The Golden Dog [83]
off her tall figure. Her arms, bare to the elbows, would have excited Juno's jealousy or Homer's verse to gather efforts in praise of them. Her dainty feet, shapely, aspiring, and full of character as her face, were carelessly thrust forward, and upon one of them lay a flossy spaniel, a privileged pet of his fair mistress.
The boudoir of Angelique was a nest of luxury and elegance. Its furnishings and adornings were of the newest Parisian style. A carpet woven in the pattern of a bed of flowers covered the floor. Vases of Sevres and Porcelein, filled with roses and jonquils, stood on marble tables. Grand Venetian mirrors reflected the fair form of their mistress from every point of view--who contemplated herself before and behind with a feeling of perfect satisfaction and sense of triumph over every rival.
A harpsichord occupied one corner of the room, and an elaborate bookcase, well-filled with splendidly bound volumes, another.
Angelique had small taste for reading, yet had made some acquaintance with the literature of the day. Her natural quick parts and good taste enabled her to shine, even in literary conversation. Her bright eyes looked volumes. Her silvery laugh was wiser than the wisdom of a precieuse. Her witty repartees covered acres of deficiencies with so much grace and tact that men were tempted to praise her knowledge no less than her beauty.
She had a keen eye for artistic effects. She loved painting, although her taste was sensuous and voluptuous--character is shown in the choice of pictures as much as in that of books or of companions.
There was a painting of Vanloo--a lot of full-blooded horses in a field of clover; they had broken fence, and were luxuriating in the rich, forbidden pasture. The triumph of Cleopatra over Antony, by Le Brun, was a great favorite with Angelique, because of a fancied, if not a real, resemblance between her own features and those of the famous Queen of Egypt. Portraits of favorite friends, one of them Le Gardeur de Repentigny, and a still more recent acquisition, that of the Intendant Bigot, adorned the walls, and among them was one distinguished for its contrast to all the rest--the likeness, in the garb of an Ursuline, of her beautiful Aunt Marie des Meloises, who, in a fit of caprice some years before, had suddenly forsaken the world of fashion, and retired to a convent.
The proud beauty threw back her thick golden tresses as she scanned her fair face and magnificent figure in the tall Venetian mirror. She drank the intoxicating cup of self-flattery to the bottom as she compared herself, feature by feature, with every beautiful woman she knew in New France. The longer she looked the more she felt the superiority of her own charms over them all. Even the portrait of her aunt, so like her in feature, so different in expression, was glanced at with something like triumph spiced with content.
"She was handsome as I!" cried Angelique. "She was fit to be a queen, and made herself a nun--and all for the sake of a man! I am fit to be a queen too, and the man who raises me nighest to a queen's estate gets my hand! My heart?" she paused a few moments. "Pshaw!" A slight quiver passed over her lips. "My heart must do penance for the fault of my hand!"
Petrified by vanity and saturated with ambition, Angelique retained under the hard crust of selfishness a solitary spark of womanly feeling. The handsome face and figure of Le Gardeur de Repentigny was her beau-ideal of manly perfection. His admiration flattered her pride. His love, for she knew infallibly, with a woman's instinct, that he loved her, touched her into a tenderness such as she felt for no man besides. It was the nearest approach to love her nature was capable of, and she used to listen to him with more than complacency, while she let her hand linger in his warm clasp while the electric fire passed from one to another and she looked into his eyes, and spoke to him in those sweet undertones that win man's hearts to woman's purposes.
She believed she loved Le Gardeur; but there
The boudoir of Angelique was a nest of luxury and elegance. Its furnishings and adornings were of the newest Parisian style. A carpet woven in the pattern of a bed of flowers covered the floor. Vases of Sevres and Porcelein, filled with roses and jonquils, stood on marble tables. Grand Venetian mirrors reflected the fair form of their mistress from every point of view--who contemplated herself before and behind with a feeling of perfect satisfaction and sense of triumph over every rival.
A harpsichord occupied one corner of the room, and an elaborate bookcase, well-filled with splendidly bound volumes, another.
Angelique had small taste for reading, yet had made some acquaintance with the literature of the day. Her natural quick parts and good taste enabled her to shine, even in literary conversation. Her bright eyes looked volumes. Her silvery laugh was wiser than the wisdom of a precieuse. Her witty repartees covered acres of deficiencies with so much grace and tact that men were tempted to praise her knowledge no less than her beauty.
She had a keen eye for artistic effects. She loved painting, although her taste was sensuous and voluptuous--character is shown in the choice of pictures as much as in that of books or of companions.
There was a painting of Vanloo--a lot of full-blooded horses in a field of clover; they had broken fence, and were luxuriating in the rich, forbidden pasture. The triumph of Cleopatra over Antony, by Le Brun, was a great favorite with Angelique, because of a fancied, if not a real, resemblance between her own features and those of the famous Queen of Egypt. Portraits of favorite friends, one of them Le Gardeur de Repentigny, and a still more recent acquisition, that of the Intendant Bigot, adorned the walls, and among them was one distinguished for its contrast to all the rest--the likeness, in the garb of an Ursuline, of her beautiful Aunt Marie des Meloises, who, in a fit of caprice some years before, had suddenly forsaken the world of fashion, and retired to a convent.
The proud beauty threw back her thick golden tresses as she scanned her fair face and magnificent figure in the tall Venetian mirror. She drank the intoxicating cup of self-flattery to the bottom as she compared herself, feature by feature, with every beautiful woman she knew in New France. The longer she looked the more she felt the superiority of her own charms over them all. Even the portrait of her aunt, so like her in feature, so different in expression, was glanced at with something like triumph spiced with content.
"She was handsome as I!" cried Angelique. "She was fit to be a queen, and made herself a nun--and all for the sake of a man! I am fit to be a queen too, and the man who raises me nighest to a queen's estate gets my hand! My heart?" she paused a few moments. "Pshaw!" A slight quiver passed over her lips. "My heart must do penance for the fault of my hand!"
Petrified by vanity and saturated with ambition, Angelique retained under the hard crust of selfishness a solitary spark of womanly feeling. The handsome face and figure of Le Gardeur de Repentigny was her beau-ideal of manly perfection. His admiration flattered her pride. His love, for she knew infallibly, with a woman's instinct, that he loved her, touched her into a tenderness such as she felt for no man besides. It was the nearest approach to love her nature was capable of, and she used to listen to him with more than complacency, while she let her hand linger in his warm clasp while the electric fire passed from one to another and she looked into his eyes, and spoke to him in those sweet undertones that win man's hearts to woman's purposes.
She believed she loved Le Gardeur; but there