“Mrs. Diana Beswick,” she said, and took up her own post behind her master.
CHAPTER II
OW this is the story of this woman—Diana Beswick,—who would have told her own story if she could, and indeed had the zest for it, for she pondered often over her life, finding it more strange than any written in any book. But ’tis to be thought she knew either too much or too little of her charming subject or had not the words at command. Let me set down her qualifications as a truth-teller and on these let her be judged.
Item. She was beautiful, and not beautiful only as a statue formed to excite admiration rather than love. Truly she wore the girdle of Venus for she was adorned with a thousand indescribable charms and graces as when a landscape is bathed in sunshine and all the pretty warblers sing and every flower spreads its coy bosom to the sun.
Item. She was an actress the most finished, and where she captured all opinion and led it whither she would, may it not be argued that such a lady was sometimes her own dupe also?
Item. From her skill in portraying the emotions of others, ’tis to be allowed she was certainly skilled in the art of fiction.
Item. She had the gift, with her eyes of sunshine and voice of music to make all believe her true as Truth’s self even had she vouched for the Impossible.