The Man in Possession — page 201: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

196 THE MAN IN POSSESSION. CHAPTER XX. ‘S PACKING UP.” Every one agreed that it was too bad. Not only had Kate O’Brien secured the matrimonial prize but the friendship and championship of the rich and fasci- nating visitor. For Mrs. Lafaye made no secret of her admiration and liking, and took a genuine, if somewhat malicious, delight in sounding Kate’s praises in the ears of the feminine coterie at Croft. ‘What could she see in her?” the dowagers asked each other, and looked with the impartial criticism of mothers on the various charms of their own brood. The ‘‘ brood” agreed that it was incomprehensible. The girl wasn’t even pretty. She hadn't bad hair, but then her eyes were so bold, and as for the lashes, any one could see they were “touched up.” And her figure—why, she was a perfect Maypole. And did any one ever see such dresses? They must have come from Tottenham Court Road, or the Bon Marché at Kilburn. She had no style whatever. Mrs. Lafaye listened and enjoyed it all, and led them on to say even worse things with a quiet suggestion of pleasure that was infinitely subtile, and would have deceived more guileless people than these. She learnt also that the other ‘‘catch,” Tom Rivers, had been deluded into a flirtation, and by dint of various questions and ECOMICHOOKS C(O)