The characteristic amiability, the sensitive reserve, the sweet composure which the world had always counted on in her, had become exceptions and no longer the rules which governed the caprice and impulse always latent.

An indifference so pointed as to verge on insolence amazed her intimates at times; a sudden, flushed impatience startled the habitues of her shrine.

There was a new, unseeing hardness in her eyes; in her attitude the faintest hint of cynicism.

She acquired a habit of doing selfish things coldly, indifferent to the canons of the art; and true selfishness, the most delicate of all the arts, requires an expert.
That which had most charmed--her unfeigned pleasure in pleasure, her unfailing consideration for all, her gentleness with ignorance, her generous unconsciousness of self--all these still remained, it is true, though no longer characteristic, no longer to be counted on.
For the first time a slight sense of fear tinctured the general admiration.
In public her indifference and growing impatience with Quarrier had not reached the verge of bad taste, but in private she was scarcely at pains to conceal her weariness and inattention, showing him less and less of the formal consideration which had been their only medium of coexistence.

That he noticed it was evident even to her who carelessly ignored the consequences of her own attitude.
Once, speaking of the alterations in progress at The Sedges, his place near Oyster Bay, he casually asked her opinion, and she as casually observed that if he had an opinion about anything he wouldn't know what to do with it.
Once, too, she had remarked in Quarrier's hearing to Ferrall, who was complaining about the loss of his hair, that a hairless head was a visitation from Heaven, but a beard was a man's own fault.
Once they came very close to a definite rupture, close enough to scare her after all the heat had gone out of her and the matter was ended.
Quarrier had lingered late after cards, and something was said about the impending kennel show and about Marion Page judging the English setters.
"Agatha tells me that you are going with Marion," continued Quarrier.
"As long as Marion has chosen to make herself conspicuous there is nothing to be said.