"'Then something unforeseen happened: my reflected face grew blurred, and then faded out; and from the mist there grew a new face, of wonderful beauty; the face of my desire. It looked at me from the glass, and when I tried to speak, its lips moved too. Miss Whateley uttered a sound that was hardly a cry, and caught me by the shoulder. I got up then and faced her; she was white as death, and her eyes were almost vacant with terror.'"
Olivia Shakespear (1863-1938) is best known today as the mistress and longtime friend of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, but she was also an important...