The Huguenot: A Tale of the French Protestants. Volumes I-IIIJames, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
General
The Huguenot: A Tale of the French Protestants. Volumes I-III
James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
Huguenots -- Fiction
"Just come round hither and look at him then," said Marsillac, moving
a little farther down, so as to give a fuller view into the other
room. "You know d'Evran's way of being in love; lying down upon a sofa
and playing with a feather fan, while the lady stands at the distance
of two yards from him, and he says more clever things to her in five
minutes than any body else can say in an hour. There he is doing it
even now."
The Count moved slowly into the place which Marsillac had left for
him, so as not to attract attention by flagrant examination of what
was going on, and then raised his eyes towards the part of the great
saloon at which the Prince had been looking. The group that they
lighted on was certainly in every respect a singular one. In the
centre of it stood or rather leaned beside a high-backed chair, in an
attitude of the most perfect grace that it is possible to conceive,
which could not have been studied, for there was ease and nature in
every line, a young lady, apparently of one or two and twenty years of
age, whose beauty was both of a very exquisite and a very singular
cast. It fully justified the description which had been given of it by
the Chevalier d'Evran; the eyes were deep deep blue, but fringed with
long and dark lashes, thickset but smooth, and sweeping in one even
graceful fringe. The lips were, indeed, twin roses; the complexion
delicately fair, and yet the face bearing in the cheek the warm hue of
undiminished health. Those lips, even when not speaking, were always a
little, a very little, parted, showing the bright pearl-like teeth
beneath; the brow was smooth and fair, and yet the eyebrow which
marked the exact line of the forehead above the eyes, changed, by the
slightest elevation or depression, the whole aspect of the countenance
with every passing emotion. With every change, too, the other features
harmonised, and there was a bright sparklingness about the face, even
at that distance, which made it, to the eyes of the Count, resemble a
lovely landscape in an early summer morning, where every thing seems
fresh life and brightness. The ear, too, which was slightly turned
towards them, was most beautiful; and the form, though the dress of
that day did not serve to expose it much, was seen swelling through
the drapery in every line of exquisite beauty. The hand, the arm, the
foot, the neck and throat, were all perfect as any sculptor could have
desired to model; and the whole, with the grace of the attitude and
the beauty of the expression, formed an object that one might have
well wished to look at for long hours.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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