She was little more than a girl, this wife of old Marlanx, and yet how wise, how clever, how brilliant she was! A face of unusual pallor and extremely patrician in its modelling, surmounted by a coiffure so black that it could be compared only to ebony--black and almost gleaming with the life that was in it.

It came low on her forehead, shading the wondrous dark eyes--eyes that were a deep yellowish green in their division between grey and black, eyes that were soft and luminous and unwaveringly steadfast, impelling in their power to fascinate, yet even more dangerously compassionate when put to the test that tries woman's vanity.
There were diamonds on her long, tapering fingers, and a rope of pearls in her hair.

A single wide gold band encircled her arm above the elbow, an arm-band as old as the principality itself, for it had been worn by twenty fair ancestors before her.

The noblewomen of Graustark never wore bracelets on their wrists; always the wide chased gold band on the upper arm.

There was a day, not so far back in history, when they wore bands on their ankles.
She was well named Ingomede, the Beautiful.
A soft, almost imperceptible perfume, languorous in its appeal to the senses, exuded from this perfect creation; added to this, the subtle, unfailing scent of young womanhood; the warm, alive feel of her presence in the atmosphere; a suggestion of something sensuous, clean, pure, delicious.