ike
severity, strangely redeemed by the open curves of the mouth. Trent said
to himself that the absurdity or otherwise of a lover writing sonnets to
his mistress's eyebrow depended after all on the quality of the eyebrow.
Her nose was of the straight and fine sort, exquisitely escaping the
perdition of too much length. Her hat lay pinned to the grass beside
her, and the lively breeze played with her thick dark hair, blowing
backward the two broad bandeaux that should have covered much of her
forehead, and agitating a hundred tiny curls from the mass gathered at
the nape.

Everything about this lady was black, from her shoes of suede to the hat
that she had discarded; lusterless black covered her to her bare throat.
All she wore was fine and well put on. Dreamy and delicate of spirit as
her looks declared her, it was very plain that she was long-practised as
only a woman grown can be in dressing well, the oldest of the arts, and
had her touch of primal joy in the excellence of the body that was so
admirably curved now in the attitude of embraced knees. With the
suggestion of French taste in her clothes, she made a very modern figure
seated there, until one looked at her face and saw the glow and triumph
of all vigorous beings that ever faced sun and wind and sea together in
the prime of the year. One saw, too, a womanhood unmixed and vigorous,
unconsciously sure of itself.

Trent, who had halted only for a moment in the surprise of seeing the
woman in black, had passed by on the cliff above her, perceiving and
feeling as he went the things set down. At all times his keen vision and
active brain took in and tasted details with an easy swiftness that was
marvelous to men of slower chemistry; the need to stare, he held, was
evidence of blindness. Now the feeling of beauty was awakened and
exultant, and doubled the power of his sense. In these instants a
picture was printed on his memory that would never pass away.

As he went by unheard on the turf the woman, still alone with her
thoughts, suddenly moved. She unclasped her long hands from about her
knees, stretched her limbs and body with feline grace, then slowly
raised her head and extended her arms with open, curving fingers, as if
to gather to her all the glory and overwhelming sanity of the morning.
This was a gesture not to be mistaken: it was a gesture of freedom, the
movement of a soul's resolution to be, to possess, to go forward,
perhaps to enjoy.

So he saw