How lovely One I love not, looked to-night! She’s very pretty, Lady Waldemar. Her maid must use both hands to twist that coil Of tresses, then be careful lest the rich Bronze rounds should slip:—she missed, though, a grey hair, A single one,—I saw it; otherwise The woman looked immortal. How they told, Those alabaster shoulders and bare breasts, On which the pearls, drowned out of sight in milk, Were lost, excepting for the ruby-clasp! They split the amaranth velvet-boddice down To the waist, or nearly, with the audacious press Of full-breathed beauty. If the heart within Were half as white!—but, if it were, perhaps The breast were closer covered, and the sight Less aspectable, by half, too. I heard The young man with the German student’s look— A sharp face, like a knife in a cleft stick, Which shot up straight against the parting line So equally dividing the long hair,— Say softly to his neighbour, (thirty-five And mediæval) ‘Look that way, Sir Blaise. She’s Lady Waldemar—to the left,—in red— Whom Romney Leigh, our ablest man just now, Is soon about to marry.’ Then replied Sir Blaise Delorme, with quiet, priestlike voice, Too used to syllable damnations round To make a natural emphasis worth while: ‘Is Leigh your ablest man? the same, I think, Once jilted by a recreant pretty maid Adopted from the people? Now, in change, He seems to have plucked a flower from the other side Of the social hedge,’ ‘A flower, a flower,’ exclaimed My German student,—his own eyes full-blown Bent on her. He was twenty, certainly. Sir Blaise resumed with gentle arrogance, As if he had dropped his alms into a hat, And had the right to counsel,—‘My young friend, I doubt your ablest man’s ability To get the least good or help meet for him, For pagan phalanstery or Christian home, From such a flowery creature,’ ‘Beautiful!’ My student murmured, rapt,—‘Mark how she stirs! Just waves her head, as if a flower indeed, Touched far off by the vain breath of our talk.’