Sibylla, never long in coming to conclusions, had made up her mind about the women before the evening was half over. Lady Harriet was strange and terrible when the known facts of the case were compared with her indolent composure. Mrs. Selford was trivial and tiresome, but a good enough little silly soul. Suzette Bligh was entirely negligible; she had not spoken save to flirt very mildly with Blake. Mrs. Raymore elicited a liking, but a rather timid and distant one; she seemed very clear-sighted and judicial. Christine Fanshaw attracted her most, first by her dainty prettiness, also by the perfection of her clothes (a thing Sibylla much admired), most by her friendly air and the piquant suffusion of sarcastic humour that she had. She seemed to treat even her own grievances in this semi-serious way--one of them certainly, if her husband were one. Such a manner and such a way of regarding things are often most attractive to the people who would find it hardest to acquire the like for themselves; they seem to make the difficulties which have loomed so large look smaller--they extenuate, smooth away, and, by the artifice of not asking too much, cause what is given to appear a more liberal instalment of the possible. They are not, however, generally associated with any high or rigid moral ideas, and were not so associated in the person of pretty Christine Fanshaw. But they are entirely compatible with much worldly wisdom, and breed a tolerance of unimpeachable breadth, if not of exalted origin. "We'll be friends, won't we?" Christine said to Sibylla, settling herself cosily by her. "I'm rather tired of all these women, except Kate Raymore, and she doesn't much approve of me. But I'm going to like you." "Will you? I'm so glad." "And I can be very useful to you. I can even improve your frocks--though this one's very nice; and I can tell you all about husbands. I know a great deal--and I'm representative." She laughed gaily. "John and I are quite representative. I like John really, you know; he's a good man--but he's selfish. And John likes me, but I'm selfish. And I like teasing John, and he takes a positive pleasure sometimes in annoying me." "And that's representative?" smiled Sibylla. "Oh, not by itself, but as an element, sandwiched in with the rest--with our really liking one another and getting on all right, you know. And when we quarrel, it's about something, not about nothing, like the Selfords--though I don't know that that is quite so representative, after all." She paused a moment, and resumed less gaily, with a little wrinkle on her brow: "At least, I think John really likes me. Sometimes I'm not sure, though I know I like him; and when I'm least sure I tease him most." "Is that a good remedy?"