"
Over my breakfast I studied the handwriting of her note. It might indeed
have served for an index to so much of her character as had become
apparent to me. The crisp, clear formation of the letters, the bold
curves and angular terminations, seemed to denote a personality free from
all feminine weaknesses. I was reminded at once of the unfaltering gaze
of her deep blue eyes, of the chill precision of her words and manner. I
asked myself, then, why a character so free, apparently, from all the
lovable traits of her sex, should have proved so attractive to me. I had
known other beautiful women, I was not untravelled, and I had met women
in Paris and Vienna who also possessed the more subtle charms of perfect
toilet and manners, and were free from the somewhat hopeless obviousness
of most of the women of our country. There was something beneath all
that. At the moment, I could not tell what it was. I simply realized
that, for the first time, a woman stood easily first in my life, that my
whole outlook upon the world was undermined.
Just as I was leaving the hotel, I saw her maid coming down the hall with
a note in her hand.
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