The manner in which Mrs. Newsome's throat WAS encircled
suddenly represented for him, in an alien order, almost as many
things as the manner in which Miss Gostrey's was. Mrs. Newsome
wore, at operatic hours, a black silk dress--very handsome, he knew
it was "handsome"--and an ornament that his memory was able further
to identify as a ruche. He had his association indeed with the
ruche, but it was rather imperfectly romantic. He had once said to
the wearer--and it was as "free" a remark as he had ever made to
her--that she looked, with her ruff and other matters, like Queen
Elizabeth; and it had after this in truth been his fancy that, as a
consequence of that tenderness and an acceptance of the idea, the
form of this special tribute to the "frill" had grown slightly more
marked. The connexion, as he sat there and let his imagination
roam, was to strike him as vaguely pathetic; but there it all was,
and pathetic was doubtless in the conditions the best thing it
could possibly be. It had assuredly existed at any rate; for it
seemed now to come over him that no gentleman of his age at
Woollett could ever, to a lady of Mrs. Newsome's, which was not
much less than his, have embarked on such a simile.
All sorts of things in fact now seemed to come over him,
comparatively few of which his chronicler can hope for space to
mention.
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