A voluptuous laugh

Friday, February 12^th – Girl with voluptuous laugh, short and frequent. Half Scotch, half English. Age 24. Very energetic, obstinate, and ‘slow in the uptake’. Red cheeks. Good-looking. Athletic. Shy – or rather coy. Always the voluptuous laugh being heard, all over the hotel. A wanton laugh, most curious. Her voice also has a strange, voluptuous quality. They say the Scotch women are femme de temperament. This one must be, extremely so. And her athleticism must be an instinctive remède contre l’amour. Manners and deportment quite irreproachable, save for the eternal, rippling, startling laugh. It became more and more an obsession. One waits to hear it.

                                                                                                                 Arnold Bennett's Journal, 1909