She
felt that her sort of woman was at a discount in these days, and being
sensitive, she was never content either with her appearance, or her
habits. But, for all that, she went on behaving in unsatisfactory ways,
because she incorrigibly loved to look as charming as she could; and
even if no one were going to see her, she never felt that she looked
charming enough. She was--as Lady Casterley had shrewdly guessed--the
kind of woman who spoils men by being too nice to them; of no use to
those who wish women to assert themselves; yet having a certain passive
stoicism, very disconcerting. With little or no power of initiative, she
would do what she was set to do with a thoroughness that would shame
an initiator; temperamentally unable to beg anything of anybody,
she required love as a plant requires water; she could give herself
completely, yet remain oddly incorruptible; in a word, hopeless, and
usually beloved of those who thought her so.
With all this, however, she was not quite what is called a 'sweet
woman--a phrase she detested--for there was in her a queer vein of
gentle cynicism. She 'saw' with extraordinary clearness, as if she had
been born in Italy and still carried that clear dry atmosphere about her
soul. She loved glow and warmth and colour; such mysticism as she felt
was pagan; and she had few aspirations--sufficient to her were things as
they showed themselves to be.
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