K.

She had always wanted to be a ballerina. That is, when she was younger she wanted to be a ballerina, and now she knew that she hadn't wanted it badly enough or perhaps consistently enough or she would be a ballerina, or at least she'd still be dancing.
Then she wanted to be married. And she must have really wanted that and she got married. And then she wanted children -- perhaps, she thought, she could have pressed him more on that; but now, she thought, maybe it was just as well.

But nothing is a total loss, no effort spent is completely wasted. And when she walked across a room, conscious of her supple grace, the controlled economy of her movements, she felt grateful and proud of all that she had learned from dancing.

Sometimes people even said she looked like a dancer -- whatever that meant. It was some sort of compliment. Better, she thought, than saying she looked cute. She never felt cute. Even when she was little she never felt cute.

She was perhaps pretty. Pretty in a subtle way. Not the kind of pretty people talked about, not the kind of pretty workmen whistled at; but that special kind of pretty that was delicate and rare, discernible only to those special few, those connoisseurs of souls.