Читать книгу The Counterplot онлайн

19 страница из 75

The irritated tone of this exclamation ended on the last word in a note of scorn.

Teresa sat on alone by the deserted tea-table, idly watching the Doña standing by the border, in earnest talk with the gardener.

How comely and distinguished, and how beautifully modelled the Doña looked in the westering light! No one could model like late sunshine—she had seen it filtering through the leaves of a little wood and turning the smooth, gray trunk of a beech into an exquisite clay torso, not yet quite dry, fresh from the plastic thumb, faithfully maintaining the delusion that, though itself a pliable substance, the frame over which it was stretched was rigid and bony. The Doña and beech trees, however, were beautiful, even without the evening light; but she had also seen the portion of a rain-pipe that juts out at right angles from the wall before taking its long and graceless descent—she had seen the evening light turn its dirty yellow into creamy flesh-tints, its contour into the bent knee of a young Diana.