Of course there are differences in types of beauty, and she was not of the type that commended itself to Philip—so he thought. She had dark hair and a transparent olive complexion. Possibly a touch of dark blood in her, mused Philip, and he said to himself:
'I will take the first opportunity to look at her nails.'
Her features were finely modelled, with a firmness of cutting that showed she was no longer in her teens, undeveloped. The flexible transparent nostrils, the slightly-curled curves of the lips, the wavy hair over the brow—whether natural, the result of a trace of black blood, or artificially produced—the splendid dark eyes that looked at Philip, looked down into him and flashed through his whole being like a lamp shining into a cellar—the delicate ears, the beautiful neck, not too long, set on well-formed shoulders—all were observed by Philip.
'Yes,' said Philip, 'she is handsome, but she belongs to that period of life which may be twenty-four or thirty-four. She has got out of thirteenhood, that is clear.'
He looked at Salome. If Salome was his ideal, nothing could be more different than her type from the type of Miss Durham. There was a childlike simplicity in Salome, an ignorance of the world which would make of her a child to gray hairs; and this strange lady had clearly none of this simplicity and ignorance; she knew a great deal about the ways and varieties of life. One like Miss Durham would never go into gushing ecstasy over a baby, and forget that the first homage was due to her husband.
It afforded emphatic pleasure to Philip to be able to demonstrate before this single lady, with such a circle of relatives about him—six ladies and one gentleman—we are eight and you are one. It was Joseph's sheaf with all the sheaves bowing down before it; it was like a man with a pedigree describing the family tree to a self-made man. It was like a hen with a brood of chickens clucking and strutting before a fowl that has never reared a solitary chick, hardly laid an egg; it was like a millionaire showing his pictures, his plate, his equipages, his yacht, to an acquaintance who had two hundred a year.
It has just been stated that the American girl's eyes had flashed down into Philip's, and irradiated his interior as a lantern does a cellar—a wine-cellar, of course—and the light revealed magnificent cobwebs, thick dust, and some spiders. There was, unquestionably, in Philip much rare good wine, excellent qualities of heart and soul, but they were none of them on tap, all were bottled, and all overlaid with whitewash, and dust, and matted with the fibres and folds of prejudice. These masses of cobweb, these layers of dust, these fat spiders were objects of pride to Philip. Every year the cobwebs gathered density, and the dust accumulated, and the spiders became more gross, hideous, and venomous; the wine remained corked, it was merely an excuse for the cultivation of cobwebs and spiders. We are all eager to show our friends through these rich wine-vaults of our hearts. We light candles and conduct them down with infinite pride, and what we expose is only our curtains of prejudice of ancient standing and long formation, our meannesses, and our spites. If we offer them to taste of our best wine, it is but through straws.
On the other hand, there was Colonel Yeo, a walking Bodega of generous sentiment, with every rich passion and ripe opinion always on tap—ask what you would, and you had a tumblerful. But we libel Bodega, the gush with which he regaled his acquaintance was not true vintage; it was squeezed raisins and logwood, gooseberry and elder—no cobwebs of prejudice there, not a trace even of a scruple, not a token of maturity.
Supper was hurried on, because Philip was hungry, half an hour before the usual time at which the little party sat down to their special table in the alcove.
'Oh!' said Salome, 'there is a cover short. Waiter, we shall be nine to-night and in future, not eight. My husband is here.'