He stood by the table, mechanically picking up, one after another, the books lying there. Some of the books were printed in French, some in German, in Italian, in Danish, in Swedish, in English. Miss Girard's name was written in all of them. Miss Girard appeared to be accomplished.
In the dim light Guild began to saunter around the room encountering various evidences of Miss Girard's taste and mode of living—one or two Braun photographs of Velasquez, Boucher, and Gainsborough on the walls—certainly a catholicism of taste entirely admirable;—one or two graceful bits of ancient Chinese art—blue and gold marvels of Pekin enamel; a mille-fleur tapestry panel, a bundle of golf clubs, a tennis bat, and a pair of spurs.
He thought for himself that when a girl goes in for all of these accomplishments it is because the gods have been otherwise unkind, and that she has to.
At the same time he remembered the voice he had heard through the scarcely opened door—the lovely voice of a young English girl—than which in all the world there is nothing half so lovely.
And it suddenly occurred to him that there had not been in it the faintest kind or trace of a German accent—that only its childish and sleepy sweetness had struck him first, and then its purity and its youthful and cultivated charm.
Yes, truly, the gods had been kind to this young German girl of nineteen, but it would be a little too much to ask of these same gods that they endow her with figure and features commensurate with her other charms and talents.
Then he suddenly remembered her profession, and that she was studying still for the dramatic profession. And he knew that this profession naturally required exterior charm of any woman who desired to embrace it.
While these ideas and speculations were occupying his mind he heard her on the stairs, and he turned and came forward as she entered the room.
She was a slender, straight girl of medium height; and her face was one of those fresh young faces which looked fragrant. And instantly the thought occurred to him that she was the vivid, living incarnation of her own voice, with her lilac-blue eyes and soft white neck, and the full scarlet lips of one of those goddesses who was not very austere.
She wore a loosely-belted jacket of tan-coloured covert-cloth, and narrow skirts of the same, and a wide golden-brown hat, and tan spats. The gods had been very, very kind to Miss Girard, for she even adorned her clothes, and that phenomenon is not usual in Great Britain or among German Fräuleins however accomplished and however well born.