She made a surprising discovery when the girl, with a friendly pat on
the sofa beside her, for an invitation to her to sit down, began
answering her question. She was a real beauty. Or, more accurately, she
possessed the constituent qualities of beauty. She was pure English
eighteenth century; might have stepped down out of a Gainsborough
portrait. Dressed right, and made up a little, with her effects
legitimately heightened (and warned not to speak), she could have gone
to the Charity Ball as the Honorable Mrs. Graham, and Bertie Willis
would have gone mad about her. Only you had to look twice at her to
perceive that this was so; and what she lacked was just the unanalyzable
quality that makes one look twice.
Her speaking voice would have driven Bertie mad, too--foaming, biting
mad. It was disconcertingly loud, in the first place, and it came
out upon the promontories of speech with a flat whang that fairly
made you jump. Its undulations of pitch gave you something the same
sensation as riding rapidly over a worn-out asphalt pavement in a
five-hundred-dollar automobile; unforeseen springs into the air,
descents into unexpected pits.
Pages:
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453