Although it was not visible
to him, the posture of their shoulders told him that they
were listening to the music each holding the other's hand.
This tacit embrace was typical in his mind of the way
they hung together, these two young women. It had been
forced upon his perceptions all the evening, that this
fair-haired, beautiful, rather stately Lady Cressage,
and the small, swarthy, round-shouldered daughter
of the house, peering through her pince-nez from under
unduly thick black brows, formed a party of their own.
Their politeness toward him had been as identical in all
its little shades of distance and reservation as if they
had been governed from a single brain-centre. It would
be unfair to them to assume from their manner that they
disliked him, or were even unfavourably impressed by him.
The finesse of that manner was far too delicate a thing
to call into use such rough characterizations. It was
rather their action as a unit which piqued his interest.
He thought he could see that they united upon a common
demeanour toward the American girl, although of course they
knew her much better than they knew him. It was not even
clear to him that there were not traces of this combination
in their tone toward Plowden and the Honourable Balder.
The bond between them had twisted in it strands of social
exclusiveness, and strands of sex sympathy.
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