He saw her standing in the great doorway of the east wing where the
three steps led down on to the terrace. She stood on the topmost
step, poised for her descent, shaking her scarf loose to drift in a
white mist about her. Then she came down the terrace very slowly,
and the measured sweep of her limbs suggested that all her movements
would be accomplished to a large rhythm and with a superb delay.
Her effect (she had not missed it) was to be seen in all its wonder
and perfection on Laurence Furnival's face. Averted suddenly from
Mrs. Viveash, Furnival's face expressed the violence of his shock
and his excitement. It was clear that he had never seen anything
quite like Philippa Tarrant before, and that he found her incredibly
and ambiguously interesting. Ambiguously--no other word did justice
to the complexity of his facial expression. He did not know all at
once what to make of Philippa, and, from further and more furtive
manifestations of Furnival's, Straker gathered that the young man
was making something queer. He had a sort of sympathy with him, for
there had been moments when he himself had not known exactly what to
make. He doubted whether even Fanny Brocklebank (who certainly made
the best of her) had ever really known.
Whatever her inscrutable quality, this year she was, as Fanny had
said, more so than ever. She _was_ stupendous; and that although she
was not strictly speaking beautiful. She had no color in her white
face or in her black hair; she had no color but the morbid rose of
her mouth and the brown of her eyes. Yet Mrs. Viveash, with all her
vivid gold and carmine, went out before her; so did pretty Fanny,
though fresh as paint and burnished to perfection; as for the other
women, they were nowhere. She made the long golden terrace at
Amberley a desert place for the illusion of her somber and solitary
beauty. She was warm-fleshed, warm-blooded. The sunshine soaked into
her as she stood there. What was more, she had the air of being
entirely in keeping with Amberley's grand style.
Straker saw that from the first she was aware of Furnival. At three
yards off she held him with her eyes, lightly, balancing him; then
suddenly she let him go. She ceased to be aware of him. In the
moment of introduction she turned from him to Straker.
"Mr. Straker--but--how delightful!"
"Don't say you didn't expect to see me here."
"I didn't. And Mr. Higginson!" She laughed at the positive absurdity
of it. "_And_ Mr. Lawson and Miss Probyn."
She held herself a little back and gazed upon the group with her
wide and wonderful eyes.
"You look," she said, "as if something interesting had happened."
She had seated herself beside Straker so that she faced Mrs. Viveash
and young Furnival. She appeared not to know that Furnival was
staring at her.
"_She's_ the only interesting thing that's happened--so far," he
muttered. (There was no abatement of his stare.) Mrs. Viveash tried
to look as if she agreed with him.
Miss Tarrant had heard him. Her eyes captured and held him again, a
little longer this time. Straker, who watched the two, saw that
something passed between them, between Philippa's gaze and
Furnival's stare.