Page:Creole Sketches.djvu/219

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SOME POSITIVE OPINIONS
189

nose a little less rugged, the eyes a little larger, the brows a little lighter? Then you have before you an idea of the dancer's face.

We sat and talked under the fig-tree. At least she talked; I listened under the steady gaze of her basilisk eyes. She seemed to speak all modern tongues fluently; had excited passion by her lithe grace and surpassing skill of limb-curving in half the capitals of Europe. She talked about Havana, Buenos Ayres, Valparaiso, Vera Cruz, Mexico City; described Spanish dances in a mocking way peculiar to herself, speaking all the while in a voice deep and sweet as the lower tone of some reed instrument. But the depth of the voice and its sweetness wrought an unpleasant effect upon the listener — such an effect as a wizard's music might have, luring to danger.

"I hate men," she said, with Italian ve-