The lesson it taught, she repeated cynically, was simply that it was futile to stray too far from one's type.

Vetch had talked to her as he might have talked to her father or to the husky warrior on her right; but he had never once looked at her.
His attention would be arrested by large, sudden, bright things like the rosy curve of Mrs.Stribling's shoulders or the shining ropes of her hair.
"How absurd it was to imagine that I could compare with that!" thought Corinna with amusement.

Her sense of defeat was humorous rather than resentful; yet she realized that it contained a disagreeable sting.

Was her long day over at last?
Had the sun set on her conquests?
Had her adventurous return to power been merely a prelude to the ultimate Waterloo?
Lifting her eyes suddenly from her plate she met the deep meditative gaze of John Benham across the marigolds on the table; and the faint flush that kindled her face made her eyes glow like embers.
Had he read the thought in her mind?
Was the tenderness in his glance only an ironical comment on the ignominious end of her Hundred Days?
She glanced away quickly, and as she did so she looked straight into the eyes of Alice Rokeby--those eyes that asked perpetually of life, "Why have you passed me by ?".