How had she solved in
such short space the Jesuitical problem how to display a bosom whiter
than her soul by hiding it in gauze? How could she look so ethereal
while her eyes drooped so murderously? Those almost wanton glances
seemed to give promise of untold languorous delight, while by an
ascetic's sigh of aspiration after a better life the mouth appeared to
add that none of those promises would be fulfilled. Ingenuous youths
(for there were a few to be found in the Guards of that day) privately
wondered whether, in the most intimate moments, it were possible to
speak familiarly to this White Lady, this starry vapor slidden down
from the Milky Way. This system, which answered completely for some
years at a stretch, was turned to good account by women of fashion,
whose breasts were lined with a stout philosophy, for they could cloak
no inconsiderable exactions with these little airs from the sacristy.
Not one of the celestial creatures but was quite well aware of the
possibilities of less ethereal love which lay in the longing of every
well-conditioned male to recall such beings to earth. It was a fashion
which permitted them to abide in a semi-religious, semi-Ossianic
empyrean; they could, and did, ignore all the practical details of
daily life, a short and easy method of disposing of many questions.
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