Indeed, the dim reflection in the glass might well have reassured her. Dark
eyes and hair, a brunette complexion, grace, health, physical strength--she
certainly owed none of these qualities or possessions to her ancestor.
The face reminded one of ripe fruit--so rich was the downy bloom on the
delicate cheeks, so vivid the hazel of the wide black-fringed eyes. A touch
of something heavy and undecided in the lower part of the face made it
perhaps less than beautiful. But any man who fell in love with her would
see in this defect only the hesitancy of first youth, with its brooding
prophecy of passion, of things dormant and powerful. Face and form were
rich--quite unconsciously--in that magic of sex which belongs to only
a minority of women, but that, a minority drawn from all ranks and
occupations. Marcia Coryston believed herself to be interested in many
things--in books, in the Suffrage, in the girls' debating society of which
she was the secretary, in politics, and in modern poetry. In reality her
whole being hung like some chained Andromeda at the edge of the sea of
life, expecting Perseus. Her heart listened for him perpetually--the
unknown!--yearning for his call, his command....

There were many people--witness Sir Wilfrid Bury's remark to her
mother--who had already felt this magic in her. Without any conscious
effort of her own she had found herself possessed, in the course of three
seasons since her coming out, of a remarkable place in her own circle and
set. She was surrounded by a court of young people, men and women; she
received without effort all the most coveted invitations; she was watched,
copied, talked about; and rumor declared that she had already refused--or
made her mother refuse for her--one or more of the men whom all other
mothers desired to capture. This quasi-celebrity had been achieved no one
quite knew how, least of all Marcia herself. It had not, apparently, turned
her head, though those who knew her best were aware of a vein of natural