For it was Ida who stood before him; no counterfeit of the painter now,
but radiant with life.
Her costume was exactly that of her picture, white, with a low bodice;
but how utterly had the artist failed to reproduce the ravishing contours
of her young form, the enchanting sweetness of her expression. The golden
hair fell in luxuriant tresses about the face and down the dazzling
shoulders. The lips were parted in a pleased smile as, with a gliding
motion, she approached the rapt watchers.
Her eyes rested on Miss Ludington with a look full of recognition and a
tenderness that seemed beyond the power of mortal eyes to express.
Then she looked at Paul. Her smile was no longer the smile of an angel,
but of a woman. The light of her violet eyes burned like delicious flame
to the marrow of his bones.
She was so near him that he could have touched her. Her beauty overcame
his senses. Forgetting all else, in an agony of love, he was about to
clasp her in his arms, but she drew back with a gentle gesture of denial.
Then a sudden and indescribable wavering passed over her face, like the
passing of the wind over a field of rye, and slowly, as if reluctantly
obeying an unseen attraction, she retreated, still facing them, across
the room, and disappeared within the cabinet.
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