once so appropriate and so common. She did not allow herself to
translate it from commonness and admit that it is a phrase that common
people use when they want to say a woman's face is the point of
departure for a fair journey of the imagination. It was true that a
certain rough imperfection was as definitely a part of her quality as
perfection was of his, and that there ran from her nose to her mouth
certain heavy lines that could never at any age befall his flesh with
its bias towards beauty. But everything that so wonderfully made its
appearance a reference to romance was here also: that dark skin in which
it seemed as if the customary pigment had been blended with mystery;
that extravagance of certain features, the largeness of the eye, the
luxury of lashes; that manner at once languid and alert, which might
have been acquired by residence in some country where molten excess of
fine weather was corrected by gales of adventure. But though so close in
blood and in seeming to the most beloved, this woman could not be loved.
She could not possibly be liked. But this was an irrational emotion, and
Ellen hated such, and she watched her for signs of some quality that
would justify it.

It was there. Strong intimations of a passion for the trivial were
brought forth by movement. As she bent over the menu, and gave orders
that trembled on the edge of audibility to a waiter whom she appeared
not to see, she repeatedly raised her right hand and with a swift,
automatic sweep of the forefinger, on which her pink nail flashed like a
polished shell, she smoothed her thick eyebrows. It was evidently a
habitual gesture and used for something more than its apparent purpose,
for when she had finished and leaned back in her chair she repeated it,
although the brows were still sleek. She did it, Ellen told herself with
a tightening of her lips, as a person who would like to spend the
afternoon playing the piano but is obliged to receive a visitor instead
and strums on her knee. It was the only expression the occasion allowed
for that passionate care for her own person which accounted for the
inordinate beauty of her clothes. They were, she said to herself, using
a phrase which she had always previously disliked, fair ridiculous for a
woman of that age. They were, almost sinisterly, not accidental. The
very dark brown hat on her head was just sufficiently like in shape to
the crowns that Russian empresses wear in pictures to heighten t