The sound--the arm thrown round her--were not very welcome to Lady Lucy.
Her nature, imperious and jealously independent, under all her sweetness
of manner, set itself against pity, especially from her juniors. She
composed herself at once.
"He does not give a good account," she said, withdrawing herself gently
but decidedly. "It may take a long time before Oliver is quite
himself again."
Alicia persisted in a few questions, extracting all the information she
could. Then Lady Lucy sat down at her writing-table and began to arrange
some letters. Alicia's presence annoyed her. The truth was that she was
not as fond of Alicia as she had once been. These misfortunes, huddling
one on another, instead of drawing them together, had in various and
subtle ways produced a secret estrangement. To neither the older nor the
younger woman could the familiar metaphor have been applied which
compares the effects of sorrow or sympathy on fine character to the
bruising of fragrant herbs. Ferrier's death, sorely and bitterly
lamented though it was, had not made Lady Lucy more lovable. Oliver's
misfortune had not--toward Lady Lucy, at any rate--liberated in Alicia
those hidden tendernesses that may sometimes transmute and glorify
natures apparently careless or stubborn, brought eye to eye with pain.
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