Next comes the turn of Marcienne, who, greatly daring, has broken with her family and given up worldly luxury, to work and live freely with the man of her choice.
Beside her is Blanche, still restless and undecided, attracted by love and irritated by her sister Hermione, who pursues a vision of charity and redemption.
Here my friend's fine profile turns to the other groups; and I continue:
"The one whom we call Sister Hermione you can see in the dark bedroom, reading under the light of the lamp, with her face hidden in her hands."
"Is she good-looking?"
"Very, but tries not to seem so. That is why she is always so simply dressed."
Cecilia interrupts me:
"But her dress isn't simple!"
"You are quite right. It is made complex by a thousand superfluous fripperies. Hermione has not been slow to understand that, to counteract perfect beauty, you must read simplicity to mean commonplace triviality."
A flutter of silk, a gleam of a silver-white skirt in the waning light, a whiff of orris-root; and Marcienne glides down to our feet with a lithe, cat-like movement. In a curt, passionate tone, she says: