The complexion of Madame d'Harville was of the purest white, tinged with the most delicate carnation; her long tresses of bright chestnut hair floated over her beautifully formed shoulders, white and polished as marble. It would be an impossible task to describe her large dark gray eyes, fringed with their thick lashes, and beaming with angelic sweetness; her coral lips, with their gentle smile, gave to her eyes the indefinable charm that her affable and winning mode of expressing herself derived from their mild and angelic expression of approving goodness. We will not farther delay the reader by describing the perfection of her figure, nor dwell upon the distinguished air which marked her whole appearance. She wore a white crape dress, trimmed with the natural flowers of the camellia, intermixed with its own rich green leaves. Here and there a diamond sparkled among the waxy petals, as if a dewdrop fresh from its native skies had fallen there. A garland of the same flowers, equally ornamented with precious stones, was placed with infinite grace upon her fair and open brow.
The peculiar style of the Countess Sarah Macgregor's beauty served to set off the fair feminine loveliness of her companion. Though turned thirty-five years of age, Sarah looked much younger. Nothing appears to preserve the body more effectually from all the attacks of sickness or decay than a cold-hearted, egotistical disregard of every one but ourselves; it encrusts the body with a cold, icy covering, which alike resists the inroads of bodily or mental wear and tear. To this cause may be ascribed the wonderful preservation of Countess Sarah's appearance.
The lady whose name we last mentioned wore a dress of pale amber watered silk, beneath a crape tunic of the same colour. A simple wreath of the dark leaves of the Pyrus Japonicus encircled her head, and harmonised admirably with the bandeaux of raven hair it confined. This classically severe mode of head-dress gave to the profile of this imperious woman the character and resemblance of an antique statue. Many persons, mistaking their real cast of countenance, imagine some peculiar vocation delineated in their traits. Thus one man, who fancies he possesses a warlike air, assumes the warrior; another imagines
"His eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,"
marks him out as a poet; instantly he turns down his shirt-collar, adopts poetical language, and writes himself poet. So the self-imagined conspirator wastes days and hours in pondering over mighty deeds he feels called upon to do. The politician, upon the same terms, bores the world and his friends with his perpetual outpourings upon political economy; and the man whose saintly turn of countenance persuades its owner into the belief of a corresponding character within, forthwith abjures the pomps and vanities of the world, and aims at reforming his brethren by his pulpit eloquence. Now, ambition being Sarah's ruling passion, and her noble and aristocratical features well assisting the delusion, she smiled as the word "diadem" crossed her thoughts, and lent a willing ear to the predictions of her Highland nurse, and firmly believed herself predestined to a sovereign destiny. Spite of the trifling embonpoint that gave to her figure (which, though fatter than Madame d'Harville's, was not less slender and nymph-like) a voluptuous gracefulness, Sarah boasted of all the freshness of early youth, and few could long sustain the fire of her black and piercing eyes; her nose was aquiline; her finely formed mouth and rich ruby lips were expressive of the highest determination, haughtiness, and pride.
The marquise and Sarah had recognised Rodolph in the winter garden at the moment they were descending into it from the gallery; but the prince feigned not to observe their presence.
"The prince is so absorbed with the ambassadress," said Madame d'Harville to Sarah, "that he pays not the slightest attention to us."
"You are quite mistaken, my dear Clémence," rejoined the countess; "the prince saw us as quickly and as plainly as we saw him, but I frightened him away; you see he still bears malice with me."
"I am more than ever at a loss to understand the singular obstinacy with which he persists in shunning you,—you, formerly an old friend. 'Countess Sarah and myself are sworn enemies,' replied he to me once in a joking manner; 'I have made a vow never to speak to her; and you may judge how sacred must be the vow that hinders me from conversing with so charming a lady.' And, strange and unaccountable as was this reply, I had no alternative but to submit to it."
"And yet I can assure you that the cause of this deadly feud, half in jest, and half in earnest as it is, originates in the most simple circumstance. Were it not that a third party is implicated in it, I should have explained the whole to you long ago. But what is the matter, my dear child? You seem as though your thoughts were far from the present scene."