ead him
with more favourable eyes, perhaps the thought of his sister always
summoned up the better qualities of that imperfect soul; but he had
never seemed to me so amiable, and his very likeness to Olalla, while it
annoyed, yet softened me.

A third day passed in vain--an empty desert of hours. I would not lose a
chance, and loitered all afternoon in the court, where (to give myself a
countenance) I spoke more than usual with the Senora. God knows it was
with a most tender and sincere interest that I now studied her; and even
as for Felipe, so now for the mother, I was conscious of a growing
warmth of toleration. And yet I wondered. Even while I spoke with her,
she would doze off into a little sleep, and presently awake again
without embarrassment; and this composure staggered me. And again, as I
marked her make infinitesimal changes in her posture, savouring and
lingering on the bodily pleasure of the movement, I was driven to wonder
at this depth of passive sensuality. She lived in her body; and her
consciousness was all sunk into and disseminated through her members,
where it luxuriously dwelt. Lastly, I could not grow accustomed to her
eyes. Each time she turned on me those great beautiful and meaningless
orbs, wide open to the day, but closed against human inquiry--each time
I had occasion to observe the lively changes of her pupils which
expanded and contracted in a breath--I know not what it was came over
me, I can find no name for the mingled feeling of disappointment,
annoyance, and distaste that jarred along my nerves. I tried her on a
variety of subjects, equally in vain; and at last led the talk to her
daughter. But even there she proved indifferent; said she was pretty,
which (as with children) was her highest word of commendation, but was
plainly incapable of any higher thought; and when I remarked that Olalla
seemed silent, merely yawned in my face and replied that speech was of
no great use when you had nothing to say. "People speak much, very
much," she added, looking at me with expanded pupils; and then again
yawned, and again showed me a mouth that was as dainty as a toy. This
time I took the hint, and, leaving her to her repose, went up into my
own chamber to sit by the open window, looking on the hills and not
beholding them, sunk in lustrous and deep dreams, and hearkening in
fancy to the note of a voice that I had never heard.

I awoke on the fifth morning with a brightness of anticipation that