I answered Yes, and she led the way through the steerage and up the small flight of steps which conducted to the after-part of the saloon. The sunshine lay in a blaze upon the skylights, and the interior was splendid with light and with prismatic reflections of light. There was a sound overhead as of many people walking to and fro. The saloon was empty; everybody would choose to be on deck on so fine a morning.
Mrs. Richards walked to the door of one of the centre berths and knocked. A soft voice full of music bade her enter. She turned the handle, and held it whilst she addressed the inmate of the berth. ‘I have brought Miss C----,’ she exclaimed. ‘The lady is here, Miss Lee. May she step in?’
Mrs. Richards made room for me to pass, and, pronouncing Miss Lee’s name by way of introducing us, she added that she had a great many duties to attend to, and quitted the berth.
A young lady was seated in a comfortable armchair. A handsome skin marked like a leopard’s covered her knees and feet, and in her lap was an open volume. She had a great quantity of rich brown hair, a portion of which was plaited in loops upon the back, whilst the rest crowned her head in coils. I had no memory of fair faces with which to compare hers; to my darkened mind it was the first beautiful face I had seen, and as she looked up at me, smiling, with her lips in the act of parting to address me, I gazed at her with wonder and admiration and pity.
Oh, what a sweet, melancholy, exquisitely beautiful face was Alice Lee’s! There was death upon it, and it seemed the more beautiful for that. Her eyes were large, of a soft grey, with a sad expression of appeal in them that was never absent whether she was grave or whether she smiled. The hollows were deep and dark-tinctured, as though they reflected the shadow of a green leaf. Her lineaments were of perfect delicacy: the mouth small and slightly contracted, the teeth brilliant pearls, the cheeks sunken, slightly touched with hectic, and the complexion of the sort of transparency that makes one imagine if a light were held within the cheek the glow of it would shine through the flesh. The brow was faultlessly shaped, and the blue veins showed upon it as in marble. Her hands were cruelly thin and the white fingers were without rings. She was dressed in what now might be called a teagown, and it was easy to see that her attire was wholly dictated by considerations of comfort.