She was not an aristocrat, she was no daughter of kings, no duchess of Castile, no dona of Segovia; and her beauty belonged to more primary manifestations; but it was above the lower forms, even if it did not reach to the highest.
"A handsome even splendid woman of her class" would have been the judgment of the connoisseur.
As she looked in the glass at her clear skin, at the wonderful throat showing so soft and palpable and tower-like under the black velvet ribbon brightened by a paste ornament; as she saw the smooth breadth of brow, the fulness of the lips, the limpid lustre of the large eyes, the well-curved ear, so small and so like ivory, it came home to her, as it had never done before, that she was wasted in this obscure parish of St.
Saviour's.
There was not a more restless soul or body in all the hemisphere than the soul and body of Carmen Barbille, as she went from this to that on the morning when Jean Jacques had refrained from killing the soul-disturber, the master-carpenter, who had with such skill destroyed the walls and foundations of his home.

Carmen was pointlessly busy as she watched for the return of Jean Jacques.
At last she saw him coming from the flume of the mill! She saw that he stumbled as he walked, and that, every now and then, he lifted his head with an effort and threw it back, and threw his shoulders back also, as though to assert his physical manhood.

He wore no hat, his hands were making involuntary gestures of helplessness.

But presently he seemed to assert authority over his fumbling body and to come erect.

His hands clenched at his sides, his head came up stiffly and stayed, and with quickened footsteps he marched rigidly forward towards the Manor.
Then she guessed at the truth, and as soon as she saw his face she was sure beyond peradventure that he knew.
His figure darkened the doorway.