Page:Nalkowska - Kobiety (Women).djvu/179

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"Garden of Red Flowers"
167

days-—so I have everything covered over with embroidery. Linen is far more beautiful so. I—I might perhaps show you—yes, I think it's all right here—only women present. …"

She laughed, winking significantly, and took us farther down the passage, where, with a swift twist and twirl, like a ballet-dancer, she raised her dress above her knees, showing several tiers of cambric flounces beyond her silk stockings. At no other time of our visit was there anything to recall what she had once been.

"You, I fancy," she said, turning to me, "wear a petticoat; I am not sure you had not better give it up, A well-flounced undergarment makes the dress look quite sufficiently wide; a petticoat altogether effaces the outlines of the hips." Then passing her hand down my waist: "It is a pity," she said; "for you have a splendid shape—hips like a Spanish woman's."

We have found Wieloleski standing at the very end of the conservatory, and carefully watching his gardener at work. He is a tall man, something over forty, rather stout; very elegant-mannered, and courteous, but distant and abstracted. He has an extensive bald