She was tall, which at first sight made her seem slender, but thanks to the style of dress then in vogue, it was not difficult to see that she was slender after the fashion of Jean Goujon's Diana. She was fair with those deep brown tints which are to be seen in the hair of Titian's Magdalen. When she wore her hair in the Greek style, with bands of blue velvet, she was superb; but when, toward the end of a dinner, she loosened her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders and framing her cheeks in an aureole, enhancing their fresh camilla tints and peachy down-like surface, and contrasting sharply with her black eyebrows, blue eyes, red lips, and pearly teeth, and when a spray of brilliant diamonds hung from each ear—then she was dazzling.
Now this luxuriant beauty had developed only within the last two years. To her first lover, the only man she had ever loved, she had given the young girl, full of hesitations, who yields, but does not entirely surrender herself. Then all at once she felt the sap of life mounting and growing within her; her eyes opened, her nostrils distended; she exhaled at every pore that love of second youth which succeeds adolescence, which turns its gaze upon herself, and which seeks some object upon which to lavish the pent-up wealth of treasure within. It was then that necessity compelled her to sell rather than to give herself; but even then she looked forward to the time when she should be rich and free to enter upon that liberty of heart and person which is the dignity of every woman.
Two or three times at evening parties at the Hôtel Thélusson, at the Opéra, or at the Comédie Française, she had noticed Coster de Saint-Victor as he paid his court to the most beautiful and distinguished ladies of the period; and each time her heart seemed to leap in her bosom and fly to him. She felt within herself that some day, if she would make advances, this man would belong to her, or rather she to him. And so thoroughly was she convinced of this, that (thanks to the secret voice which oftentimes gives us hints of what the future will bring forth) she was content to wait without much impatience, certain that one day the object of her dreams would pass near enough to her, or she to him, to join them each to each other by the irresistible law that binds steel to magnet.
At last, on the evening when she opened her window to watch the street brawl, she recognized in the thick of the fray the handsome figure which had haunted her solitary nights; and, in spite of herself, she cried out: "Citizen in the green coat, take care!"
[CHAPTER XI]
ASPASIA'S TOILET
Aurélie de Saint-Amour might very well have called Coster de Saint-Victor by his name, since she had recognized him; but the handsome young man had many rivals, and consequently many enemies, and to utter his name might have given the signal for his death.
Coster on his side, on regaining consciousness, had recognized her; for, celebrated as she already was for her beauty, she was becoming even better known for her charm of manner and wit—that indispensable complement to beauty that desires to be called queen.