"I can have income enough when I please," she was wont to say; "I have
invested fifty francs on the Grand-livre."
No one could ever understand how it happened that Florine, handsome as
she was, had remained in obscurity for seven years; but the fact is,
Florine was enrolled as a supernumerary at thirteen years of age, and
made her debut two years later at an obscure boulevard theatre. At
fifteen, neither beauty nor talent exist; a woman is simply all
promise.
She was now twenty-eight,--the age at which the beauties of a French
woman are in their glory. Painters particularly admired the lustre of
her white shoulders, tinted with olive tones about the nape of the
neck, and wonderfully firm and polished, so that the light shimmered
over them as it does on watered silk. When she turned her head, superb
folds formed about her neck, the admiration of sculptors. She carried
on this triumphant neck the small head of a Roman empress, the
delicate, round, and self-willed head of Pompeia, with features of
elegant correctness, and the smooth forehead of a woman who drives all
care away and all reflection, who yields easily, but is capable of
balking like a mule, and incapable at such times of listening to
reason. That forehead, turned, as it were, with one cut of the chisel,
brought out the beauty of the golden hair, which was raised in front,
after the Roman fashion, in two equal masses, and twisted up behind
the head to prolong the line of the neck, and enhance that whiteness
by its beautiful color.
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