Отрывок из книги
Frances Fenwick Williams
Published by Good Press, 2021
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This young lady had dropped in at the time the chapter opens, for a cup of tea, in accordance with a long-deferred promise. As she sank into an easy-chair and loosened her furs she smiled at Agatha with a smile which held no tinge of envy. For Lynn, while cherishing in common with many plain women an enthusiastic admiration for beauty, enjoyed it in much the same way that she enjoyed music; intensely, even emotionally, but impersonally. Notwithstanding, she attached an exaggerated importance to it and affected her small cousin more than she otherwise might have done because she possessed it in such unstinted measure.
As she sat, idly watching Agatha's white fingers moving through the pink draperies of the gown which she was embroidering, the thought of Leo Ricossia occurred to her and she mentally compared them. Both were beautiful to an extraordinary degree; but Agatha's beauty suggested roses, kittens, Cupids, everything that was soft and appealing, exquisite and empty, while Ricossia's beauty suggested storm, flaming sunset, glorious music. His was, in short, the beauty of a young caged tiger, Agatha's the loveliness of a very perfect white Persian kitten. Lynn laughed as this simile presented itself to her mind; it seemed to her singularly apropos. What different worlds they inhabited, these two radiant young creatures! Ricossia represented the pagan element, Agatha was the last word of civilized young-ladyship. The world was wide enough to contain both; nay, this little, stately old city was wide enough for that. They lived within an hour's distance of one another, as far asunder in thought, life, knowledge, ideals as is this little earth from "the last star's uttermost distance."
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