The patrician carriage of her grand head, the pride of her bearing, her slow and stately step, the very swirl of her skirt as she sweeps forward, all strike Delaval, who gazes at her with a momentary astonishment that is not altogether born of her loveliness. “Is she an empress in disguise,” he wonders; but at the second glance, he takes in the whole splendid physique, the flesh and blood magnificence of Mademoiselle Ange, and decides that she is of the earth, earthy, that there is no semi-divine light in the slumbrous eyes over which droop heavy white lids, no purity about the make of the warm full blooded lips, no unfleshly refinement about her face and figure; but there is rare perfection of form, and tropical brilliance of colouring about her, and her vivid pink and white tints, her rich masses of golden hair form a strange and almost bizarre contrast to her immense eyes, black as midnight skies, and of a velvety softness.
Delaval remarks the peculiarity just as an inflammable French officer near him remarks with enormous enthusiasm:
“Elle est belle à faire peur, cette blonde aux yeux noir!”
Strangely enough, the more Delaval looks at her the more he is reminded of someone he has seen. To a certain extent her face appears really quite familiar to him—but only to a certain extent—beyond this he is quite in a fog, and searches vainly in the caverns of memory for an elucidation of the mystery.
Mademoiselle Ange stands for a moment or two perfectly motionless, with her eyes fixed on the ground, while the clapping of hands and yelling applause goes on, and the bright light falls full on a face of marvellous, almost weird beauty, on perfectly moulded round white limbs, revealed rather than hidden by clouds of diaphanous drapery, on a shapely arm supporting a much ornamented guitar—(which by the way she does not use).
Then amidst a hush, in which the fall of a pin could be heard, she begins her song in a deep rich contralto.
There is none of the noise, or clap-trap, or glitter of the Alcazar about her or her vocalisation.
She sings her two first verses, without the quiver of a long black lash, or the falter of a note, poetically, dreamily, entrancingly. Then she pauses a second, stretches out one arm tragically towards the audience, and commences the last verse in a soft, low, thrilling voice that appeals to the roughest man there, while her huge black eyes seem to burn and scintillate, firing the manly bosoms under broadcloth and blouse with irrepressible ardour.
“Je vis le lendemain non plus au bord de l’onde
Mais assise au chemin la jeune fille blonde!
Je vis qu’ils étaient deux—A! deux âmes sont joyeuse!
Comme il était heureux! Comme elle était heureuse!
Et moi, dans mon bonheur—de les voir si content
Je me mis a pleurer! Comme on pleure à vingt ans!
Et moi! dans mon bonheur—de les voir si content
Je me mis a pleurer! Comme on pleure à vingt ans!”
Lord Delaval—fanatico per la musica—listens enthralled as the last sweet, sad, soft notes die away on his ear.