Chapter 9 - Page 2

between that man and this. I remember her speaking of my smile,
telling me it was my one adornment, and taking it from me, so to
speak, for a moment to let me see how she looked in it; she
delighted to make sport of me when she was in a wayward mood, and
to show me all my ungainly tricks of voice and gesture,
exaggerated and glorified in her entrancing self, like a star
calling to the earth: "See, I will show you how you hobble
round," and always there was a challenge to me in her eyes to
stop her if I dared, and upon them, when she was most audacious,
lay a sweet mist.

They all came to her court, as is the business of young fellows,
to tell her what love is, and she listened with a noble
frankness, having, indeed, the friendliest face for all engaged
in this pursuit that can ever have sat on woman. I have heard
ladies call her coquette, not understanding that she shone softly
upon all who entered the lists because, with the rarest
intuition, she foresaw that they must go away broken men and
already sympathised with their dear wounds. All wounds incurred
for love were dear to her; at every true utterance about love she
exulted with grave approval, or it might be a with a little "ah!"
or "oh!" like one drinking deliciously. Nothing could have been
more fair, for she was for the first comer who could hit the
target, which was her heart.

She adored all beautiful things in their every curve and
fragrance, so that they became part of her. Day by day, she
gathered beauty; had she had no heart (she who was the bosom of
womanhood) her thoughts would still have been as lilies, because
the good is the beautiful.

And they all forgave her; I never knew of one who did not forgive
her; I think had there been one it would have proved that there
was a flaw in her. Perhaps, when good-bye came she was weeping
because all the pretty things were said and done with, or she was
making doleful confessions about herself, so impulsive and
generous and confidential, and so devoid of humour, that they
compelled even a tragic swain to laugh. She made a looking-glass
of his face to seek wofully in it whether she was at all to
blame, and when his arms went out for her, and she stepped back
so that they fell empty, she mourned, with dear sympathy, his
lack of skill to seize her. For what her soft eyes said was that
she was always waiting tremulously to be won. They all forgave
her, because there was nothing to forgive, or very little, just
the little that makes a dear girl dearer, and often afterward, I
believe, they have laughed fondly when thinking of her, like boys
brought back. You ladies who are everything to your husbands
save a girl from the dream of youth, have you