If a fool be associated with a wise man all his life, he will perceive the truth as little as a spoon perceives the taste of soup.

— Buddist Dhaammapada.

“I CAN’T think what takes you to Wilderleigh,” said Lady Newhaven to Rachel. “I am always bored to death when I go there. Sybell is so self-centred.”

Perhaps one of the reasons why Lady Newhaven and Sybell Loftus did not “get on,” was owing to a certain superficial resemblance between them.

Both exacted attention, and if they were in the same room together it seldom contained enough attention to supply the needs of both. Both were conscious, like “Celia Chettam,” that since the birth of their first child their opinions respecting literature, politics, and art had acquired additional weight and solidity, and that a wife and mother could pronounce with decision on important subjects where a spinster would do well to hold her peace. Each was fond of saying, “As a married woman I think this or that”; yet each was conscious of dislike and irritation when she heard the other say it. And there is no doubt that Sybell had been too unwell to appear at Lady Newhaven’s garden party the previous summer, because Lady Newhaven had the week before advanced her cherished theory of “one life one love,” to the delight of Lord Newhaven, and the natural annoyance of Sybell, whose second husband was at that moment handing tea, and answering, “That depends,” when appealed to.

“As if,” as Sybell said afterwards to Hester, “a woman can help being the ideal of two men.”

“Sybell is such a bore now,” continued Lady Newhaven, “that I don’t know what she will be when she is older. I don’t know why you go to Wilderleigh of all places.”

“I go because I am asked,” said Rachel, “and partly because I shall be near Hester Gresley.”

“I don’t think Miss Gresley can be very anxious to see you, or she would have come here when I invited her. I told several people she was coming, and that Mr. Carstairs, who thinks so much of himself, came on purpose to meet her. It is very tiresome of her to behave like that, especially as she did not say she had any engagement. You make a mistake Rachel, in running after people who won’t take any trouble to come and see you. It is a thing I never do myself.”

“She is buried in her book at present.”

“I can’t think what she has to write about. But I suppose she picks up things from other people.”

“I think so. She is a close observer.”

“I think you are wrong, there, Rachel, for when she was here some years ago, she never looked about her at all. And I asked her how she judged of people, and she said, ‘By appearances.’ Now that was very silly, because as I explained to her, appearances were most deceptive, and I had often thought a person with a cold manner was cold-hearted, and afterwards found I was quite mistaken.”

Rachel did not answer. She wondered in what the gift consisted, which Lady Newhaven and Sybell both possessed, of bringing all conversation to a standstill.

“It seems curious,” said Lady Newhaven after a pause, “how the books are mostly written by the people who know least of life. Now the ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese.’ People think so much of them. I was looking at them the other day. Why, they are nothing to what I have felt. I sometimes think if I wrote a book — I don’t mean that I have any special talent — but if I really............