Manchurian Books

Her
hats were startling and various, but invariably disconcerting, and she
talked in a rapid, nervous flow that was hilarious rather than witty,
and broken by little screams of "Oh, my dear!" and "you never did!" She
was the first woman I ever met who used scent. Poor old Smithie! What a
harmless, kindly soul she really was, and how heartily I detested her!
Out of the profits on the Persian robes she supported a sister's family
of three children, she "helped" a worthless brother, and overflowed
in help even to her workgirls, but that didn't weigh with me in those
youthfully-narrow times. It was one of the intense minor irritations of
my married life that Smithie's whirlwind chatter seemed to me to have
far more influence with Marion than anything I had to say. Before all
things I coveted her grip upon Marion's inaccessible mind.
In the workroom at Smithie's, I gathered, they always spoke of me
demurely as "A Certain Person." I was rumoured to be dreadfully
"clever," and there were doubts--not altogether without
justification--of the sweetness of my temper.


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