Mr. Brumley's interest in Lady Harman was to be almost too crowded by detail before that impulsive¹ call was over. Superposed upon the mystery of the mushroom shed was the vivid illumination of Lady Harman by her mother and sister. They had an effect of having reluctantly become her social inferiors for her own good; the mother—her name he learnt was Mrs. Sawbridge—had all Lady Harman's tall slenderness, but otherwise resembled her only in the poise² of her neck and an occasional gesture; she was fair and with a kind of ignoble³ and premeditated refinement⁴ in her speech and manner. She was dressed with the restraint of a prolonged and attenuated⁵ widowhood, in a rich and complicatedly quiet dress of mauve and grey. She was obviously a transitory visitor and not so much taking the opulence⁶ about her and particularly the great butler for granted as pointedly⁷ and persistently⁸ ignoring it in an effort to seem to take it for granted. The sister, on the other hand, had Lady Harman's pale darkness but none of her fineness of line. She missed altogether that quality of fineness. Her darkness was done with a quite perceptible heaviness, her dignity passed into solidity and her profile was, with an entire want of hesitation⁹, handsome. She was evidently the elder by a space of some years and she was dressed with severity in grey.  
These two ladies seemed to Mr. Brumley to offer a certain resistance of spirit to the effusion of Lady Beach-Mandarin, rather as two small anchored vessels¹⁰ might resist the onset¹¹ of a great and foaming¹² tide, but after a time it was clear they admired her greatly. His attention was, however, a little distracted from them by the fact that he was the sole representative of the more serviceable sex among five women and so in duty bound to stand by Lady Harman and assist with various handings and offerings. The tea equipage was silver and not only magnificent but, as certain quick movements of Miss Sharsper's eyes and nose at its appearance betrayed, very genuine and old.
 
Lady Beach-Mandarin having praised the house and garden all over again to Mrs. Sawbridge, and having praised the cypress¹³ and envied the tea things, resumed her efforts to secure the immediate¹⁴ establishment of permanent social relations with Lady Harman. She reverted¹⁵ to the question of the Shakespear Dinners Society and now with a kind of large skilfulness¹⁶ involved Mrs. Sawbridge in her appeal. "Won't you come on our Committee?" said Lady Beach-Mandarin.
 
Mrs. Sawbridge gave a pinched smile and said she was only staying in London for quite a little time, and when pressed admitted that there seemed no need whatever for consulting Sir Isaac upon so obviously foregone a conclusion as Lady Harman's public adhesion to the great movement.
 
"I shall put his hundred guineas down to Sir Isaac and Lady Harman," said Lady Beach-Mandarin with an air of conclusion, "and now I want to know, dear Lady Harman, whether we can't have you on our Committee of administration. We want—just one other woman to complete us."
 
Lady Harman could only parry with doubts of her ability.
 
"You ought to go on, Ella," said Miss Sawbridge suddenly, speaking for the first time and in a manner richly suggestive of great principles at stake.
 
"Ella," thought the curious mind of Mr. Brumley. "And is that Eleanor now or Ellen or—is there any other name that gives one Ella? Simply Ella?"
 
"But what should I have to do?" fenced Lady Harman, resisting but obviously attracted.
 
Lady Beach-Mandarin invented a lengthy¹⁷ paraphrase¹⁸ for prompt acquiescences.
 
"I shall be chairwoman," she crowned it with. "I can so easily see you through as they say."
 
"Ella doesn't go out half enough," said Miss Sawbridge suddenly to Miss Sharsper, who was regarding her with furtive¹⁹ intensity—as if she was surreptitiously counting her features.
 
Miss Sharsper caught in mid^{20............}