lips. Like most devotees Miss
Scrotton had something of the valet in her composition, and with the
valet's capacity for obsequiousness went a valet-like shrewdness of
perception. She hadn't spent four months travelling about America with
Madame von Marwitz without seeing her in undress. She had long since
become uncomfortably aware that when Madame von Marwitz found one a
little ridiculous she could be unkind, and that when one added
plaintiveness to folly she often amused herself by giving one, to speak
metaphorically, soft yet sharp little pinches that left one nervously
uncertain of whether a caress or an aggression had been intended.

Miss Scrotton was plaintive, and she could not conceal it. Glory as she
might in the _role_ of second fiddle, she was very tenaciously aware of
what was due to that subservient but by no means insignificant
performer; and the Aspreys had not shown themselves enough aware,
Mercedes had not shown herself aware at all, of what they all owed to
her sustaining, discreet and harmonious accompaniment. In the carefully
selected party assembled at Belle Vue for Madame von Marwitz's
delectation, she had been made a little to feel that she was but one of
the indistinguishable orchestra that plucked out from accommodating
strings a mellow bass to the one thrilling solo. Not for one moment did
she grudge any of the recognitions that were her great friend's due; but
she did expect to bask beside her; she did expect to find transmitted to
her an important satellite's share of beams; and, it wasn't to be
denied, Mercedes had been too much occupied with other people--and with
one other in particular--to shine upon her in any distinguishing degree.
Mercedes had the faculty, chafe against it as one might--and her very
fondness, her very familiarity were a part of the effect--of making one
show as an unimportant satellite, as something that would revolve when
wanted and be contentedly invisible when that was fitting. "I might
almost as well be a paid _dame de compagnie_," Miss Scrotton had more
than once murmured to herself with a lip that trembled; and, obscurely,
she realised that close association with the great might reveal one as
insignificant rather than as glorified. It was therefore with her air of
melancholy that she paused in her advance along the terrace to gaze out
at the prospect, and with an air of emphasized calm and dignity that she
finally came towards her friend; and, as she came, thus a