Page 521 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

now through his eyes we shall at first not see much to re-
mind us of the obedient little girl who, at Florence, three
years before, was sent to walk short distances in the Cas-
cine while her father and Miss Archer talked together of
matters sacred to elder people. But after a moment we shall
perceive that if at nineteen Pansy has become a young lady
she doesn’t really fill out the part; that if she has grown very
pretty she lacks in a deplorable degree the quality known
and esteemed in the appearance of females as style; and that
if she is dressed with great freshness she wears her smart
attire with an undisguised appearance of saving it-very
much as if it were lent her for the occasion. Edward Ros-
ier, it would seem, would have been just the man to note
these defects; and in point of fact there was not a quality of
this young lady, of any sort, that he had not noted. Only he
called her qualities by names of his own-some of which in-
deed were happy enough. ‘No, she’s unique-she’s absolutely
unique,’ he used to say to himself; and you may be sure that
not for an instant would he have admitted to you that she
was wanting in style. Style? Why, she had the style of a little
princess; if you couldn’t see it you had no eye. It was not
modern, it was not conscious, it would produce no impres-
sion in Broadway; the small, serious damsel, in her stiff little
dress, only looked like an Infanta of Velasquez. This was
enough for Edward Rosier, who thought her delightfully
old-fashioned. Her anxious eyes, her charming lips, her slip
of a figure, were as touching as a childish prayer. He had
now an acute desire to know just to what point she liked
him-a desire which made him fidget as he sat in his chair.

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