Page:Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/351

 *lessness there was seen to issue something as strong, graceful, and agile as a leopard. The hue of her skin became luminous as though a fire had been kindled beneath it; and her eyes, which so lately had been dull and without nascency, shot forth a lustre that added light to the room.

There was nothing baleful or malevolent in an apparition so profoundly wonderful. In standing aside to witness the evolutions of any force, in the act of obeying the laws by which it is governed, however inimical its operations may be to our personal safety, the feeling of repulsion bears no part. The spring of the tiger, the long white teeth of the wolf, the pinions of the eagle, the motions of the serpent, are in themselves beautiful, for in them are manifested the free and unconquerable expression of that force which nature has taken for its highest gospel. The wide and curving nostrils of the prostitute were the mansion of a subtle but brutally dominating power.

For the moment, however, Northcote was only aware that a splendid, supple, and entrancing thing had stolen unperceived, like a beast of prey, into the room. The strong, fine, and beautiful line that had been traced along the convergence of the thin but full lips addressed him like an unexpected but supreme artifice of a great painter, who has learned to use his pigments with effrontery.

As a revelation of power she was more than his equal; she challenged him with eyes whose insolent domination exceeded his own. Furtively, yet boldly, she had discarded her stealthiness; she had already the strength that disdains a mesh. She looked upon him now with the same hidden but