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Louise Dufrayer
Fictional Australian piano student from the 1908 novel Maurice Guest by Henry Handel Richardson (a pseudonym for Australian writer Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson). His first name is not given.
Maurice Guest coloured. "Yes, I heard him play the other night," he answered in good faith. "But I didn't mean him. I meant the—the lady he was with."
The girl at his side laughed, not very heartily.
"ET TU, BRUTE!" she said. "I might have known it. It really is remarkable that though so many people don't think Louise goodlooking—I have often heard her called plain—yet I never knew a man go past her without turning his head.—You want to know who and what she is? Well, that depends on whom you ask. Schwarz would tell you she was one of his most gifted pupils—but no: he always says that of his pretty girls, and some do find her pretty, you know."
"She is, indeed, very," said Maurice with warmth. "Though I think pretty is not just the word."
"No, I don't suppose it is," said Madeleine, and this time there was a note of mockery in her laugh. But Maurice did not let himself be deterred. As it seemed likely that she was going to let the subject rest here, he persisted: "But suppose I asked you—what would you say?"
She gave him a shrewd side-glance. "I think I won't tell you," she said, more gravely. "If a man has once thought a girl pretty, and all the rest of it, he's never grateful for the truth. If I said Louise was a baggage, or a minx, or some other horrid thing, you would always bear me a grudge for it, so please note, I don't say it—for we are going to be friends, I hope?"
"I hope so, too," said the young man.
They walked some distance along the unfinished end of the MOZARTSTRASSE, where only a few villas stood, in newly made gardens.
"At least, I should like to know her name her whole name. You said Louise, I think?"
She laughed outright at this. "Her name is Dufrayer, Louise Dufrayer, and she has been here studying with Schwarz for about a year and a half now. She has some talent, but is indolent to the last degree, and only works when she can't help it. Also she always has an admirer of some kind in tow. This, to-day, is her last particular friend.—Is that biographical matter enough?"
The novel was adapted into a 1954 film with the title Rhapsody, starring Elizabeth Taylor.
