She observed the dumb-show by which her
neighbour was expressing her passion for music, but she refrained from
copying it. This was not to say that, for once that she had consented to
spend a few minutes in Mme. de Saint-Euverte's house, the Princesse des
Laumes would not have wished (so that the act of politeness to her hostess
which she had performed by coming might, so to speak, 'count double') to
shew herself as friendly and obliging as possible. But she had a natural
horror of what she called 'exaggerating,' and always made a point of
letting people see that she 'simply must not' indulge in any display of
emotion that was not in keeping with the tone of the circle in which she
moved, although such displays never failed to make an impression upon her,
by virtue of that spirit of imitation, akin to timidity, which is
developed in the most self-confident persons, by contact with an
unfamiliar environment, even though it be inferior to their own. She began
to ask herself whether these gesticulations might not, perhaps, be a
necessary concomitant of the piece of music that was being played, a piece
which, it might be, was in a different category from all the music that
she had ever heard before; and whether to abstain from them was not a sign
of her own inability to understand the music, and of discourtesy towards
the lady of the house; with the result that, in order to express by a
compromise both of her contradictory inclinations in turn, at one moment
she would merely straighten her shoulder-straps or feel in her golden hair
for the little balls of coral or of pink enamel, frosted with tiny
diamonds, which formed its simple but effective ornament, studying, with a
cold interest, her impassioned neighbour, while at another she would beat
time for a few bars with her fan, but, so as not to forfeit her
independence, she would beat a different time from the pianist's.
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