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The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett
page 26 of 878 (02%)
she, who never felt these mad, amazing impulses, could
nevertheless only smile fearfully.

"Sophia!" she breathed, with an intensity of alarm that merged
into condoning admiration. "Whatever will you do next?"

Sophia's lovely flushed face crowned the extraordinary structure
like a blossom, scarcely controlling its laughter. She was as tall
as her mother, and as imperious, as crested, and proud; and in
spite of the pigtail, the girlish semi-circular comb, and the
loose foal-like limbs, she could support as well as her mother the
majesty of the gimp-embroidered dress. Her eyes sparkled with all
the challenges of the untried virgin as she minced about the
showroom. Abounding life inspired her movements. The confident and
fierce joy of youth shone on her brow. "What thing on earth equals
me?" she seemed to demand with enchanting and yet ruthless
arrogance. She was the daughter of a respected, bedridden draper
in an insignificant town, lost in the central labyrinth of
England, if you like; yet what manner of man, confronted with her,
would or could have denied her naive claim to dominion? She stood,
in her mother's hoops, for the desire of the world. And in the
innocence of her soul she knew it! The heart of a young girl
mysteriously speaks and tells her of her power long ere she can
use her power. If she can find nothing else to subdue, you may
catch her in the early years subduing a gate-post or drawing
homage from an empty chair. Sophia's experimental victim was
Constance, with suspended needle and soft glance that shot out
from the lowered face.

Then Sophia fell, in stepping backwards; the pyramid was
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