long I remained thus transported I do not know. The first thing I
remember is hearing someone close beside me take a quick, deep
breath, one of those full inhalations natural to all sensitive
natures when they come suddenly upon something sublime. I turned
and looked. I have said I was transported by that canvas of sea
and rocks, and have, therefore, no word left to describe the emotion
with which I gazed upon the exquisite, living, palpitating picture
beside me. A composite photograph of all the Madonnas ever painted,
from the Sistine to Bodenhausen's, could not have been more lovely,
more ineffably womanly than that young girl, radiant with the divine
glow of artistic delight--at least, that is my opinion, which, by
the bye, I should, perhaps, have stated a little more gingerly,
inasmuch as you are yourself acquainted with the young lady. Now,
don't look incredulous [noticing my surprise]. Black hair--not
brown, black; clear pink and white complexion; large, deep violet
eyes with a remarkable poise to them."--Here I continued the
description for him: "Slight of figure; a full, honest waist,
without a suggestion of that execrable death-trap, Dame Fashion's
hideous cuirass; a little above middle height; deliberate, and
therefore graceful, in all her movements; carries herself in a way
to impress one with the idea that she is innocent, without that
time-honoured concomitant, ignorance; half girl, half woman; shy,
yet strong; and in a word, very beautiful--that's Gwen Darrow."
I paused here, and Maitland went on somewhat dubiously: "Yes, it's
not hard to locate such a woman. She makes her presence as clearly
felt among a million of her sex as does a grain of fuchsine in a
hogshead of water. If, with a few ounces of this, Tyndall could
colour Lake Geneva, so with Gwen Darrow one might, such is the power
of the ideal, change the ethical status of a continent."