"It's charming!" said Max Elliot.
"Love in a harem! Better than in a cottage."
Madame Sennier pushed up her huge floating veil and showed her powerful face of a clown covered with white pigment. Her lips made a scarlet bar across it.
"What is she like? I remember the man. He's clever."
"Oh, she—she is charming; thin and charming."
"That's well!" observed the composer. "That's very well."
He appeared to have quite recovered from his despair, and now looked almost defiantly cheerful. Small in body, with a narrow chest and shoulders, and a weakly growing beard, he was nevertheless remarkable, even striking in appearance. His large nose suggested Semitic blood, but also power, which was shown, too, in his immense forehead and strong, energetic head. He had a habit of blinking his eyes. But they were fine eyes, full of feeling, imagination, and emotion, but also at moments full of sarcasm and shrewdness. His dark, hairy and small hands were rather monkeylike, and looked destructive.
"Every woman should be thin and charming," he continued. "The camel species, the elephant-type, the cowlike ruminating specimen—milky mother of the lowing herd, as an English poet has expressed it, and very well, too—should"—he flung out one little hairy hand vehemently—"go with the advance of corset-makers and civilization. She comes!"
The door had opened, and Charmian came in.
Instantly her eyes fastened on Madame Sennier.