DOI Artikel:
Cross, Victoria: Theodora: a fragment
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21805#0177
By Victoria Cross 173
insisted that the god’s deficiencies in this respect were not more
striking than the objects in flesh-tints, hung at the Academy, that
Theodora viewed every season.
cc Perhaps not,” he answered. “But this is not in pink and
white, and hung on the Academy walls for the public to Stare at,
and therefore you can’t let her see it.”
This was unanswerable. I yielded, and the monkey-god was
wheeled under a side-table out of view.
Every shelf and stand and table had been pressed into the
Service, and my rooms had the appearance of a corner in an
Egyptian bazaar, now when we had finished our preparations.
“ There they are,” said Digby, as Mrs. Long’s victoria came
in sight.
Theodora was leaning back beside her sister, and it Struck me
then how representative she looked, as it were, of herseif and her
Position. From where we stood we could see down • into the
victoria, as it drew up at our door. Her knees were crossed.
under the blue carriage-rug, on the edge of which rested her two
small pale-gloved hands. A velvet jacket, that fitted her as its
skin fits the grape, showed us her magnificent shoulders, and the
long easy slope of her figure to the small waist. On her head, in
the least turn of which lay the acme of distinction, amongst the
black glossy masses of her hair, sat a small hat in vermilion velvet,
made to resemble the Turkish fez. As the carriage stopped, she
glanced up ; and a brilliant smile swept over her face, as she
bowed slightly to us at the window. The handsome painted
eyes, the naturally scarlet lips, the pallor of the oval face, and each
well-trained movement of the distinguished figure, as she rose
and stepped from the carriage, were noted and watched by our
four critical eyes.
“ A typical product of our nineteenth-century civilisation,” I
said,
insisted that the god’s deficiencies in this respect were not more
striking than the objects in flesh-tints, hung at the Academy, that
Theodora viewed every season.
cc Perhaps not,” he answered. “But this is not in pink and
white, and hung on the Academy walls for the public to Stare at,
and therefore you can’t let her see it.”
This was unanswerable. I yielded, and the monkey-god was
wheeled under a side-table out of view.
Every shelf and stand and table had been pressed into the
Service, and my rooms had the appearance of a corner in an
Egyptian bazaar, now when we had finished our preparations.
“ There they are,” said Digby, as Mrs. Long’s victoria came
in sight.
Theodora was leaning back beside her sister, and it Struck me
then how representative she looked, as it were, of herseif and her
Position. From where we stood we could see down • into the
victoria, as it drew up at our door. Her knees were crossed.
under the blue carriage-rug, on the edge of which rested her two
small pale-gloved hands. A velvet jacket, that fitted her as its
skin fits the grape, showed us her magnificent shoulders, and the
long easy slope of her figure to the small waist. On her head, in
the least turn of which lay the acme of distinction, amongst the
black glossy masses of her hair, sat a small hat in vermilion velvet,
made to resemble the Turkish fez. As the carriage stopped, she
glanced up ; and a brilliant smile swept over her face, as she
bowed slightly to us at the window. The handsome painted
eyes, the naturally scarlet lips, the pallor of the oval face, and each
well-trained movement of the distinguished figure, as she rose
and stepped from the carriage, were noted and watched by our
four critical eyes.
“ A typical product of our nineteenth-century civilisation,” I
said,