but she delighted in
what she saw. I remember admiring her pretty feet, clad in quite
inadequate but most dainty black satin shoes, with very high heels,
and fine silk stockings. When I put my admiration into words she just
smiled upon me delightfully but said nothing.

"One evening we talked desultorily about the 'criminal instinct.'
'Well,' I said at last, 'there's one thing certain, I should never
commit a murder. I shouldn't have the courage when it came to the
point!' 'Oh,' said she, 'I could murder a person if I hated him enough
for anything he had done, but I should have to call upon him in the
morning and tell him I was going to murder him at five o'clock.'

"We dined out with some Oxford friends, among whom was a tall Scotch
professor who was a brilliant and quick talker. Tamaitai took no part
in the rapid thrust and parry of the talk, but sat silently looking
from one to another with her great dark eyes. Their comment on her
long afterwards was that she was the most inscrutable person they had
ever met. As we drove home after the party I asked Tamaitai: 'What did
you think of the talk?' There was a brief silence--then: 'I didn't
understand a single word of it, they talked so fast,' said she
frankly.

"I don't think I ever knew a woman who was a more perfect 'gentleman.'
Scorning all that was not direct, and true, and simple, she herself
hated disguise or casuistry in any form. Her eyes looked through your
soul and out at the other side, but you never felt that her judgment,
whatever it was, would be harsh. She was curiously detached, and yet
you always wanted her sympathy, and if she loved you it never failed
you. She was a strong partisan, which was perhaps the most feminine
part of her character. She was wholly un-English, but she made
allowances for every English tradition. My English maids loved her
without understanding her in the least. I never knew any one that had
such a way as she had of turning your little vagaries and habits and
fads to your notice with their funny side out, so that all the time
you were subtly flattered and secretly delighted."

I wish I had the power to describe that mysterious charm which drew to
her so many and such various people--the high and the low in
far-scattered places of the earth--but it was too elusive to put in
words. Perhaps a large part of it lay in her clear simplicity, her
utter lack of pretence or pose. I remember reading once in a San
Francisco newspaper a