For in spite of the rarefied atmosphere of culture at
Riseholme, Riseholme knew how to "_desipere in loco_," and its
strenuous culture was often refreshed by these light refined touches.
Mrs Lucas walked quickly and decisively up and down the paths as she
waited for the summons to lunch, for the activity of her mind reacted
on her body, making her brisk in movement. On each side of her forehead
were hard neat undulations of black hair that concealed the tips of her
ears. She had laid aside her London hat, and carried a red cotton
Contadina's umbrella, which threw a rosy glow onto the oval of her thin
face and its colourless complexion. She bore the weight of her forty
years extremely lightly, and but for the droop of skin at the corners
of her mouth, she might have passed as a much younger woman. Her face
was otherwise unlined and bore no trace of the ravages of emotional
living, which both ages and softens. Certainly there was nothing soft
about her, and very little of the signs of age, and it would have been
reasonable to conjecture that twenty years later she would look but
little older than she did today. For such emotions as she was victim of
were the sterile and ageless emotions of art; such desires as beset her
were not connected with her affections, but her ambitions. Dynasty she
had none, for she was childless, and thus her ambitions were limited to
the permanence and security of her own throne as queen of Riseholme.
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