And well she might be. The well-rounded neck, the soft, graciously curved and perfectly proportioned shoulders and arms, the slight tan of the skin, the great magic eyes and the pretty face with its lofty brow, surmounted by waves of dark hair, gave her the positive stamp of a strange and unique beauty: a type one so seldom finds to admire. It was not artificial, nor was it yet exotic—reality was its only expression.
Standing before the glass, she unconsciously made a few gestures and movements which held in them a captivating influence when wielded by one who was naturally so comely. Unconsciously, too, she took inventory of her personal charm. It was her woman’s instinct that told her that all men would be her willing slaves, should such a thing be her desire. But it was not. François was her first lover, and she wanted him to be the only one. Everything was to be for him and him alone.
Unfortunately, most women after they secure the man for whom they have angled do not know how to hold their catch. They neglect the very things that first drew the man to them, they forget their art in a feeling of possession and security. And then they wonder why there are so many divorces.
Sana, who was but nineteen, was well versed in feminine artfulness and had already mastered all its varied forms and gestures. Her inheritance from her mother, and the refinement and culture she had acquired, gave her both finesse and charm in addition to her amazing loveliness.
Facing the glass, she shook her head and said to herself, “To destroy myself? Never! Gypsy blood would not sanction that.”
Sana hastily dressed herself and without advising de Rochelle of her movements, left the hotel and sought a friend of hers who lived on 57th Street.
This was a Mrs. O’Brien, a woman, worldly wise and one who had married young and often. Sana had met her on the steamer “George Washington,” on her way from Cherbourg to New York. Mrs. O’Brien was returning from her latest honeymoon, and the chance meeting between the two had ripened into a most intimate friendship. Regardless of what gossip may have said about her, Mrs. O’Brien was real in every sense of the word.
It was to her, therefore, that Sana turned in her trouble. Mrs. O’Brien listened to Sana’s tale with a motherly interest, and explaining in part her intentions, she took Sana to the office of the famous Dr. White, on the same block.
The doctor, an elderly and affable gentleman, had been in New York for many years, and the fame that had preceded him from Europe, where he had been a professor at the University of Heidelberg, increased with his years of practice in America.
He and Mrs. O’Brien were well acquainted and with a cheery “Good evening” he led the two women from the reception room, into his office, which was splendidly furnished and embellished with numerous books, charts and artistic curiosities. There was nothing about the place to give the visitor the chill that generally comes on entering a doctor’s office. Instead the room seemed to be pervaded with an atmosphere of congenial warmth.