Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/67

 properly; and it occurred to her that it might perhaps be equally true that a beautiful face is an obstacle to the acquisition of charming manners. Mrs. Tristram then undertook to persuade by grace, and she brought to the task no small ingenuity.

How well she would have succeeded I am unable to say; unfortunately she broke off in the middle. Her own excuse was the want of encouragement in her immediate circle. But she had presumably not a real genius for the charming art, or she would have pursued it for itself. The poor lady was after all incomplete. She fell back upon the harmonies of dress, which she thoroughly understood, and contented herself with playing in its lock that key to the making of impressions. She lived in Paris, which she pretended to detest, because it was only in Paris that one could find things to exactly suit one's complexion. Besides, out of Paris it was always more or less of a trouble to get ten-button gloves. When she railed at this serviceable city and you asked her where she would prefer to reside she returned some very unexpected answer. She would say in Copenhagen or in Barcelona; having, while making the tour of Europe, spent a couple of days at each of these places. On the whole, with her poetic furbelows and her misshapen, intelligent little face, she was, when known, a figure to place, in the great gallery of the wistful, somewhere apart. She was naturally timid, and if she had been born a beauty she would (content with it) probably have taken no risks. At present she was both reckless and diffident; extremely reserved sometimes with her 37