We take the beauty of their faces, the softness of
their eyes, for the outward signs of tenderness and fidelity; and for
those supposed qualities, and others which their looks seem to express,
we love them. But they have not those qualities; they don't even know
what it is that we love them for; they think it is for the outward
beauty, and that that is enough. They don't even know what it is that we,
misled by that outward softness, imagine is beyond; and when we are
disappointed to find it isn't there, they wonder at us and blame us for
inconstancy. The beautiful woman who could be what she looks--who could
really contain what her beauty seems the token of--whose soul, in short,
could come up to the promise of her face,--there would be a creature!
You'll think I've had bad luck in love, too, Mr. Larcher."
Larcher was thinking, for the instant, about Edna Hill, and wondering
how near she might come to justifying Davenport's opinion of women. For
himself, though he found her bewitching, her prettiness had never seemed
the outward sign of excessive tenderness. He answered conventionally:
"Well, one _would_ suppose so from your remarks. Of course, women like
to be amused, I know. Perhaps we expect too much from them.
'Oh, woman in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made.'
I've sometimes had reason to recall those lines." Mr. Larcher sighed at
certain memories of Miss Hill's variableness.
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