As Tarlyon talked to her she turned her face towards him, and of this I took advantage to stare at her face bit by bit. The perfection of that face was a challenge to a right-thinking man. “It is too small,” I thought. But it was not too small. “It is too white,” I thought. But it was not too white. For quite a long time I could not wrench my eyes away from those flashing teeth and scarlet curling lips--they fascinated me. Her face was white, the gardenia in her hair looked almost yellow beside the whiteness of Diavalen’s face; and I thought to myself that that white complexion was a considerable achievement, for I was sure her skin underneath was faintly, deliciously brown. It was a small face. It was a decoration, enchanting and unreal. And in the decoration were painted in luminous paint two large black eyes; the eyelashes swept over them, often she half closed them--they were very lazy black eyes; and deep in them there was a sheen, as of a reflection of distant fire. I did not like the lady’s eyes very much, I don’t know why. But as to that sleek black hair in which lay a gardenia like a light in silken darkness--you felt that you simply must run your hand over that hair to see if it was as beautifully sleek and silky as it looked, and you wouldn’t have minded betting that it was. She was the most strangely lovely woman I have ever seen. And she was the most silent. Even Tarlyon was at last baffled by the silence of Diavalen. A silence fell. The teeth flashed at me, and I was just about to say something to her when Antony’s voice hit the drum of my ear and I dropped my fork. “I shouldn’t trouble,” said Antony. “She’s dumb.” That is why I dropped my fork. The servant picked it up and gave me another. I made a considerable business of it, and then I ate furiously. Red Antony, vile Antony! I didn’t look at Tarlyon. He was furious, I knew. He was a man who did not take a very liberal view of jokes like that. But the worst of Antony was that he didn’t care what view any one took; he just said the first thing that came into his great red head. If the dinner, which was excellent as to food and wine, had been a frost before, it was, naturally, not a howling success after that. The only thing to do was to pretend that Antony had not spoken. It seemed too silly to say to the lovely Creole: “Oh, I’m _so_ sorry!” Poor Diavalen! But I couldn’t pretend, I simply could not find anything to say which didn’t need an answer. Just try being suddenly planted with a dumb woman and see if conversation flows naturally from you.