from the remainder of my sex: she was not maidenly. She caught
imagination by the sleeve, and shut it between square whitewashed walls.
Heriot thought her not only handsome, but comparable to Mrs. William
Bulsted, our Julia Rippenger of old. At his meeting with Julia, her
delicious loss of colour made her seem to me one of the loveliest women
on earth. Janet never lost colour, rarely blushed; she touched neither
nerve nor fancy.

'You want a rousing coquette,' said Heriot; 'you won't be happy till
you 've been racked by that nice instrument of torture, and the fair
Bulsted will do it for you if you like. You don't want a snake or a
common serpent, you want a Python.'

I wanted bloom and mystery, a woman shifting like the light with evening
and night and dawn, and sudden fire. Janet was bald to the heart
inhabiting me then, as if quite shaven. She could speak her affectionate
mind as plain as print, and it was dull print facing me, not the arches
of the sunset. Julia had only to lisp, 'my husband,' to startle and
agitate me beyond expression. She said simple things--'I slept well last
night,' or ' I dreamed,' or ' I shivered,' and plunged me headlong down
impenetrable forests. The mould of her mouth to a reluctant 'No,' and
her almost invariable drawing in of her breath with a 'Yes,' surcharged
the everyday monosyllables with meanings of life and death. At last I
was reduced to tell her, seeing that she reproached my coldness for
Janet, how much I wished Janet resembled her. Her Irish eyes lightened:
'Me! Harry'; then they shadowed: 'She is worth ten of me.' Such pathetic
humility tempted me to exalt her supremely.

I talked like a boy, feeling like a man: she behaved like a woman,
blushing like a girl.