Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-12-08
TOWARD THE MIST.

made up fer an excessive sense OF her own
sex by being true to all her indiscretions.
If she had heard this, she would have
said, "Any little thing like that"-a de-
risive phrase she applied equallyto a para
dox or a powder puff, accompanying the
remark with a glinting smile, the ingre-
dents of which have puzzled even scien-
fists. l have studied that smile long and
earnestly, with a view to imitation, but l
was fain in the end to confess it too subtle
for me. There was q white glitter of
teeth, a delicious curling of the lips, a
twitch Of the eyelashes and your heart was
gone from you. She has mine yet. l be-
lieve 1 am the only woman who ever loved
her-perhaps because it was given only to
ME to see that other side to her soul which
Browning says we all possess. met her
first on board the Scot, when we were
both OH our way to Mashonaland homes
she to join her husband in Salisbury
and I to spend a lone season of time with
my two brothers in the same town.
She had a manicure box, with dainty
silver instruments Nesting in soft sky
velvet, and the finger nails of those few
upon whom she bestowed her friendship
she would pinken and beautify, sitting on
the deck meath a glory of white canvas,
with the sunlight dancing among her and
romping with the rings on her fingers,
while the other women sat alone and made
audible and insolent remarks about people
who performed their toilet in public.
She always wore ravishing frocks, was
never seasick and looked at the
through her eyelashes in a peculiarly ag-
gravating way which commended itself to
me, They hated her, but 1T welded an in
dissoluble bond between us. She had Gull
tivated what De Quincy called the luxury
of contempt, and would curl q woman up
with one eye and with the corne of her
mouth make man wish he had never been
born. She did not, like SO many retired &C.
tresses, mako a parade of her immense and
intense responsibility, but she kept certain
moods for certain people. For the starch
ed wives of civic magnates and such she
kept a droop of the lower lip and a limpid,
inquiring eye, answering all remarks with
an idiotic but perfectly well bred, ION,
yes!' or rather, ION, 'as!' giving the i'm
preston that she had been born dull,
which was exactly what it was meant to
do. Then she complained to me after
ward that they had not laughed in her
face.
"You are the only woman In Mashona-
land with any sense of humor, Peter, -
she would say, ''and ! believe you are a
boy"
For the frisky, horsy woman visitor
who goes to make up the queer mixture
called society in that far country she had
the same inquiring gaze, but her speech
was embellished with a lisp. eyes, we
have watts dwedful," I heard her replying
to q lady of this description who was com-
. planning in a strident voice of the rat and
mice nuisance, and she twiddled her hands
and twitched her hands like a shy baby.
But enter one of the circle of men she was
pleased to call her friends, and in which I
also was included, and she Immediately
became most s'sweet and sufficient" a
vivid and original personality. She lee
tured everybody on their love affairs, be-
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