addressed to Mills specially, with the addition of
a mumbled remark: "It's a confounded position." Then calmly to me with a
swift smile: "We have been talking of you this morning. You are expected
with impatience."

"Thank you very much," I said, "but I can't help asking myself what I am
doing here."

The upward cast in the eyes of Mills who was facing the staircase made us
both, Blunt and I, turn round. The woman of whom I had heard so much, in
a sort of way in which I had never heard a woman spoken of before, was
coming down the stairs, and my first sensation was that of profound
astonishment at this evidence that she did really exist. And even then
the visual impression was more of colour in a picture than of the forms
of actual life. She was wearing a wrapper, a sort of dressing-gown of
pale blue silk embroidered with black and gold designs round the neck and
down the front, lapped round her and held together by a broad belt of the
same material. Her slippers were of the same colour, with black bows at
the instep. The white stairs, the deep crimson of the carpet, and the
light blue of the dress made an effective combination of colour to set
off the delicate carnation of that face, which, after the first glance
given to the whole person, drew irresistibly your gaze to itself by an
indefinable quality of charm beyond all analysis and made you think of
remote races, of strange generations, of the faces of women sculptured on
immemorial monuments and of those lying unsung in their tombs. While she
moved downwards from step to step with slightly lowered eyes there
flashed upon me suddenly the recollection of words heard at night, of
Allegre's words about her, of there being in her "something of the women
of all time."

At the last step she raised her eyelids, treated us to an exhibition of
teeth as dazzling as Mr. Blunt's and looking even stronger; and indeed,
as she approached us she brought home to our hearts (but after all I am
speaking only for myself) a vivid sense of her physical perfection in
beauty of limb and balance of nerves, and not so much of grace, probably,
as of absolute harmony.

She said to us, "I am sorry I kept you waiting." Her voice was low
pitched, penetrating, and of the most seductive gentleness. She offered
her hand to Mills very frankly as to an old friend. Within the
extraordinarily wide sleeve, lined with black silk, I could see the arm,
very white, with a pearly gleam in the