eBooks Base 2000

That, as she now perceived, was altogether
superfluous. Henrietta enthralled her eyes, enthralled her affection. She
longed to protect, to serve her, to stand between her and every rough
wind which blew, because she was so pretty, so extraordinarily and
completely civilized from head to foot.
No doubt in the generosity of her youthful inexperience Damaris
exaggerated the lady's personal charm. Yet the dozen years
intervening--since their last meeting--had, in truth, dealt mercifully
with the latter's good looks. A trifle pinched, a trifle faded she might
be, as compared with the Henrietta of twelve years ago; but immediately
such damage, such wear and tear of the fleshly garment, showed at its
least conspicuous. She negotiated the double encounter, as Carteret had
noted, with admirable sang-froid; but not, as to the first one in any
case, without considerably greater inward commotion than he gave her
credit for. She was in fact keyed up by it, excited, taken out of herself
to an unprecedented extent, her native optimism and egoism in singular
disarray.


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