The Master-Christian by Marie Corelli
page 120 of 812 (14%)
page 120 of 812 (14%)
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noble deeds, her courage, her ambition, her devotion to duty and her
unflinching sense of honour. Full of rare perceptions and instinctive knowledge of persons and motives, she could only be deceived and blinded where her deepest affections were concerned, and there she could certainly be fooled and duped as completely as the wisest of us all. Looking at her now as she stood awaiting her uncle's arrival in the drawing-room of her "suite," the windows of which faced the Bois, she expressed to the air and surroundings the personality of a thoughtful, charming young woman,--no more. Her black silk gown, cut simply in the prevailing mode of definitely outlining the figure from throat to hips, and then springing out in pliant folds of trailing drapery, had nothing remarkable about it save its Parisian perfection of fit,--the pale "Gloire de France" rose that rested lightly amongst the old lace at her neck, pinned, yet looking as though it had dropped there merely out of a languid desire to escape from further growing, was her only ornament. Her hair, full of curious lights and shades running from brown to gold and gold to brown again, in a rippling uncertain fashion, clustered thickly over her brow and was caught back at the sides in a loose twist after the style of the Greek vestals,--and her fine, small white hands and taper fingers, so skilled in the use of the artist's brush, looked too tiny and delicate to be of any service save to receive the kisses of a lover's lips,--or to be raised, folded pure and calm, in a child-like appeal to Heaven. Certainly in her fragile appearance she expressed nothing save indefinable charm--no one, studying her physiognomy, would have accredited her with genius, power, and the large conceptions of a Murillo or a Raphael;--yet within the small head lay a marvellous brain--and the delicate body was possessed by a spirit of amazing potency to conjure with. While she watched for the first glimpse of the carriage which was to bring |
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