pare for all contingencies. George Wimbush, she thought, would make
an excellent second string for one of the twins.

"At this first dinner, George's partner was Emmeline. They talked of
Nature. Emmeline protested that to her high mountains were a feeling and
the hum of human cities torture. George agreed that the country was very
agreeable, but held that London during the season also had its charms.
He noticed with surprise and a certain solicitous distress that Miss
Emmeline's appetite was poor, that it didn't, in fact, exist. Two
spoonfuls of soup, a morsel of fish, no bird, no meat, and three
grapes--that was her whole dinner. He looked from time to time at her
two sisters; Georgiana and Caroline seemed to be quite as abstemious.
They waved away whatever was offered them with an expression of delicate
disgust, shutting their eyes and averting their faces from the proffered
dish, as though the lemon sole, the duck, the loin of veal, the trifle,
were objects revolting to the sight and smell. George, who thought the
dinner capital, ventured to comment on the sisters' lack of appetite.

"'Pray, don't talk to me of eating,' said Emmeline, drooping like a
sensitive plant. 'We find it so coarse, so unspiritual, my sisters and
I. One can't think of one's soul while one is eating.'

"George agreed; one couldn't. 'But one must live,' he said.

"'Alas!' Emmeline sighed. 'One must. Death is very beautiful, don't you
think?' She broke a corner off a piece of toast and began to nibble
at it languidly. 'But since, as you say, one must live...' She made a
little gesture of resignation. 'Luckily a very little suffices to keep
one alive.' She put down her corner of toast half eaten.

"George regarded her with some surprise. She was pale, but she looked
extraordinarily healthy, he thought; so did her sisters. Perhaps if
you were really spiritual you needed less food. He, clearly, was not
spiritual.

"After this he saw them frequently. They all liked him, from Lady Lapith
downwards. True, he was not very romantic or poetical; but he was such a
pleasant, unpretentious, kind-hearted young man, that one couldn't
help liking him. For his part, he thought them wonderful, wonderful,
especially Georgiana. He enveloped them all in a warm, protective
affection. For they needed protection; they were altogether too frail,
too spiritual for this world. They never ate, they were always pale,
they often complained of fever, they talked much and