"
"More than a handsome woman in a ballroom?" asked Clementine, with
amazement and curiosity.
"Yes," answered Paz, in a choking voice. "Such agility, such grace
under constant danger seems to me the height of triumph for a woman.
Yes, madame, Cinti and Malibran, Grisi and Taglioni, Pasta and
Ellsler, all who reign or have reigned on the stage, can't be
compared, to my mind, with Malaga, who can jump on or off a horse at
full gallop, or stand on the point of one foot and fall easily into
the saddle, and knit stockings, break eggs, and make an omelette with
the horse at full speed, to the admiration of the people,--the real
people, peasants and soldiers. Malaga, madame, is dexterity
personified; her little wrist or her little foot can rid her of three
or four men. She is the goddess of gymnastics."
"She must be stupid--"
"Oh, no," said Paz, "I find her as amusing as the heroine of 'Peveril
of the Peak.' Thoughtless as a Bohemian, she says everything that
comes into her head; she thinks no more about the future than you do
of the sous you fling to the poor. She says grand things sometimes.
You couldn't make her believe that an old diplomatist was a handsome
young man, not if you offered her a million of francs. Such love as
hers is perpetual flattery to a man. Her health is positively
insolent, and she has thirty-two oriental pearls in lips of coral.
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