“Why—it’s the story of two brothers. Let me see, what is their name? Daysplaings—Gass-tong and Rah-ool Daysplaings. There’s the eldest who has a beautiful estate in Normandy. The young one is sort of a poet, a dreamer, you know—wanders about, mostly with his brother’s wife while——”
David knew he was going to hear the entire story. She was a handsome woman.
There were no curves in her face. Her chin was square and her mouth was straight. The poise of her forehead was straight and the look of her eyes was square.
“Well, you can imagine what happened then. But it didn’t. The idea was there. That is bad enough. The husband was quite right, I think....”
Miss Lord was a pattern of symmetry: a study in balance and rule.
Her body was not angular. She sat very straight in her chair. “Then, the curtain falls.” She was tall, and sitting she topped David. “The way it was acted had a good deal to do....” She came forward a little. Her hands were half shut and flanked her head. Her arms were two columns propping some splendid official building.
“Of course,” she was saying, “that sort of thing seems to be common in France. They’re a decadent race, you know. Clever, though!”
Yes: her body was indeed not angular like her face. Her arms were ample. David could see the suggestion of flesh bursting the plain white sleeves. Her bosom was voluptuously full. Were these not feminine curves, these suave rounded masses? He felt the solidity of Miss Lord more somehow than her sex. Sex is an aura, not a form. Women understand this best. But a certain lack puzzled David. It was strange for him to sit so close to this lovely woman and not feel her lovely: to see her flawless and be unwarmed.
“‘Oh,’ the Irishman pointed, ‘she’s an Irish bull.’”
He should have laughed at this joke. He was full of the pain of Lois. Suddenly, he was thinking of Lois.