a very simple one of blue figured silk--a Chinese pattern--very full
in the skirts and broadening out over the shoulders. And her hair
was copper-coloured, and the heels of her shoes were exceedingly
high, so that she tripped upon the points of her toes. And when she
came to the door of the bathing place, and when it opened to
receive her, she would look back at me with a little coquettish
smile, so that her cheek appeared to be caressing her shoulder.

I seem to remember that, with that dress, she wore an immensely
broad Leghorn hat--like the Chapeau de Paille of Rubens, only
very white. The hat would be tied with a lightly knotted scarf of
the same stuff as her dress. She knew how to give value to her
blue eyes. And round her neck would be some simple pink, coral
beads. And her complexion had a perfect clearness, a perfect
smoothness . . .

Yes, that is how I most exactly remember her, in that dress, in that
hat, looking over her shoulder at me so that the eyes flashed very
blue--dark pebble blue . . .

And, what the devil! For whose benefit did she do it? For that of
the bath attendant? of the passers-by? I don't know. Anyhow, it
can't have been for me, for never, in all the years of her life, never
on any possible occasion, or in any other place did she so smile to
me, mockingly, invitingly. Ah, she was a riddle; but then, all other
women are riddles. And it occurs to me that some way back I
began a sentence that I have never finished . . . It was about the
feeling that I had when I stood on the steps of my hotel every
morning before starting out to fetch Florence back from the bath.
Natty, precise, well-brushed, conscious of being rather small