evening dress, full-figure. She was represented as descending a staircase; one foot, therefore, was poised below the other. Her robe was partially concealed by a brocaded velvet evening cape, bordered with broad bands of sable, but her throat, and her left arm to the elbow, were exposed. He scanned the tattooed arm. Often, in curiosity, he had stared at this arm, but he had refrained from questioning her concerning it. Never, indeed, had he asked her any personal questions, and she had, he reflected, imparted comparatively little information about herself save that she had loathed her husband. Gareth recalled how long it had been since the death of Nattatorrini. Since then, the boy was convinced, she must have experienced love, once, twice, perhaps many times. In spite of her reservations, there had been nothing awkward or amateurish about her approach. She had, he was assured, none of the silly reticences, silly, certainly, in a woman of middle-age, of Madame Walter. She would have, he knew, whatever happened, no vain regrets. She was not a foolish female diving at the last possible moment into a sea of passion in which she had hitherto refrained from even wetting her feet; of that he felt quite positive. No, her photographed face told him in this respect more even than he had derived from personal contact with her. It was the face of a woman who had never denied herself satisfaction of any nature whatever; God, in turn, had done his part, sending a
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