My chief impression about her was that she had remarkable eyes. They were of an indistinguishable, dark color, large horizontally but not too wide open,--eyes that drew yours continually, without your being able to tell whether it was to settle the question of color, or to find out the secret of their fascination, or whether it was simply that they appealed to your artistic sense--as being something finer than you had ever seen before. They were heavily fringed at top and bottom, and so were in shadow except when she raised them toward the light. Her complexion was pale, her hair light and fluffy; her brows and lashes were several shades darker than the hair. Her hands were lovely. Her dress was of course white, or cream, of some soft, clinging material; and she wore a bunch of blue flowers in her belt, slightly wilted.
There is this difference in women: some produce an effect simply, and others make a clear-cut, cameo-like impression upon the mind. Ariadne was of the latter sort. Whatever she appropriated, though but a tiny blossom, seemed immediately to proclaim its ownership and to swear its allegiance to her. From the moment I first saw her there, the blue flowers in her belt gave her, in my mind, the supreme title to all of their kind. I could never bear to see another woman wear the same variety,--and I liked them best when they were a little wilted! Her belongings suggested herself so vividly that if one came unexpectedly upon a fan, a book, a garment of hers, he was affected as by a presence.
I soon understood why it was that my eyes sought her face so persistently, drawn by a power infinitely greater than the mere power of beauty; it was due to the law of moral gravitation,--that by which men are attracted to a leader, through intuitive perception of a quality in him round which their own energies may nucleate. We all recognize the need of a centre, of a rallying-point,--save perhaps the few eccentrics, detached particles who have lost their place in the general order, makers of chaos and disturbers of peace.
It is this power which constitutes one of the chief qualifications of a teacher in Lunismar; because it rests upon a fact universally believed in,--spiritual royalty; an august force which cannot be ignored, and is never ridiculed--as Galileo was ridiculed, and punished, for his wisdom; because there ignorance and prejudice do not exist, and the superstition which planted the martyr's stake has never been known.