Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/334

328 usual seat between the fireplace and the window, which commanded a view of the entire apartment from its entrance, and had therefore full time to admire her stately visitor as she advanced between the widely scattered pieces of furniture, which had the air of forthwith converting themselves into so many specially devised backgrounds as the way of fortunate beauty is. She was a very tall woman, whose figure had gained in majesty what it had perhaps lost in its first youthful grace. She was, as has been said, wonderfully, immaculately blond, the features rather too small perhaps for the present size of the face, being almost classically perfect, the nose and chin especially so. The eyes were less striking, but the shape of the brows and of the eyelids were modelled as if with the hand of a sculptor. The simile of an unusually large white swan recurred again to Lady Frances's mind, and it was with something of the air of that stateliest of birds that the ci-devant Princess Matrena Vladimirovitch advanced towards her hostess, who got up to receive her, but stood still, reddening, gauche, – as shy as though she were still sixteen years of age, a prey to all that nervous discomfiture which, here at least in her own drawing-room, might surely have been spared. It was, partly perhaps, the contrast – the sense of the other's triumphant beauty, her self-conscious grace – which accelerated her discomfiture. She knew, of course, that it was utterly contemptible to think about it, – what, at fifty-two, had a woman got to do with ugliness or beauty? What mattered it whether she was comely as Juno, or hideous as Hecate? who cared, who knew, who troubled themselves? It was all very well to scold herself, but the sensation remained. When a particular fact has formed the central point of one's consciousness for over forty years, it is not so easy to shake it off again at will!

The visit did not last long, nor was it signalised by any marked cordiality on either side. Lady Frances's shyness took from moment to moment an additional coating of reserve, while the beautiful visitor's manners, if irreproachable, were not encouraging. She did not, it is true, condescend to Lady Frances, or look pityingly at her clothes, or play off any petty airs; but she took little pains to conceal that she was acquitting herself of a duty, – one of those social obligations which fall to the lot of even the most fortunately circumstanced of women, lifting her white eyelids from time to time to utter some perfunctory observation, and dropping them again with an air of weariness before she had received the answers. Just as she was getting up to go, the Colonel appeared upon the scene, looking rather excited, and explaining that he had been on his way down the Canal when he had caught sight of her gondola at their door, and had made all haste in to have the honour of receiving her. In spite of this flattering assurance, Mrs Markham was not to be persuaded to delay her departure; and all the Colonel gained by his assiduity was the satisfaction of being able to escort her down the staircase, which he did with all the air of some particularly obsequious courtier in attendance upon his liege lady.

Lady Frances remained upon the top of the landing, looking after them from the window which commanded the stairs. She felt puzzled, irritated, uncomfortable. Certainly, if Mrs Markham were