Should She Have Left Him? — page 222: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

216 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? remains of a feast. Astounded, Hilda halted on the threshold. Then advancing, a large sofa, her delight and comfort, came into the line of her vision. On it lay a woman, scantily clad, asleep. Hilda was stupefied. Slowly she went to the sofa. She stretched forth a hand to touch the recumbent figure, to see if it were real. But she withheld her hand and gazed, fascinated. Through her amaze- ment stole a sense of the wonderful fleshly beauty of the woman asleep. Hilda continued to gaze stupefied. An arm worthy Canova’s study was flung over the head of the sofa, an arm perfectly modeled, and through its white skin the blue veins could be traced. On this arm rested a head covered with crisp auburn curls—auburn in which there was a glint of gold; a strong white neck, with alluring creases, rose from broad, white, dimpled shoulders, covered witha skin soft like satin and its sheen, with a hinting sugges- tion of pink; the chest and bust protected, not con- cealed, by the single garment, rose and fell with the deep and regular inhalations of the profound sleeper. Hilda’s eyes followed the bold curves of the relaxed body, rising massively over the hips, and rested on the limb escaped from its covering, gracefully caught on the edge of the sofa—a limb so perfect in its pro- portions as to appear to be the work of a sculptor rather than that of nature. A more sumptuous reve- lation of beauty Hilda, quickly responsive to all beauty, had never seen. Asshe gazed her stupefac- Comicboolkk<s C@