More than for her sake, perhaps. Imogen detected in those seemingly
indolent, yet so observant, eyes a keen reading of the Pottses' perturbed
condition, and in her manner, so easy and so apt, the sweetest, lightest
kindness. She turned corners and drew veils for them, spread a warm haze
of interest and serenity about their clumsy and obtruding personalities.
Imogen could even see that the Pottses were reconsidering, with some
confusion of mind, their old verdict on her mother.
This realization brought to her brooding thoughts a sudden pang of
self-reproach. It wouldn't do for the Pottses to find in her mother the
cordiality they might miss in herself. She confessed that, for a moment,
she had allowed the banner to trail in the dust of worldly thoughts, the
banner to which the Pottses, poor dears, had rallied for so many loyal
years. She summoned once more all her funds of spiritual appreciation and
patience. As for Miss Bocock, she made not the slightest attempt to talk
to the Pottses. She had come up with them from the station,--they had not
found each other on the train,--and she had probably had her fill of them
in that time. Once or twice, in the act of helping herself plentifully to
cake, she paused to listen to them, and after that looked away, over their
heads or through them, as if she finally dismissed them from the field of
her attention. Mrs. Potts was questioning Sir Basil about his possible
knowledge of her own English ancestry.
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