Inkling Exploration April 2016: Majesty

The Light of  Western Stars was one of the first novels with which my heart completely soared and to which it still very much does, a fact owing not a little to the glorious descriptions so perfectly twined within it. So for this months Inkling Explorations, I instantly knew I must do Madeline aka Majesty. :)

In the past Miss Hammond's sense of humor had often helped her to overlook critical exactions natural to her breeding. She kept silence, and she imagined it was just as well that her veil hid her face at the moment. She had been prepared to find cowboys rather striking, and she had been warned not to laugh at them.

Can't you just feel her bubbling yet demur sense of humor? I love it very much indeed. :)

And then this one from later in the story -

Madeline smiled a little sadly. Perhaps when she had put on that exquisite white gown something had come to her of the manner which befitted the wearing of it. She could not resist the desire to look fair once more in the eyes of these hypercritical friends. The sad smile had been for the days that were gone. For she knew that what society had once been pleased to call her beauty had trebled since it had last been seen in a drawing-room. Madeline wore no jewels, but at her waist she had pinned two great crimson roses. Against the dead white they had the life and fire and redness of the desert.

Pretty is it not? But read below for the deeper purpose in my placing it here -

As he looked up to see her standing there, dressed to receive her Eastern guests, he checked his advance with a violent action which recalled to Madeline the one he had made on the night she had met him, when she disclosed her identity. It was not fear nor embarrassment nor awkwardness. And it was only momentary. Yet, slight as had been his pause, Madeline received from it an impression of some strong halting force. A man struck by a bullet might have had an instant jerk of muscular control such as convulsed Stewart. In that instant, as her keen gaze searched his dust-caked face, she met the full, free look of his eyes. Her own did not fall, though she felt a warmth steal to her cheeks. Madeline very seldom blushed. And now, conscious of her sudden color a genuine blush flamed on her face. It was irritating because it was incomprehensible. She received the papers from Stewart and thanked him. He bowed, then led the black down the path toward the corrals.

It is most obviously a description of  Stewart, of course, but one of the other things I love about it is  how through his reaction you see her reflected so clearly. Yes, the feels in this scene are AMAZING!

Finally, from the last pages of the story -

Madeline watched him, with pride, love, pain, glory combating for a mastery over her.... 

She wanted to run to meet him. Nevertheless, she stood rooted to her covert... 

With all that tumult in her mind and heart Madeline still fell prey to the incomprehensible variations of emotion possible to a woman... 

She tried to lift her hands, failed, tried again, and held them out, trembling...

...and the feels and emotions and  SPLENDOR overflows. The above excerpts, severely edited though they are to guard the secrets of the story, yet tingle with the intensity of Majesty's sensations and you can almost see how hard her heart must be pounding!