Conyers usually dressed more than well and more than a
generation behind hers. On occasions when she visited Rowan's
unconcealed mother, she allowed time to make regarding herself
almost an honest declaration. Ordinarily she Was a rose nearly
ready to drop, which is bound with a thread of its own color to
look as much as possible like a bud that is nearly ready to open.
Her conversations were even more assiduously tinged and fashioned
by the needs of accommodation. Sometimes she sat in Mrs.
Meredith's parlors as a soul sick of the world's vanities, an urban
spirit that hungered for country righteousness. During a walk one
day through the gardens she paused under the boughs of a weeping
willow and recited, "Cromwell, I charge thee fling away ambition--"
She uniformly imparted to Mrs. Meredith the assurance that with her
alone she could lay aside all disguises.
This morning she alighted from her carriage at the end of the
pavement behind some tall evergreens. As she walked toward the
house, though absorbed with a serious purpose, she continued to be
as observant of everything as usual. Had an eye been observant of
her, it would have been noticed that Mrs. Conyers in all her
self-concealment did not conceal one thing--her walk. This one
element of her conduct had its curious psychology. She had never
been able to forget that certain scandals set going many years
before, had altered the course of Mrs. Meredith's life and of the
lives of some others.
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