the smiling mouth,
with its corners that turn up so readily. The very long and very lovely
neck makes one follow in thought the hollow of the nape and the slope of
the shoulders vanishing in a snowy cloud of Mechlin lace. On the
deliberately antiquated black-silk dress, a gold chain and a miniature
set in brilliants give the finishing touch to a style classic in its
chastity. Seated in a grandfather's chair in the embrasure of the
window, she reminds one of Mme. de Mortsauf in Balzac's _Lys dans la
vallee_.

But she is also the very embodiment of Zealand. You can picture her head
covered with a lace cap and her temples adorned with gold corkscrews.
Behind her you conjure up flat horizons, slow-turning wind-mills, little
red-and-green houses in which the inmates seem to play at living. How
charming she looks in the last rays of light, at once childish and
dignified, passive and romantic ... and so different from the rest!

But has not each her particular interest, her special grace? When my
eyes go from one to another, they tell a rosary of precious beads, each
with its own peculiar beauty, neither greater nor less than its fellows!
What a glad and wondrous thing it is to be women, to be delicate, pretty
things, infinitely sensitive and infinitely varied, living works of art,
matter for kisses, the realised stuff of dreams! When you look at them
like that, solely in the decorative sense, you are ready to condemn
those who work, who think and who concentrate upon an aim of some sort,
for these superfine creatures carry the reason for their existence
within themselves, so great is the perfection which they achieve with a
gesture, an attitude, a glance. And then you reflect upon what they too
often are in the privacy of their lives: narrow and domineering,
attached to petty, useless duties, their minds lacking dignity, their
souls lacking horizon; and you are sorry that they have not grown,
through the sheer consciousness of their beauty, into ways that are
kindly and generous.

I let my hand rest lightly on Cecilia's hands; and in the sweetness of
the gathering dusk we both dream. Like the scent of flowers, the
different natures seem to find a more precise expression as their
shapes fade. I explain them to Cecilia, who does not know them.

Aurelie and Renee draw my eyes with their laughter; and I begin with
them. They are the careless lovers, idle for the exquisite pleasure of
idleness. They live a dream-life, the lif