CHAPTER XIV

YSOLA CAMBER



I find it difficult, now, to recapture my first impression of that
meeting. About the woman, hesitating before me, there was something
unexpected, something wholly unfamiliar. She belonged to a type with
which I was not acquainted. Nor was it wonderful that she should strike
me in this fashion, since my wanderings, although fairly extensive, had
never included the West Indies, nor had I been to Spain; and this girl
--I could have sworn that she was under twenty--was one of those rare
beauties, a golden Spaniard.

That she was not purely Spanish I learned later.

She was small, and girlishly slight, with slender ankles and exquisite
little feet; indeed I think she had the tiniest feet of any woman I had
ever met. She wore a sort of white pinafore over her dress, and her
arms, which were bare because of the short sleeves of her frock, were
of a child-like roundness, whilst her creamy skin was touched with a
faint tinge of bronze, as though, I remember thinking, it had absorbed
and retained something of the Southern sunshine. She had the swaying
carriage which usually belongs to a tall woman, and her head and neck
were Grecian in poise.

Her hair, which was of a curious dull gold colour, presented a mass of
thick, tight curls, and her beauty was of that unusual character which
makes a Cleopatra a subject of deathless debate. What I mean to say is