s a good thing, of course,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot a little hesitatingly, “to be independent, and to know exactly what one wants.”

“Yes, it saves trouble,” agreed Lady Caroline.

“But one shouldn’t be so independent,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “as to leave no opportunity for other people to exercise their benevolences on one.”

Lady Caroline, who had been looking at Mrs. Arbuthnot, now looked at Mrs. Wilkins.  That day at the queer club she had had merely a blurred impression of Mrs. Wilkins, for it was the other one who did all the talking, and her impression had been of somebody so shy, so awkward that it was best to take no notice of her.  She had not even been able to say good-bye properly, doing it in an agony, turning red, turning damp.  Therefore she now looked at her in some surprise; and she was still more surprised when Mrs. Wilkins added, gazing at her with the most obvious sincere admiration, speaking indeed with a conviction that refused to remain unuttered, “I didn’t realize you were so pretty.”