Gheta has been a
little overemphasized.
"I wonder," she continued with glowing vivacity, "if you would allow
me--I assure you it would give me the greatest pleasure in the
world.... Your figure is a thousand times better than mine; but, thank
heaven, I'm still slender.... A little evening dress from Vienna! It
should really do you very well. Will you accept it from me? I'd like to
give you something, Lavinia; and it has never been out of its box."
She turned and was out of the room before Lavinia could reply. There
was no reason why she shouldn't take a present from Anna--Pier
Mantegazza and her father had been lifelong friends, and his wife was
an intimate of the Sanvianos. It would not, probably, be black. It
wasn't. Anna returned, followed by her maid, who bore carefully over
her arm a shimmering mass of glowing pink.
"Now!" Anna Mantegazza cried. "Your hair is very pretty, very original
--but hardly for a dress by Verlat. Sara!"
The maid moved quietly forward and directed an appraising gaze at
Lavinia. She was a flat-hipped Englishwoman, with a cleft chin and
enigmatic greenish eyes. "I see exactly, madame," she assured Anna; and
with her deft dry hands she took down Lavinia's laboriously arranged
hair.
She drew it back from the brow apparently as simply as before, twisted
it into a low knot slightly eccentric in shape, and recut a bang.
Lavinia's eyes seemed bluer, her delicate flush more elusive; the shape
of her face appeared changed, it was more pointed and had a new willful
charm.
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