A few swift dexterous turns of the hand and she flung down the ribbon at her feet, and pulling out a few pins stuck them in her mouth like a maid-servant, and then shook her head. Down rolled the torrent, a royal mantle, chestnut woven with gold, and so veiled her near to the ankles. She turned herself about to show the smooth undulations feathering into pure gold at the tips.
“There’s for you!” cries Sir Harry. “Has any of you a girl to match that? You may pull it if you will, Weldon, to see if it isn’t tight where it grows. Hold it out, Emily.”
She held it out like wings shining to either side, the men marvelling. There was enough and to spare of the praise and comment that fed her vanity then. But Greville said nothing, though her seeking eye turned in his direction, and presently the cards were got out and the heroine knotted the locks up with simulated carelessness and so went off to the upper end of the room with her book, forgotten in the gamble.
He stood out and followed her after a while, sitting near her out of ear-range but well within eye-shot of Sir Harry. No risks for Greville.
He asked her what pictures amused her, and to his surprise she turned the book and showed him a fine set of Flaxman’s illustrations to the Iliad and Odyssey; figures beautiful, severe, dignified; the pure and perfect line that in so much resembled her own surpassing grace. On the open page the goddess Calypso, loose robe flowing in noble folds, directed the shipwright labours of Ulysses, clear-featured, akin to heaven but bound to earth by love.
“Where on earth did you get this?” says he in astonishment.
“In the liberary,” replied Mrs. Hart, struggling with the redundant syllable.
“And do you like it? Do you understand it?”
“Not a word. But it pleases me. The women are fine to look at. I dress as near that as I can. What are they?”
“Goddesses,” condescended Mr. Greville, smiling superior.