"You speak God's truth," said I at last, "and you shall have your
own way, for it is the best way. Now, as a reward for such ready
consent, give me a voluntary kiss."
After some hesitation, natural to a novice in the art of kissing,
she brought her lips into very shy and gentle contact with my
forehead; I took the small gift as a loan, and repaid it
promptly, and with generous interest.
I know not whether Frances was really much altered since the time
I first saw her; but, as I looked at her now, I felt that she was
singularly changed for me; the sad eye, the pale cheek, the
dejected and joyless countenance I remembered as her early
attributes, were quite gone, and now I saw a face dressed in
graces; smile, dimple, and rosy tint, rounded its contours and
brightened its hues. I had been accustomed to nurse a flattering
idea that my strong attachment to her proved some particular
perspicacity in my nature; she was not handsome, she was not
rich, she was not even accomplished, yet was she my life's
treasure; I must then be a man of peculiar discernment. To-night
my eyes opened on the mistake I had made; I began to suspect that
it was only my tastes which were unique, not my power of
discovering and appreciating the superiority of moral worth over
physical charms. For me Frances had physical charms: in her
there was no deformity to get over; none of those prominent
defects of eyes, teeth, complexion, shape, which hold at bay the
admiration of the boldest male champions of intellect (for women
can love a downright ugly man if he be but talented); had she
been either "edentee, myope, rugueuse, ou bossue," my feelings
towards her might still have been kindly, but they could never
have been impassioned; I had affection for the poor little
misshapen Sylvie, but for her I could never have had love. It is
true Frances' mental points had been the first to interest me,
and they still retained the strongest hold on my preference; but
I liked the graces of her person too. I derived a pleasure,
purely material, from contemplating the clearness of her brown
eyes, the fairness of her fine skin, the purity of her well-set
teeth, the proportion of her delicate form; and that pleasure I
could ill have dispensed with. It appeared, then, that I too was
a sensualist, in my temperate and fastidious way.
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