: he had dismissed
her as plain, if not actually ugly, and that judgment he was forced to
recall. The truth was that she possessed a rare fascination; but
where, exactly, did it lie? She was, he thought, even younger than
Narcisa, yet, at the same time, she had the balanced calm of absolute
maturity. Then he realized that a large part of her enigmatic charm
came from the fact that she was, to a marked degree, Chinese. Her
face, evenly, opaquely, pale, was flat, an oval which held eyes with
full, ivory-like lids, narrow eye brows, a straight small nose and
lips heavily coated with a carmine that failed utterly to disguise
their level strength. Her lustreless hair, which might have been soot
metamorphosed into straight broad strands, was drawn back severely,
without ornament or visible pins, over her shapely skull. She wore no
jewelry, no gold bands nor rings nor pendants; and her dress, cut
squarely open at her slim round throat, was the fragile essence of
virginity. She attracted Charles, although he could think of nothing
in the world to say to her; he was powerless to imagine what
interested her; a girl, she had no flavor of the conceits of her
years; feminine, she was without the slightest indication of
appropriate sentiments, little facile interests or enthusiasms. From
time to time she looked at him, he caught a glimpse of eyes, blue,
grey or green, oblique and disturbing; she said nothing and ate in
infinitesimal amounts the frozen concoction of sapote before her.

Charles Abbott hadn't grasped her name, and in reply to his further
query, she told him in a low voice that it was Pilar, Pilar de Lima.
Yes, she had been born in Peru. No, she had never been to China,
although she had traveled as far as Portugal and London. His
interest in her increased, she was so wholly outside his--any
conceivable--life; and, without words, in a manner which defied
his analysis, she managed to convey to him the assurance that he was
not impossible to her.

He found, at intervals, fresh qualities to engage him: she had
unmistakably the ease which came from the command of money; the
pointed grace of her hands--for an instant her palm had sought
his--hid an unexpected firmness; she was contemptuous of the other
vivacious women at the table; and not a change of expression crossed
the placidity of a countenance no more than a mask for what,
mysterious and not placid, was back of it. Then, in an undertone
during a burst of conversation