A.
who painted my aunt, and he was standing a little apart in a recess,
talking or rather being talked to in undertones by a plump, blond
little woman in pale blue, a Helen Scrymgeour who wrote novels and was
organising a weekly magazine. I elbowed a large lady who was saying
something about them, but I didn't need to hear the thing she said to
perceive the relationship of the two. It hit me like a placard on a
hoarding. I was amazed the whole gathering did not see it. Perhaps they
did. She was wearing a remarkably fine diamond necklace, much too fine
for journalism, and regarding him with that quality of questionable
proprietorship, of leashed but straining intimacy, that seems
inseparable from this sort of affair. It is so much more palpable than
matrimony. If anything was wanted to complete my conviction it was
my uncles's eyes when presently he became aware of mine, a certain
embarrassment and a certain pride and defiance. And the next day he made
an opportunity to praise the lady's intelligence to me concisely, lest I
should miss the point of it all.
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