alone in the veil, reeling in voices, reaching no one
She sits alone in her linen veil and pretty skirt, obliquely looked at, listening to bits of conversation she reels in out of the overall voices' noise but seeing no one really else
Context
Sealed behind the veil, obliquely looked at, she pulls in fragments of other people's talk out of the party's noise and connects to none of it, a perceptual engine receiving everything and joined to nothing. The room is full and she is alone in it, taking in voices the way she takes in the wet street on the walk over, as a spectator to a world that looks at her the way you look at the blind, not knowing she sees it all.