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He heard her then, on the staircase, that soft rustle which, it seemed to him, had rasped the silk of his nerves all their years together with its insistence on her dainty helplessness, her femininity, her right to protection. The tap of her high heels came closer. He drew a long breath and turned, determinedly smiling, to face the door. Almost at once he saw that she was frightened.
And this notwithstanding the fact that, bookish and studious as were his ways, and in despite of his years, it was far from his habit to waste consideration on femininity.
Had his life depended upon it Dennis could never have described the fabric of her gown. He only knew that it was distinguished by a sort of subdued sheen; that it rustled with an entrancing swish and suggestion of femininity as she moved, and that it was adjusted to her shapely figure as though her delightful personality had been moulded into it.
"I wonder if one woman staying in a house full of men would find life as depressing as I do cooped up here under precisely opposite circumstances," he thought, as he made his way through the little churchyard. "It cannot be the atmosphere of femininity that bores me, however, for Mrs. de Tracy has a strongly masculine flavour and Miss Smeardon is as nearly neuter as a person can be."
He gave her the money out of a good heart out of a realisation of her want. He would not have given the same amount to a poor young man, but we must not forget that a poor young man could not, in the nature of things, have appealed to him like a poor young girl. Femininity affected his feelings. He was the creature of an inborn desire.
I believe my heart is beating inside my head. 'You asked me if I was a free woman. I don't pretend to misunderstand why you asked me. I am not a beautiful woman, I never was. But there must be something about me, there is in some women, "essential femininity" perhaps, that appeals to all men. What I read in your eyes I have seen in many men's before, but before God I never tried to rouse it.
I continue: with such disposition what prevents women to use the phrase an old boatswain of my acquaintance applied descriptively to his captain what prevents them from "coming on deck and playing hell with the ship" generally, is that something in them precise and mysterious, acting both as restraint and as inspiration; their femininity in short which they think they can get rid of by trying hard, but can't, and never will.
She had a long, graceful neck, and resting upon her throat, fastened by a thin platinum chain, was a single sapphire. There was about her just that same delicate femininity, that exquisite aroma of womanliness and tender sexuality which had impressed him so much upon their first meeting.
Power in painting does not come from muscularity of arm; it comes naturally from the intellect. There are a great many male painters showing too many signs of femininity in their appreciation and the conception of art in painting. Art is neither male nor female.
"And the amazing part of it all is," Dartrey went on, "that she seeks no reward except just to see the cause prosper. She hasn't the faintest ambition to fill any post in life which could be filled by a man. She would write anonymously if it were possible. She has insight which amounts to inspiration, yet whenever I am with her she makes me feel that her greatest gift is her femininity."
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