The blending, or rather the juxtaposition, of
extremes--a face, a form immediately witching, and a costume odd
to grotesquery--had made an assault upon his comprehension at
once so sudden and so direct that his dignity came near being
disastrously broken up. A splendidly beautiful child comically
clad would have made much the same half delightful, half
displeasing impression.
Beverley could not stare at the girl, and no sooner had he turned
his back upon her than the picture in his mind changed like a
scene in a kaleidoscope. He now saw a tall, finely developed
figure and a face delicately oval, with a low, wide forehead,
arched brows, a straight, slightly tip-tilted nose, a mouth sweet
and full. dimpled cheeks, and a strong chin set above a faultless
throat. His imagination, in casting off its first impression, was
inclined to exaggerate Alice's beauty and to dwell upon its
picturesqueness. He smiled as he walked back to the fort, and even
found himself whistling gayly a snatch from a rollicking fiddle-
tune that he had heard when a boy.
CHAPTER VI
A FENCING BOUT
A few days after Helm's arrival, M. Roussillon returned to
Vincennes, and if he was sorely touched in his amour propre by
seeing his suddenly acquired military rank and title drop away, he
did not let it be known to his fellow citizens.
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