Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/207

199 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 199 mild-faced women, with a kind of business-like modesty, to which the impersonal aspect of their stiffened linen and inexpress- ive serge gave an advantage. One of them, a person of a cer- tain age, in spectacles, with a fresh complexion and a full cheek, had a more discriminating manner than her colleague, and had evidently the responsibility of their errand, which apparently related to the young girl. This young lady wore her hat a coiffure of extreme simplicity, which was not at variance with a plain muslin gown, too short for the wearer, though it must already have been " let out." The gentleman who might have been supposed to -be entertaining the two nuns was perhaps conscious of the difficulties of his function ; to entertain a nun is, in fact, a sufficiently delicate operation. At the same time he was plainly much interested in his youthful companion, and while she turned her back to him his eyes rested gravely upon her slim, small figure. He was a man of forty, with a well-shaped head, upon which the hair, still dense, but prema- turely grizzled, had been cropped close. He had a thin, delicate, sharply-cut face, of which the only fault was that it looked too pointed ; an appearance to which the shape of his beard contri- buted not a little. This beard, cut in the manner of the por- traits of the sixteenth century and surmounted by a fair mous- tache, of which the ends had a picturesque upward flourish, gave its wearer a somewhat foreign, traditionary look, and suggested that he was a gentleman who studied effect. His luminous intelligent eye, an eye which expressed both softness and keen- ness the nature of the observer as well as of the dreamer would have assured you, however, that he studied it only within well-chosen limits, and that in so far as he sought it he found it. You would have been much at a loss to determine his national- ity ; he had none of the superficial signs that usually render the answer to this question an insipidly easy one. If he had Eng- lish blood in his veins, it had probably received some French or Italian commixture ; he was one of those persons who, in the matter of race, may, as the phrase is, pass for anything. He had a light, lean, lazy-looking figure, and was apparently neither tall nor short. He was dressed as a man dresses who takes little trouble about it. " Well, my dear, what do you think of it ? " he asked of the young girl. He used the Italian tongue, and used it with perfect ease ; but this would not have convinced you that he was an Italian. The girl turned her head a little to one side and the other. " It is very pretty, papa. Did you make it yourself ? "