Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/91

 Carved from a tall, tall block of it." Then, his pleasure increasing, he repeated the words again, letting his voice linger upon them with some fondness. "To me, she seems carved out of an Hellenic stillness."

Laurence Ogle leaned toward him warningly. "Sh!" And Macklyn, turning his head, beheld the Hellenic lady and the young Hyacinthe just emerged from the passageway near by. She paused within a few feet of the hushed young men, who, gazing up at her covertly, felt that the poet's phrase for her was justified and Hellenic stillness realized before their eyes. Her lengthiness had no stoop in it at the smoothly carved still shoulders, which were strapped with jet and silver; her head was poised as a tall king's should be, and the long figure of black and silver was a masterpiece of assured motionlessness.

"It's as if some overwhelming great work of art had suddenly been brought into the room," Macklyn said in a low voice to Ogle. "Nothing else seems to have any real existence here, now she's come. I wish I were going to Algeria, as you are. She lives there."

"How do you know?"

Macklyn nodded his head toward a twinkling scarf of mesh and heavy silverwork hanging upon the