She felt she must look very queer, indeed, and went to the mirror. What she saw there surprised her because it was so strange, so different. Pierre had not dealt in compliments. His woman was his woman and he loved her body. To praise this body, surrendered in love to him, would have been impossible to the reverence and reserve of his passion. Now, Joan brushed and coiled her hair, arranging it instinctively, but perhaps a little in imitation of that queer picture that had looked to her so hideous. Then, starting toward the door at Wen Ho's announcement of "Dinner, lady," she was quite suddenly overwhelmed by shyness. From head to foot for the first time in all her life she was acutely conscious of herself. CHAPTER XIII THE TRAINING OF A LEOPARDESS On that evening Prosper began to talk. The unnatural self-repression he had practiced gave way before the flood of his sociability. It was Joan's amazing beauty as she stumbled wretchedly into the circle of his firelight, her neck drawn up to its full length, her head crowned high with soft, black masses, her lids dropped under the weight of shyness, vivid fright in her distended pupils, scarlet in her cheeks,--Joan's beauty of long, strong lines draped to advantage for the first time in soft and clinging fabrics,--that touched the spring of Prosper's delighted egotism. There it was again, the ideal audience, the necessary atmosphere, the beautiful, gracious, intelligent listener. He forgot her ignorance, her utter simplicity, the unplumbed emptiness of her experience, and he spread out his colorful thoughts before her in colorful words, the mental plumage of civilized courtship. After dinner, now sipping from the small coffee cup in his hand, now setting it down to move excitedly about the room, he talked of his life, his book, his plans. He told anecdotes, strange adventures; he drew his own inverted morals; he sketched his fantastic opinions; he was in truth fascinating, a speaking face, a lithe, brilliant presence, a voice of edged persuasion. He turned witty phrases. Poor Joan! One sentence in ten she understood and answered with her slow smile and her quaint, murmured, "Well!" His eloquence did her at least the service of making her forget herself. She was rather crestfallen because he had not complimented her; his veiled look of appreciation, this coming to of his real self was too subtle a flattery for her perception. Nevertheless, his talk pleased her. She did not want to disappoint him, so she drew herself up straight in the big red-lacquered chair, sipped her coffee, in dainty imitation of him, gave him the full, deep tribute of her gaze, asked for no explanations and let the astounding statements he made, the amazing pictures he drew, cut their way indelibly into her most sensitive and preserving memory.