The magnificent hair was brushed till it gleamed like burnished gold
as the sun-rays played upon it. But when ready to be coiled in the
artistic masses, which Gigia knew well how to arrange, variously,
according to the style and nature of the effect designed to be
produced, it was left uncoiled, streaming in great ripples over back
and shoulders in its profuse abundance. An exquisite little pair of
boots, of black satin, clasping ankle and instep like a glove, were
chosen to match the black satin dress laid out on the bed: but, like
the dress, were not put on. The place of the black satin dress was
supplied by a wrapper of very fine white muslin, edged with delicate
lace, so shaped with consummate skill that, though the snowy folds
seemed to lie loosely within the girdle that confined them at the
waist, no part of the effect of the round elastic slimness of the
waist was lost; open at the neck, from a point about a span beneath
the collar-bone, it allowed the whole of the noble white column of
the grandly-formed throat to be visible from its base above the
bosom to the opening out of the exquisite lines about the nape of
the neck into the tapering swelling of the classically-shaped head.
The exact arrangement of the shape of this opening of the dress,
from the throat down to about a hand's-breadth above the girdle, was
very carefully attended to; the lace-edged folds of the muslin being
three or four times drawn a little more forward so as to conceal, or
a little back so as to show, a more liberal glimpse of the swelling
bosom on either side, by the doubting Diva, as she stood before the
glass.
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