And the Prince of Arcola uttered these incredible words:
“She is no older than she was two and twenty years ago!”
The woman was sitting, and sitting quite upright, her clenched fists resting on her knees. Her hat must have fallen off in the course of the attack on her, and her hair, half-undone, fell behind her in a thick mass, partly held up by a gold comb, while two rolls with tawny gleams in them were drawn back evenly above her brow, and were waved a little above her temples.
Her face was of a wonderful beauty, its lines of an astonishing purity; and it was animated by an expression which, even in her impassibility, even in her fear, appeared to be a smile. With her rather delicate chin, rather high cheek bones, deep-set eyes, and heavy eyelids, she recalled those women of Leonardo da Vinci, or rather of Bernardino Luini, all the charm of whom is in a smile you do not actually see, but which you divine, which at once moves and disquiets you.
She was simply dressed: a dust cloak which she let fall, a gray woollen dress which, fitting tightly, gave the lovely curves of her figure their full value.
“Well!” said Ralph, who could not take his eyes off her, softly to himself. “She appears quite inoffensive, this magnificent and infernal creature! And they’re nine or ten to one against her!”
She scrutinized with keen eyes the group of men round her, d’Etigues and his friends, and strove to see clearly those others in the shadow. Then she said:
“What is it you want? I do not recognize any of you. What have you brought me here for?”
“You’re our enemy,” declared Godfrey d’Etigues.
She shook her head gently.