Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/235

 world. She was rosy with triumph, to say nothing of a less metaphysical cause, and was evidently vastly contented with herself, with her company and with all the omens and portents. Her daughter was less overtly jubilant and distributed her greetings with impartial frigidity. But if Christina was awfully detached, as they said, her detachment gave the greater relief to her magnificent beauty. Dressed simply in vaporous white relieved with half a dozen white roses, the perfection of her features and of her person, and the mysterious depth of her expression, seemed to glow with the white light of a splendid pearl. She recognised no one individually and made her salutations slowly, gravely, with her eyes on the ground. Rowland felt sure, however, that for himself her obeisance was subtly overdone, but he sighed patiently, as for the worrying whim of it, and reflected as he passed on that if she disliked him, which was all such minor ironies could mean, he had nothing to reproach himself with. He walked about, had a few words with Miss Blanchard, who, with a fillet of cameos in her hair, was leaning on the arm of Mr. Leavenworth, and at last came upon the Cavaliere Giacosa, modestly stationed in a corner. The little gentleman's coat-lappet was decorated with an enormous bouquet, and his neck encased in a voluminous white handkerchief of the fashion of thirty years ago. His arms were folded and his eyelids, before the glittering scene, contracted, though you saw through them the answering glitter of his in tensely dark vivacious pupil. He immediately embarked on an elaborate apology for not having yet 201