But I DO like him--I wish I'd been sitting next to him; he looks real.' From that thought, of the reality of a man whose name she did not know, she passed suddenly into the feeling that nothing else of this about her was real at all, neither the talk nor the faces, not even the things she was eating.

It was all a queer, buzzing dream.

Nor did that sensation of unreality cease when her aunt began collecting her gloves, and they trooped forth to the drawing-room.

There, seated between Mrs.Sleesor and Lady Britto, with Lady Malloring opposite, and Miss Bawtrey leaning over the piano toward them, she pinched herself to get rid of the feeling that, when all these were out of sight of each other, they would become silent and have on their lips a little, bitter smile.

Would it be like that up in their bedrooms, or would it only be on her (Nedda's) own lips that this little smile would come?
It was a question she could not answer; nor could she very well ask it of any of these ladies.