She was a tall woman, whose figure already required care; she had thick coils of magnificent chestnut hair, much of which was still her own.
Her arched eyebrows gave a questioning, mysterious look to her wide grey eyes with their deep bisque shadows. She had the most beautiful mouth in Paris, and she had been famous for her smile. Poets had sung of it, artists had tried to paint it, lovers had sworn they would die for it. They had not found that necessary, but many of them had found it remarkably expensive.
Ten years ago that smile of Liane’s was the talk of Paris, but perhaps rather too many other things had been talked of since. It was by now a little blurred, tightened by repetition, and hardened by inevitable usage, still even now it was a work of art, and, without the stage, it would have afforded Liane a handsome income. It was perhaps no mean test of a hermit.
Jean stood watching her with a hypnotized air; it was a great tribute to Liane, but as an attitude in a Parisian boudoir it was a trifle awkward.
Poor Jean! How beautiful this woman was,—and he had never seen a beautiful woman before.
Liane hardly seemed to move as she approached him; her figure glided through the room like the idle wing of a bird in slow flight across a summer sky. It had taken a danseuse two years to teach Liane how to walk.
She was dressed in a pale dove-grey tea-gown, with a knot of violets at her breast. It was not surprising that Maurice admired her more even than his own imperially cut and waxed moustache; nevertheless, he had gone to the courses this afternoon without her, and Liane de Brances did not like being left alone.
“Vous êtes le bien-venu, Monsieur,” said Liane, in the modulated musical tone which she had learned for the theatre. It was not her natural voice, and she looked at Jean with a soft enclosing look which seemed to shut out the world.
No woman is very dangerous to a man unless she is a little self-conscious, and Liane was so completely self-conscious that she could afford to be perfectly natural. She knew herself as an artist knows his picture or a captain his ship.
“I think you have fallen from heaven!” she said, sinking into a chaise longue and patting the cushions left and right of her into a suitable background. “Or if you have come from the other place that will be more amusing still! Think of it, Maurice has gone to the races, and left me alone in the rain! It was clothes of course—the clothes of a woman, Monsieur, are her tragedy. Mon Dieu! the life one leads! I can assure you, it is a slavery, and yet what can we do? For if one does not strain every nerve to succeed, it becomes a massacre! I believe I may truly say that every woman in the company would murder me with a new costume to-morrow if I did not put myself in the hands of the greatest tyrant in Paris. You know Madame Berthe, of course? She dresses half the world, and we must attempt to accommodate her. I was, then, at her house, if you will believe me, at ten o’clock this morning—an hour when I am never awake—I must have been driven there in my sleep, I fancy, and if I have caught a cold and ruined my voice, one sees very well why! And after I had sat there an hour—an hour!—and I am without exception the busiest woman in Paris—I am sent a message that she cannot see me until three! I assure you that for two pins I would have burst into her private room and destroyed all the costumes within sight! But I was handicapped by thoughts of the future; I restrained myself, and I return here furious. Maurice appears. I cannot accompany him to the courses; instead I have to go back to that infamous woman, or she won’t have the second act ready at all; as it is, I shall have to run in and out in pins. And they accuse us of being gay. What a calumny! No housewife works as I do. I have three parts a mile long to learn for next week, and I haven’t looked at one of them! Costumes! Costumes! And then a silly author appears at lunch expecting me to know his twaddle by heart and praise him for it. Oh la! la! the vanity of these men who expect gratitude in return for parts only fit for a sick crow! You have seen La Fin de l’Amour of course? I ask you frankly, how do I appear in it? You like it, hein? I assure you I can do better than that; but one is ruined of course by the rest of the cast. I told Colin so yesterday—the premier is so careless, he forgets half his words and apparently he imagines that the front of the stage was meant only for him. The less said of the women the better, it is a marvel to me they are not hissed off the stage. But my public are always good to me. You like it?”