She felt that, if
he were to put even one of them where it ought not to be, the general
effect of her drawing-room would be destroyed, and that her portrait,
which rested upon a sloping easel draped with plush, would not catch the
light. And so, with feverish impatience, she followed the man's clumsy
movements, scolding him severely when he passed too close to a pair of
beaupots, which she made a point of always tidying herself, in case the
plants should be knocked over--and went across to them now to make sure
that he had not broken off any of the flowers. She found something
'quaint' in the shape of each of her Chinese ornaments, and also in her
orchids, the cattleyas especially (these being, with chrysanthemums, her
favourite flowers), because they had the supreme merit of not looking in
the least like other flowers, but of being made, apparently, out of scraps
of silk or satin. "It looks just as though it had been cut out of the
lining of my cloak," she said to Swann, pointing to an orchid, with a
shade of respect in her voice for so 'smart' a flower, for this
distinguished, unexpected sister whom nature had suddenly bestowed upon
her, so far removed from her in the scale of existence, and yet so
delicate, so refined, so much more worthy than many real women of
admission to her drawing-room.
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