"Everybody seems to mean so much to Hermione that it makes things
difficult to outsiders," replied Miss Townly, plaintively. "She is so
wide-minded and has so many interests that she dwarfs everybody else. I
always feel quite squeezed when I compare my poor little life with hers.
But then she has such physical endurance. She breaks the ice, you know,
in her bath in the winter--of course I mean when there is ice."

"It isn't only in her bath that she breaks the ice," said Mrs. Creswick.

"I perfectly understand," Miss Townly said, vaguely. "You mean--yes,
you're right. Well, I prefer my bath warmed for me, but my circulation
was never of the best."

"Hermione is extraordinary," said Mrs. Creswick, trying to look at her
profile in the glass and making her face as Roman as she could, "I know
all London, but I never met another Hermione. She can do things that
other women can't dream of even, and nobody minds."

"Well, now she is going to do a thing we all dream of and a great many of
us do. Will it answer? He's ten years younger than she is. Can it
answer?"

"One can never tell whether a union of two human mysteries will answer,"
said Mrs. Creswick, judicially. "Maurice Delarey is wonderfully
good-looking."

"Yes, and Hermione isn't."