Anyhow, here I was to meet a woman whom I was prepared to love before seeing her. I was to meet her and be invited to her dance, and I could not dance, and would be forced to admit it as if I had been brought up on a farm. It was galling.
CHAPTER VII
Paul and I made our call one fine Sunday afternoon. The Josephs were French people, who were not entirely Anglicised, and they received every Sunday.
My first impression of Muriel was a disappointment. She was a striking, unusual type, most attractive in her way; but at first she failed to realise the mental picture I had drawn of her; and did not strike me as I had expected she would. After too keen an anticipation of pleasure, the actual realisation is often a disappointment. Muriel, as I remember her the first time we met, was a most uncommon looking girl. Although small, she would have been remarked anywhere for the wonder of her eyes and colour. They were large, round, wide-open, prominent; and of a brownness and brilliance most rare. These wonderful eyes were set wide apart, and when she looked at you a leading question was put to your very soul. Evil-minded persons were always disconcerted by a look from Muriel, a thief or a liar, I am sure, never looked her in the eye. To say that her colour was a pale, transparent white is only an attempt to describe what was a curious and amazingly beautiful phenomenon. Her skin was the whitest thing I ever saw; it was like semi-transparent light; new-fallen, downy snow; and when she smiled a deep dimple appeared in one cheek and produced a dark shadow. Nobility sat upon her brow and a most human kindness was promised by her lips. Her hair was a dark, red-brown, showing many shades. Her manner was frank and easy, but behind it a keen observer could detect a sort of disdain for things in general, including humanity. When I say I was disappointed in her, it is hardly an adequate expression of my feelings—hopelessness—more truly expresses it than disappointment. She had a ready wit, and could make one perfectly at ease or glad to escape from her presence.
“Well, Jack, what do you think of her?” asked Paul, as we walked home after our call.
“So, so,” I replied. “She is nice, she is bright, she is uncommon, but——”
“Ah, but, of course, but,” exclaimed Paul. “You cannot know in a look; you cannot feel all the charm of a unique personality in a few minutes spent in a drawing-room full of people. And then she is young—only sixteen.”
“She looks twenty,” I said.
“Of course she does to a simpleton like you, who does not understand girls who have been about. She is the loved and spoiled child of a great man, who knows everything except how to bring up his numerous family. She has been abroad, she is out in society, and intends to stay out. She does what she likes, a woman of the world, and refuses to go back to a convent where, some may think, she should be.”
“These things make a difference, I suppose,” I said. “But look at her father. The doctor is an old man. She must be over twenty.”