Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/65

1885.] dispersed at last, leaving Gretchen's view unobstructed.

At first sight the newly arrived family appeared to be bewilderingly large, but a short survey resolved it into the following elements: a dark and good-looking man of mature age, apparently the head of the family, presided at the table. His complexion was oriental, but his manners were French. Except for a blood-red fez, his attire in noways fell short of the highest standard of European elegance. Alongside of him sat a ponderous, middle-aged woman, with a dark shade on her upper lip, and a suggestion of past, but very long past, beauty on her face. Beside her was placed a dark-eyed girl, ungainly of feature, and of a wellnigh mahogany complexion. Next came two pale-faced, sickly boys of twelve and fourteen, with a starved and timid tutor between them.

With her back turned straight towards the Mohrs' table, there sat another woman, whose face Gretchen was not able to see. At about the height of her elbow a small curly black head moved about restlessly. The boy of four or five, with the miniature dagger stuck into his embroidered waistband, called the lady "maman"; but it was the Swiss bonne alongside who tied the napkin under his chin, and assisted him in the struggle with his egg-shell. Gretchen could not even catch sight of the passive mother s profile; she was a very passive mother, there could be no doubt of that. Two or three times the curly head turned right round, and Gretchen found herself confronted by a pair of very black eyes, looking out of a small glowing face. It was the face of a singularly pretty boy, and, watching it, she felt her curiosity aroused. The son's good looks seemed to augur well for those of the mother. The lines of her figure, as far as could be judged by the sweep of shoulder, were full, soft, and rounded. She wore a rather loose-fitting dress of deep purple silk, profusely trimmed and of a costly texture, but of a colour too intense to be in strict accordance with the fashion of the day, which had some time since decreed that the sicklier a colour was, the higher it was to be prized. Her hair, rolled up above her neck and disposed in an edifice of massive coils and plaits, was quite black. In fact, Gretchen thought that she had never known what really black hair was until this moment. It was not that purple or blue-black hair so much sung by poets, nor that silky black which shines in the light, but it was simply an uncompromising, unvarnished dead black. As I have mentioned the word varnish, I may as well add that this woman's hair really gave the impression of black paint which has not been varnished, for it caught no glossy reflection along the edge of its coils – it was all shadow and no light.

While Gretchen was pursuing her observations, Kurt was making vain efforts to secure the attention of the distracted waiters. The "barbarous grandees," as he called them, absorbed the mental as well as physical powers of the whole establishment. The hovering cloud of waiters had first dispersed, only to return armed with a battery of boiled eggs; then, after hovering a little longer, had dispersed a second time and reappeared a second time, bearing several melons aloft. The whole table shone with juicy, pale-red slices, while the black vultures pounced upon the ruins of the egg-shells and cleared them away, all but one egg, which only now was being slowly cracked under the spoon of the unseen woman whose