. . . She is charming."
Charming was the word descriptive of my sister, for it is a thing
of manner from a nature elevated and noble, but it was not the
word for Madame Barras. The woman was a lure. I mean the term
in its large and catholic sense. I mean the bait of a great
cosmic impulse - the most subtle and the most persistent of which
one has any sense.
The cunning intelligences of that impulse had decked her out with
every attractiveness as though they had taken thought to confound
all masculine resistance; to sweep into their service those
refractory units that withheld themselves from the common
purpose. She was lovely, as the aged Major Carrington had
uttered it - great violet eyes in a delicate skin sown with gold
flecks, a skin so delicate that one felt that a kiss would tear
it!
I do not know from what source I have that expression but it
attaches itself, out of my memory of descriptive phrases, to
Madame Barras. And it extends itself as wholly descriptive of
her. You will say that the long and short of this is that I was
in love with Madame Barras, but I point you a witness in Major
Carrington.
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