Their regard presently fixed upon one company which
monopolized a whole table, and were defined from the other diners by
peculiarities as marked as those of the Soeurs Grises themselves. There
were only two men among some eight or ten women; one of the former had a
bad amiable face, with eyes full of a merry deviltry; the other, clean.
shaven, and dark, was demure and silent as a priest. The ladies were of
various types, but of one effect, with large rolling eyes, and faces that
somehow regarded the beholder as from a distance, and with an impartial
feeling for him as for an element of publicity. One of them, who caressed
a lapdog with one hand while she served herself with the other, was, as
she seemed to believe, a blonde; she had pale blue eyes, and her hair was
cut in front so as to cover her forehead with a straggling sandy-colored
fringe. She had an English look, and three or four others, with dark
complexion and black, unsteady eyes, and various abandon of back-hair,
looked like Cockney houris of Jewish blood; while two of the lovely
company were clearly of our own nation, as was the young man with the
reckless laughing face. The ladies were dressed and jeweled with a kind
of broad effectiveness, which was to the ordinary style of society what
scene-painting is to painting, and might have borne close inspection no
better.
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