nd held her shoulders well back, so that she got a
sort of squareness into the divine slope of them (people hadn't begun to
slouch forward from the hips in those days), a squareness that agreed
somehow with the character of her small face. I didn't know then whether
it was a pretty face or not. I daresay it was a bit too odd and square
for prettiness, and, as for beauty, that had all gone into the lines of
her body (which _was_ beautiful, if you like). When you looked carefully,
you got a little square, white forehead, and straight eyebrows of the
same darkness as her hair, and very distinct on the white, and eyes also
very dark and distinct, and fairly crystalline with youth; and a little
white and very young nose that started straight and ended absurdly in a
little soft knob that had a sort of kink in it; and a mouth which would
have been too large for her face if it hadn't made room for itself by
tilting up at the corners; and then a little square white chin and jaw;
they were thrust forward, but so lightly and slenderly that it didn't
matter. It doesn't sound--does it?--as if she could have been pretty, let
alone beautiful; and yet--and yet she managed that little head of hers
and that little odd face so as to give an impression of beauty or of
prettiness. It was partly the oddness of the face and head, coming on the
top of all that symmetry, that perfection, that made the total effect of
her so bewildering. I can't find words for the total effect (I don't know
that you ever got it all at once, and I certainly didn't get it then),
and if I were to tell you that what struck me first about her was
something perverse and wilful and defiant, this would be misleading.

She smiled in her mature, perfunctory manner as she took the chair I gave
her. She cast out her muff over my writing-table, and flung back the furs
that covered her breast and shoulders, as if she had come to stay, as if
it were four o'clock in the afternoon and I had asked her to tea for the
first time.

I remember saying, "That's right. I'm afraid this room is a bit warm,
isn't it?"--as if she had done something uninvited and a little
unexpected, and I wished to reassure her. As if, too, I desired to assert
my position as the giver of assurances.

(And it was I who needed them, not she.)

She hadn't been in that room five minutes before she had created a
situation; a situation that bristled with difficulty and danger.

To begin with, she was so young