He watched her cross the courtyard, moving with all the grace and
lightness of the feline race, and her simple black dress clothed her, he
thought, exactly like the fur of the same supple species. She turned
once to laugh at him from the porch with the glass door, and then
stopped a moment to speak to her mother, who sat knitting as usual in
her corner seat just inside the hall-way.

But how was it, then, that the moment his eye fell upon this ungainly
woman, the pair of them appeared suddenly as other than they were?
Whence came that transforming dignity and sense of power that enveloped
them both as by magic? What was it about that massive woman that made
her appear instantly regal, and set her on a throne in some dark and
dreadful scenery, wielding a sceptre over the red glare of some
tempestuous orgy? And why did this slender stripling of a girl, graceful
as a willow, lithe as a young leopard, assume suddenly an air of
sinister majesty, and move with flame and smoke about her head, and the
darkness of night beneath her feet?

Vezin caught his breath and sat there transfixed. Then, almost
simultaneously with its appearance, the queer notion vanished again, and
the sunlight of day caught them both, and he heard her laughing to her
mother about the _soupe à l'onion_, and saw her glancing back at him
over her dear little shoulder with a smile that made him think of a
dew-kissed rose bending lightly before summer airs.

And, indeed, the onion soup was particularly excellent that day, because
he saw another cover laid at his small table, and, with fluttering
heart, heard the waiter murmur by way of explanation that "Ma'mselle
Ilsé would honour M'sieur to-day at _déjeuner_, as her custom sometimes
is with her mother's guests."