One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
herself, using the very emphasis, was quaint. She could feel
rapture; but her features and limbs were in motion to designate
it, between simply and wilfully; she had the instinct to
be dimpling, and would not for a moment control it, and
delighted in its effectiveness: only when observing that winged
sparkle of eyes did an idea of envy, hardly a consciousness,
inform her of being surpassed; and it might be in the capacity
to feel besides the gift to express. Such a reflection relating
to a man, will make women mortally sensible that they
are the feminine of him.
‘His girl has the look,’ Fenellan said in answer.
She cast a glance at Nesta, then at Nataly.
And it was true, that the figure of a mother, not pretending
to the father’s vividness, eclipsed it somewhat in their
child. The mother gave richness of tones, hues and voice,
and stature likewise, and the thick brown locks, which in
her own were threads of gold along the brush from the
temples: she gave the girl a certain degree of the composure
of manner which Victor could not have bestowed; she gave
nothing to clash with his genial temper; she might be supposed
to have given various qualities, moral if you like. But
vividness was Lady Grace’s admirable meteor of the hour:
she was unable to perceive, so as to compute, the value of
obscurer lights. Under the charm of Nataly’s rich contralto
during a duet with Priscilla Graves, she gesticulated ecstasies,
and uttered them, and genuinely; and still, when reduced
to meditations, they would have had no weight, they
would hardly have seemed an apology for language, beside
Victor’s gaze of pleasure in the noble forthroll of the notes.
Nataly heard the invitation of the guests of the evening to
Lakelands next day.
Her anxieties were at once running about to gather provisions
for the baskets. She spoke of them at night. But Victor
had already put the matter in the hands of Madame Callet;
and all that could be done, would be done by Armandine,
he knew. ‘If she can’t muster enough at home, she’ll be off to
her Piccadilly shop by seven A.M. Count on plenty for twice
the number.’
Nataly was reposing on the thought that they were her
friends, when Victor mentioned his having in the afternoon
despatched a note to his relatives, the Duvidney ladies, inviting
them to join him at the station to-morrow, for a visit
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