Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/46

22 Jordaenesque female looked upon as only very insignificant that pale, weak, little, woman, whose person, lean and suggestive of anaemia, was devoid of all those robust corporal attractions that rustics prize so highly.

No, the Count of the Dike would not long hesitate between that mincing-mannered young lady and the superb Claudie, the most dazzling female in Smaragdis, aye, the most dazzling in all Kerlingalande.

During the dinner, she took the measure of the man, with the wanton looks and perspicacity of a Bacchante, while she estimated the furniture and the plate at the same time with the eye of an auctioneer, or of a village notary. The value of the estate had long been known to her, as to everybody else in the village. This large triangular vale, bounded on two sides by dikes, and on the third by an iron gate and wide ditches, represented, with the dependent farms and woods, almost a tenth of the entire island. And further, public rumour ascribed to Kehlmark possessions in Germany, in the Netherlands, and in Italy.