Book Two The Woman - Chapter 16 Concerning - among Other Matters - The Price of Beef, and the Lady Sophia Sefton of Cambourne

Charmian sighed, bit the end of her pen, and sighed again. She
was deep in her housekeeping accounts, adding and subtracting
and, between whiles, regarding the result with a rueful frown.

Her sleeves were rolled up over her round, white arms, and I
inwardly wondered if the much vaunted Phryne's were ever more
perfect in their modelling, or of a fairer texture. Had I
possessed the genius of a Praxiteles I might have given to the
world a masterpiece of beauty to replace his vanished Venus of
Cnidus; but, as it happened, I was only a humble blacksmith, and
she a fair woman who sighed, and nibbled her pen, and sighed
again.

"What is it, Charmian?"

"Compound addition, Peter, and I hate figures I detest, loathe,
and abominate them--especially when they won't balance!"

"Then never mind them," said I.

"Never mind them, indeed--the idea, Sir! How can I help minding
them when living costs so much and we so poor?"

"Are we?" said I.

"Why, of course we are."

"Yes--to be sure--I suppose we are," said I dreamily.

Lais was beautiful, Thais was alluring, and Berenice was famous
for her beauty, but then, could either of them have shown such
arms--so long, so graceful in their every movement, so subtly
rounded in their lines, arms which, for all their seeming
firmness, must (I thought) be wonderfully soft to the touch, and
smooth as ivory, and which found a delicate sheen where the light
kissed them?