Bentley explained that he wished to make a few preliminary sketches of
her head and bust, and proceeded to pose her. She accepted his
directions with a curious pettishness, as though they annoyed her; and
presently complained loudly that the chair was uncomfortable, and the
pose irksome. He handled her, however, with a good-humoured mixture of
flattery and persuasion, and at last, stepping back, surveyed the
result--well content.
There was no doubt whatever that she was a very handsome woman, and that
her physical type--that of the more lethargic and heavily built
Neapolitan--suggested very happily the mad and melancholy Queen. She had
superb black hair, eyes profoundly dark, a low and beautiful brow, lips
classically fine, a powerful head and neck, and a complexion which, but
for the treatment given it, would have been of a clear and beautiful
olive. She wore a draggled dress of cream-coloured muslin, very
transparent over the shoulders, somewhat scandalously wanting at the
throat and breast, and very frayed and dirty round the skirt.
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