She did not; but with a step or two she placed herself before
a little cabriole-table, which stood against the wall, from which rose
a tall mirror in a tarnished frame.
I might, indeed, have mistaken it for a picture; for it now reflected a
half-length portrait of a singularly beautiful woman.
She was looking down upon a letter which she held in her slender
fingers, and in which she seemed absorbed.
The face was oval, melancholy, sweet. It had in it, nevertheless, a
faint and undefinably sensual quality also. Nothing could exceed the
delicacy of its features, or the brilliancy of its tints. The eyes,
indeed, were lowered, so that I could not see their color; nothing but
their long lashes and delicate eyebrows. She continued reading. She must
have been deeply interested; I never saw a living form so motionless--I
gazed on a tinted statue.
Being at that time blessed with long and keen vision, I saw this
beautiful face with perfect distinctness. I saw even the blue veins that
traced their wanderings on the whiteness of her full throat.
I ought to have retreated as noiselessly as I came in, before my
presence was detected. But I was too much interested to move from the
spot, for a few moments longer; and while they were passing, she raised
her eyes.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25