Raffaele's portraits. Her maid had dressed her hair with white
heather, adroitly placed among its blond cascades, which were one of
the great beauties to which she owed her celebrity.

Certainly Diane did not look to be more than twenty-five years old.
Four years of solitude and repose had restored the freshness of her
complexion. Besides, there are moments when the desire to please gives
an increase of beauty to women. The will is not without influence on
the variations of the face. If violent emotions have the power to
yellow the white tones of persons of bilious and melancholy
temperament, and to green lymphatic faces, shall we not grant to
desire, hope, and joy, the faculty of clearing the skin, giving
brilliancy to the eye, and brightening the glow of beauty with a light
as jocund as that of a lovely morning? The celebrated faintness of the
princess had taken on a ripeness which now made her seem more august.
At this moment of her life, impressed by her many vicissitudes and by
serious reflections, her noble, dreamy brow harmonized delightfully
with the slow, majestic glance of her blue eyes. It was impossible for
the ablest physiognomist to imagine calculation or self-will beneath
that unspeakable delicacy of feature. There were faces of women which
deceive knowledge, and mislead observation by their calmness and
delicacy; it is necessary to examine such faces when passions speak,
and that is difficult, or after they have spoken, which is no longer
of any use, for then the woman is old and has ceased to dissimulate.

The princess is one of those impenetrable women; she can make herself
what she pleases to be: playful, childlike, distractingly innocent; or
reflective, serious, and profound enough to excite anxiety. She came
to Madame d'Espard's dinner with the intention of being a gentle,
simple woman, to whom life was known only through its deceptions: a