She desired always that her visible corporeal self should be admired and desired, that men should say, "What a splendid creature!" It was in her veins, an undefined philosophy of life; and she had ever measured the love of Jean Jacques by his caresses.

She had no other vital standard.

This she could measure, she could grasp it and say, "Here I have a hold; it is so much harvested." But if some one had written her a poem a thousand verses long, she would have said, "Yes, all very fine, but let me see what it means; let me feel that it is so." She had an inherent love of luxury and pleasure, which was far more active in her now than when she married Jean Jacques.

For a Spanish woman she had matured late; and that was because, in her youth, she had been active and athletic, unlike most Spanish girls; and the microbes of a sensuous life, or what might have become a sensual life, had not good chance to breed.
It all came, however, in the dullness of the winter days and nights, in the time of deep snows, when they could go abroad but very little.

Then her body and her mind seemed to long for the indolent sun-spaces of Spain.