Meanwhile Cornelia, having said a few words to her father to excuse
Bressant's unceremonious departure--she refrained instinctively from
letting him know what had actually taken place--bade him good-night, and
went up-stairs with a more sober step than was her wont. She tapped at
Sophie's door, and stayed just long enough to make the necessary
arrangements for the night. Sophie, being drowsy, asked but few
questions, and received brief replies. When Cornelia reached her own
room, she closed the door with a feeling of relief. It had never been
her habit to fasten her door; but to-night, after advancing a few paces
into the chamber, she hesitated, turned back, and drew the bolt. Then,
having hastily pulled down the curtains, she seemed for the first time
to be free from a sensation of restraint.
She walked up to the dressing-table, which was covered with a disorderly
medley of a young lady's toilet articles--comb and brush, a paper of
pins, ribbons, a brooch, little vase for rings, an open purse, a soiled
handkerchief--and began mechanically to undo her hair, and shake out the
braids. It was dark-brown hair, not soft and delicately fine like
Sophie's, but vigorous and crisp, each hair seeming to be distinct, and
yet harmonizing with the rest. As it was loosened and fell voluminously
spreading over her shoulders, she paused, resting against the table, and
looked at her face in the glass with critical earnestness. The candle,
standing at one side of the mirror, cast soft and deep shadows beneath
the darkly-defined eyebrows, and against the straight line of the nose,
and around the clear, short curves of the mouth and upper lip. The light
rested tenderly on her firm, oval cheeks, so deep-toned, yet pale, and
brought out an almost invisible dimple on each cheek-bone beneath the
eye, usually only to be distinguished when she laughed or smiled. The
forehead, so far as it could be seen beneath the hair, was smooth and
straight, neither high nor especially wide. The ears were small and
white, but rather too much cut away below to be in perfect proportion.
Over all seemed spread a mellow, rich, transparent, laughing medium,
that was better than beauty, and without which beauty would have seemed
cold and tame, or at least passionless. There was a delicate mystery in
the face, too, not conscious or self-woven, but of that impalpable and
involuntary sort which sometimes looks from the eyes of young unmarried
women, whose natures have developed sweetly and freely, without warping
or forcing. It has nothing to do with religion, nor with what we
commonly understand by spirit. It is not to be described or analyzed;
like the blue of heaven, it is the infinitely elusive property which is
the very secret and necessity of its existence.
Cornelia looked searchingly at this face, and, though much of its
subtlest charm must necessarily have been lost upon her, she saw a great
deal that gave her pleasure. She had never been subjected to that
awakening but coarsening process which teaches a girl to call herself a
beauty; but there is a certain amount of instinctive perception, in
these matters, and she could not but know that what had virtue to
gratify her would not lack in effect over others. Nor was she in the
habit of taking stock of herself in the looking-glass; only to-night she
seemed to have an especial motive in making or renewing her own
acquaintance.