Cosgrave caught him by the arm.
"Oh, my word--it's her right enough!"
She stood there, motionless, her fair head with its monstrous crest of
many-coloured ostrich feathers flaming against the dead background. Her
dress was impudent. It winked at its own transparent pretence at
covering a body which was, in fact, too slender, too nervously alive to
be quite beautiful (Stonehouse remembered her legs--the long, thin legs
in the parti-coloured tights, like sticks of peppermint, belabouring the
rotund sides of her imperturbable pony). But her jewels clothed her.
Their authentic fire seemed to blaze out of herself--to be fed by her.
And each one of them, no doubt, had its romance--its scandal. That rope
of pearls in itself was a king's ransom. People nudged each other. It
was part of the show that she should flaunt them.
She had been a plain child, and now, if she was really pretty at all, it
was after the fashion of most French women, without right or reason, by
force of some secret magnetism that was not even physical. Her wide
mouth was open in a rather vacant, childish smile, and she was looking up
towards the gallery as though she were expecting something. "Hallo,
everyone!" she said tentatively, gaily. They stared back at her, stolid
and antagonistic, defying her. She began to laugh then, as she laughed
every night at the same moment, spontaneously, shrilly, helplessly, until
suddenly she had them. It was like a whirlwind.
Pages:
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247