Page:A Nameless Nobleman.djvu/26

a just-defined thunder-cloud; her great lustrous eyes full of slumberous passion, full of the joy of happy girlhood, full of pride and courage, and with a power of pathos nascent in their depths which the birds and the butterflies and the roses had never yet seen called out, had never demanded or dreamed of. But her mouth! there was perhaps the keystone of Valerie s beauty. Yes, the petals of the roses were velvety, and pulsating with fire, were of a color impossible to define or reproduce, were fragrant, and delicious to the touch; but the rose-leaves were not alive, they did not curve, and pout, and suddenly part in dazzling smiles above little pearls of teeth: they were not the lips of Valerie, nor could they by movement produce those little wells of mirth and caresses, and possible tears, the fosscttes, the dimples which came and went as Valerie smiled. It was after all the mouth, Francois said to himself as he stood gazing at her while she played with El Moro her Spanish greyhound, forcing him to eat the purple and amber grapes she pulled from the vine above her head, while she sat throned upon a seat formed in the lowest branches of an oak near the borders of the garden. Flecks of sunlight pierced the foliage and lay like golden ornaments upon the whiteness of her dress, glowed in the ruby bracelet upon her arm, and lighted the dusky masses of her hair to purple sheen. Yes, it was her mouth, that mouth whose coy kisses had grown so rare within the last year, but had become so much more precious than the soulless caresses of childhood. Last night, when they quarrelled and were reconciled, she kissed him twice, and—