"About us were some of those Englishwomen, who, living in a country of extreme cold and heat, have complexions only comparable to snow aglow with the light of the setting sun. She was not the most beautiful woman present, far from it, and it can scarcely be said that she was beautiful at all. I know another woman who could much better bear comparison--with the contrast of her black eyes and childlike hair. But one discovers her charm gradually. She is like those waters, whose clearness is at first doubted, because one cannot see to the depths. Her face, for instance, which is less youthful than her body, has a very mobile expression. In repose it shows the thirty years which she must have reached. Then the drooping corners of the lips, the bluish circle which accentuates the sad look in her eyes, the little wrinkles at the meeting of the eyebrows tell of years of struggle, of cares, of years of which I know nothing, but yet can imagine. When she is animated--she was talking to me of my 'Life of Beethoven'--those indications of despair smooth out and are forgotten. The amber complexion colors lightly, and in her eyes I too see golden points, little lights which are not the reflection of the lamp light--but come from a fire within. Finally, her voice, with its deep tone, to which a slight English accent has given a more singing inflection and which lingers delicately on the French words, as if, not having used them for some time, she hesitates to say them, that unusual voice accompanies the words like soft music, and leaves a greater impression on the memory. "Official receptions give opportunity to be alone in the noise of the crowd, as in the silence of a wood. "There comes a time when all the places in our hearts seem to be completely filled. One cannot welcome a new face, even that of a woman, without a little wonder, and the discomfort of useless confusion. But when we find again after some years, someone whose real worth we had never suspected, and who was merely congenial, the discovery of that person, added to the attraction of newness, has the advantage of recalling our youthful past, sharing a common interest. "It seems to me that I discover Mlle. de Sézery in this way. "When she was ready to go I offered--at all hazards--to escort her home.