He was
one. The city, with its high, narrow streets--granite tunnels; its rude
reverberations; its colourless, toiling barbarians, with their
undistinguished physiognomies, their uncouth indifference to art,--he
did not deny that he loathed this nation, vibrating only in the presence
of money, sports, grimy ward politics, while exhibiting a depressing
snobbery to things British. There was no _nuance_ in its life or its
literature, he asserted. France was his _patrie psychique_; he would
return there some day and forever....
The iris crept under his nostrils, and again he regarded the woman. This
time she faced him, and he no longer wondered, for he saw her eyes.
With such eyes only a great soul could be imprisoned in her brain. They
were smoke-gray, with long, dark lashes, and they did not seem to focus
perfectly--at least there was enough deflection to make their expression
odd, withal interesting, like the slow droop of Eleonora Duse's magic
eye. Though her features were rigid, the woman's glance spoke to Baldur,
spoke eloquently. Her eyes were--or was it the iris?--symbols of a
soul-state, of a rare emotion, not of sex, nor yet sexless.
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