Her shape was graceful; perhaps
there was a trace of self-consciousness in her changes of
movement, the one affectation that could be laid to her charge;
but everything about her was a part of her personality, from her
least little gesture to the peculiar turn of her phrases, the
demure glance of her eyes. Her great lady's grace, her most
striking characteristic, had not destroyed the very French quick
mobility of her person. There was an extraordinary fascination
in her swift, incessant changes of attitude. She seemed as if
she surely would be a most delicious mistress when her corset and
the encumbering costume of her part were laid aside. All the
rapture of love surely was latent in the freedom of her
expressive glances, in her caressing tones, in the charm of her
words. She gave glimpses of the high-born courtesan within her,
vainly protesting against the creeds of the duchess.
You might sit near her through an evening, she would be gay and
melancholy in turn, and her gaiety, like her sadness, seemed
spontaneous. She could be gracious, disdainful, insolent, or
confiding at will. Her apparent good nature was real; she had no
temptation to descend to malignity. But at each moment her mood
changed; she was full of confidence or craft; her moving
tenderness would give place to a heart-breaking hardness and
insensibility. Yet how paint her as she was, without bringing
together all the extremes of feminine nature? In a word, the
Duchess was anything that she wished to be or to seem.
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