Alexandra sat on the edge of her bed. In the little room with the
cistern the temperature was bitterly cold, but she was insensible to it.
He had said wonderful things. He had said she was beautiful.... By the
light of the candle she peered into the glass, trying to see her face as
he had seen it. Perhaps it was the effect of the two great plaits of
dark hair that hung framing it, or of a certain new softness in her
eyes, of something knowledgeable that she had not seen there before, but
she felt that she was looking at herself for the first time unveiled.
Her hands went to her nightgown, holding it to her; then, as
involuntarily, they loosened.
Shyly, as though she were not alone, she gazed back at the dim
reflection in the mirror and knew that girlhood was behind her, that she
was no longer, as Kipling's little maid,
"A field unfilled, a web unwove,
A bud withheld from sun or bee,
An alien in the courts of Love,
And priestess of his shrine is she."
All rosy, she blew out the light.