“"Llorio, you are a woman of surpassing beauty, though you would seem to lack that provocative warmth which draws man to woman, and adds dimension to the character."
The Murthe responded curtly: "The quality you describe is a kind of lewd obsequiousness which, happily, has now become obsolete. As for the 'surpassing beauty,' it is an apotheotic quality generated by the surging music of the female soul, which you, in your crassness, perceive only as a set of pleasing contours."”

"The Murthe", chapter 3
Dying Earth (1950-1984), Rhialto the Marvellous (1984)

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Jack Vance 213
American mystery and speculative fiction writer 1916–2013

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