Kitabı oku: «Jupiter Lights», sayfa 6
VII
“SEA-BEACHES,” said Eve, – “the minds of such people; you can trace the line of their last high tide, that is, the year when they stopped reading. Along the judge’s line, one finds, for instance, Rogers; he really has no idea that there have been any new poets since then.”
“Dear me! We have always thought Horatio remarkably literary,” protested Cousin Sarah Cray. “That’s his step now, I think.”
The judge came in, little Jack on his shoulder. “I believe he has dropped some – some portions of his clothing on the stairs,” he said, helplessly. “It’s astonishing – the facility he has.”
“And he has pulled off his shoes,” added Eve, taking the little reprobate and kissing him. “Naughty Jack. Tacks!”
“Esss, tacks!” repeated Jack, in high glee. “Dey gets in Jack’s foots.” That was all he cared for her warning legend.
The judge sat down and wiped his forehead. “I have received a shock,” he said.
“Pity’s sake! – what?” asked Cousin Sarah Cray, in alarm. Poor Cousin Sarah dealt in interjections. But it might be added that she had lived through times that were exclamatory.
“Our old friend, Roland Pettigru, is dead, Sarah; the news comes to us in this – this Sheet, which, I am told, is published here.” He drew a small newspaper from his pocket. “With your permission, ladies, I will read to you the opening sentence of an obituary notice which this – this Sheet – has prepared for the occasion.” He put on his spectacles, and, holding the paper off at a distance, read aloud, with slow, indignant enunciation, as follows: “‘The Great Reaper has descended amongst us. And this time he has carried back with him sadly brilliant sheaves; for his arrows have been shot at a shining mark’ (arrows for a reaper!” commented the judge, surveying his audience squintingly, over his glasses), "‘and the aim has been only too true. Gaunt Sorrow stalks abroad, we mourn with Pettigru Hill; we say – and we repeat – that the death of Roland Pettigru has left a vortex among us.’ Yes, vortex, ladies; – the death of a quiet, cultivated gentleman a vortex!”
At this moment Deely, the house-maid, appeared at the door; giving her calico skirt a twist by way of “manners,” she announced, “Miss Wungfy.”
Miss Leontine entered, carrying five books standing in a row upon her left arm as though it had been a shelf. She shook hands with Cousin Sarah Cray and Eve; then she went through the same ceremony with the judge, but in a confused, downcast manner, and seated herself on a slippery ottoman as near as possible to the door.
“I hope you liked the books? Pray let me take them,” said Eve, for Miss Leontine was still balancing them against her breast.
“Literature?” remarked the judge, who also seemed embarrassed. He took up one of the volumes and opened it. “Ah, a novel.”
“Yes, but one that will not hurt you,” Eve answered. “For Miss Leontine prefers those novels where the hero and heroine are married to begin with, and then fall in love with each other afterwards; everything on earth may happen to them during this process – poisonings and murders and shootings; she does not mind these in the least, for it’s sure in any case to be moral, don’t you see, because they were married in the beginning. And marriage makes everything perfectly safe; doesn’t it, Miss Leontine?”
“I am sure I don’t know,” answered Miss Leontine, still a prey to nervousness; “but – but I have always supposed so. Yes. We read them aloud,” she added, turning for relief to Cousin Sarah Cray; “that is, I read to Polly – in the evenings.”
“These modern novels seem to me poor productions,” commented the judge, turning over the pages of the volume he had taken.
“Naturally,” responded Eve.
“May I ask why ‘naturally’?”
“Oh, men who read their Montaigne year after year without change, and who quote Charles Lamb, never care for novels, unless, indeed, it may be ‘Tom Jones.’ Montaigne and Lamb, Latin quotations that are not hard, a glass of good wine with his dinner, and a convexity of person – these mark your non-appreciator of novels, from Warwickshire to Gary Hundred.”
“Upon my word, young lady – ” began the judge, laughing.
But Miss Leontine, by her rising, interrupted him. “I think I must go now. Yes. Thank you.”
“But you have only just come,” said Cousin Sarah Cray.
“I stopped to leave the books. Yes; really; that was all. Thanks, you are very kind. Yes; thank you.” She fumbled ineffectually for the handle of the door, and, when it was opened for her, with an embarrassed bow she passed out, her long back bent forward, her step hurried.
“I can’t imagine what is the matter with her,” said Cousin Sarah Cray, returning.
“I am afraid, Sarah, that I can inform you,” answered the judge gravely, putting down the volume. “I met her in her own garden about an hour ago, and we fell into conversation; I don’t know what possessed me, but in relating some anecdote of a jocular nature which happened to be in my mind at the time, by way of finish – I can’t imagine what I was thinking of – but I up and chucked her under the chin.”
“Chucked Miss Leontine!” exclaimed Cousin Sarah Cray, aghast, while Eve gave way to irrepressible mirth. “Was she – was she deeply offended?”
“She was simply paralyzed with astonishment. I venture to say” – here the judge sent an eye-beam towards the laughing Eve – “I venture to say that Miss Leontine has never been chucked under the chin in all her life before.”
“Certainly not,” answered Cousin Sarah Cray; “she is far too dignified.” Then, with a desire to be strictly truthful, she added, “Perhaps when she was a baby?”
But even this seemed doubtful.
Not long after this the Misses Wingfield (it was really Miss Polly) gave a party.
“Must we go?” said Eve.
“Why, it will be perfectly delightful!” answered Cousin Sarah Cray, looking at her in astonishment. “Every one will be there. Let me see: there will be ourselves, four; and Miss Polly and Miss Leontine, six; then the Debbses, thirteen – fourteen if Mrs. Debbs comes; the Rev. Mr. Bushey and his wife, sixteen. And perhaps there will be some one else,” she added, hopefully; “perhaps somebody has some one staying with them.”
“Thomas Scotts, the tub man, will not be invited,” remarked Cicely. “He will walk by on the outside. And look in.”
“There’s nothing I admire more than the way you pronounce that name Debbs,” observed Eve. “It’s plain Debbs; yet you call it Dessss – holding on to all the s’s, and hardly sounding the b at all – so that you almost make it rhyme with noblesse.”
“That’s because we like ’em, I reckon,” responded Cousin Sarah Cray. “They certainly are the sweetest family!”
“There’s a faint trace of an original theme in Matilda. The others are all variations,” said the caustic Miss Bruce.
They went to the party.
“Theme and variations all here,” said Cicely, as they passed the open door of the parlor on their way up-stairs to lay aside their wraps; “they haven’t spared us a trill.”
“Well, you won’t be spared either,” said Cousin Sarah Cray. “You’ll have to sing.”
She proved a true prophet; Cicely was called upon to add what she could to the entertainments of the evening. Her voice was slender and clear; to-night it pleased her to sing straight on, so rapidly that she made mince-meat of the words of her song, the delicate little notes almost seeming to come from a flute, or from a mechanical music-bird screwed to a chandelier. Later, however, Miss Matilda Debbs supplied the missing expression when she gave them:
“Slee – ping, I dreamed, love,
Dreamed, love, of thee;
O’er – ther – bright waves, love,
Float – ing were we.”
Cicely seemed possessed by one of her wild moods. “I’ve been to the window; the tar-and-turpentine man is looking over the gate,” she said, in a low voice, to Eve. “I’m going out to say to him, ‘Scotts, wha hae! Send in a tub.’”
Presently she came by Eve’s chair again. “Have you seen the geranium in Miss Leontine’s hair? Let us get grandpa out on the veranda with her, alone; she has been madly in love with him ever since he chucked her under the chin. What’s more, grandpa knows it, too, and he’s awfully frightened; he always goes through the back streets now, like a thief.”
There was a peal at the door-bell. “Tar-and-turpentine man coming in,” murmured Cicely.
Susannah appeared with a letter. “Fer Mis’ Morrison,” she said.
There was a general laugh. For “Mister Cotesworth,” not sure that Eve would keep his secret, and alarmed for the safety of his official position, had taken to delivering his letters in person; clad in his best black coat, with a silk hat, the blue goggles, and a tasselled cane, he not only delivered them with his own hands, but he declaimed the addresses in a loud tone at the door. Not finding Cicely at home, he had followed her hither. “Fer Mis’ Fer’nen Morrison. A ferwerded letter,” he said to Susannah in the hall, at the top of his voice.
The judge had gone to the dining-room with Miss Polly, to see her little dog, which was ailing. Cicely put the letter in her pocket.
After a while she said to Eve, “I never have any letters, hardly.”
“But you must have,” Eve answered.
“No; almost never. I am going up-stairs for a moment, Eve. Don’t come with me.”
When she returned, more music was going on. As soon as she could, Eve said, inquiringly, “Well?”
“It was from Ferdie.”
“Is he coming back?”
“Yes,” responded Cicely, unmoved.
Eve’s thoughts had flown to her own plans. But she found time to think, “What a cold little creature it is, after all!”
At that moment they could say no more.
About midnight, when Eve was in her own room, undressing, there was a tap at the door, and Cicely entered. She had taken off her dress; a forlorn little blue shawl was drawn tightly round her shoulders.
She walked to the dressing-table, where Eve was sitting, took up a brush, and looked at it vaguely. “I didn’t mean to tell any one; but I have changed my mind, I am going to tell you.” Putting down the brush, she let the shawl fall back. There across her white breast was a long purple scar, and a second one over her delicate little shoulder. “He did it,” she said. Her eyes, fixed upon Eve’s, were proud and brilliant.
“You don’t mean – you don’t mean that your husband– ” stammered Eve, in horror.
“Yes, Ferdie. He did it.”
“Is he mad?”
“Only after he has been drinking.”
“Oh, you poor little thing!” said Eve, taking her in her arms protectingly. “I have been so hard to you, Cicely, so cruel! But I did not know – I did not know.” Her tears flowed.
“I am telling you on account of baby,” Cicely went on, in the same unmoved tone.
“Has he dared to touch baby?” said Eve, springing up.
“Yes, Eve; he broke poor baby’s little arm; of course when he did not know what he was doing. When he gets that way he does not know us; he thinks we are enemies, and he thinks it is his duty to attack us. Once he put us out-of-doors – baby and me – in the middle of the night, with only our night-dresses on; fortunately it wasn’t very cold. That time, and the time he broke baby’s arm (he seized him by the arm and flung him out of his crib), we were not in Savannah; we were off by ourselves for a month, we three. Baby was so young that the bone was easily set. Nobody ever knew about it, I never told. But – but it must not happen again.” She looked at Eve with the same unmoved gaze.
“I should rather think not! Give him to me, Cicely, and let me take him away – at least for the present. You know you said – ”
“I said ‘perhaps.’ But I cannot let him go now – not just now. I am telling you what has happened because you really seem to care for him.”
“I think I have showed that I care for him!”
“Well, I have let you.”
“What are we to do, then, if you won’t let me take him away?” said Eve, in despair. “Will that man come here?”
“He may. He will go to Savannah, and if he learns there that I am here, he may follow me. But he will never go to Romney, he doesn’t like Romney; even in the beginning, when I begged him to go, he never would. He – ” She paused.
“Jealous, I suppose,” suggested the sister, with a bitter laugh – “jealous of Jack’s poor bones in the burying-ground. Your two ghosts will have a duel, Cicely.”
“Oh, Ferdie isn’t dead!” said Cicely, with sudden terror. She grasped Eve’s arm. “Have you heard anything? Tell me – tell me.”
Eve looked at her.
“Yes, I love him,” said Cicely, answering the look. “I have loved him ever since the first hour I saw him. It’s more than love; it’s adoration.”
“You never said that of Jack.”
“No; for it wouldn’t have been true.”
The two women faced each other – the tall Eve, the dark little wife.
“Oh, if I could only get away from this hideous country – this whole horrible South!” said Eve, walking up and down the room like a caged tigress.
“You would like him if you knew him,” Cicely went on, gently. “It seldom happens – that other; and when it doesn’t happen, Eve – ”
Eve put out her hand with a repelling gesture. “Let me take baby and go.”
“Not now. But he will be safe at Romney.”
“In Heaven’s name, then, let us get him back to Romney.”
“Yes; to-morrow.”
Little Jack was asleep in his crib by the side of Eve’s bed, for she still kept him with her at night. Cicely went to the crib and looked at her child; Eve followed her.
The little boy’s night-dress had fallen open, revealing one shoulder and arm. “It was just here,” whispered Cicely, kneeling down and softly touching the baby-flesh. She looked up at Eve, her eyes thick with tears.
“Why, you care?” said Eve. “Care for him? – the baby, I mean.” She spoke her thoughts aloud, unwittingly.
“Did you think I didn’t care?” asked Cicely, with a smile.
It was the strangest smile Eve had ever seen.
VIII
EARLY spring at Romney. The yellow jessamine was nearly gone, the other flowers were coming out; Atamasco lilies shone whitely everywhere; the long line of the islands and the opposite mainland were white with blossoms, the salt-marshes were freshly green; shoals, which had wallowed under water since Christmas, lifted their heads; the great river came back within its banks again.
Three weeks had passed since their return to the island. They had made the journey without the judge, who had remained in South Carolina to give his aid to the widow of his old friend, Roland Pettigru, who had become involved in a lawsuit. The three weeks had been slow and anxious – anxious, that is, to Eve. Cicely had returned to her muteness. Once, at the beginning, when Eve had pressed her with questions, she said, as general answer, “In any case, Ferdie will not come here.” After that, when again – once or twice – Eve had asked, “Have you heard anything more?” Cicely had returned no reply whatever; she had let her passive glance rest upon Eve and then glide to something else, as though she had not spoken. Eve was proud, she too remained silent. She knew that she had done nothing to win Cicely’s confidence; women understand women, and Cicely had perceived from the first, of course, that Jack’s sister did not like her.
But since that midnight revelation at Cousin Sarah Cray’s, Eve no longer disliked Cicely; on the contrary, she was attracted towards her by a sort of unwilling surprise. Often, when they were with the others, she would look at her twenty times in a half-hour, endeavoring to fathom something of the real nature of this little girl (to Eve, Cicely always seemed a school-girl), who had borne a tragedy in silence, covering it with her jests, covering it also with her coldness. But was Cicely really cold to all the world but Ferdie? She was not so, at least, as regarded her child; no one who had seen her on her knees that night beside the crib could doubt her love for him. Yet she let Eve have him for hours at a time, she let her have him at night, without even Dilsey to look after him; she never interfered, constantly as Eve claimed him and kept him. In spite of her confidence in her own perceptions, in spite of her confidence, too, in her own will, which she believed could force a solution in almost every case, Eve Bruce was obliged to acknowledge to herself that she was puzzled.
Now and then she would be harassed by the question as to whether she ought not to tell Miss Sabrina what she knew, whether she ought not to tell the judge. But Cicely had spared them, and Cicely had asked her to be equally merciful. At night, when lying awake, the horror of the poor baby’s broken arm would sometimes come to her so vividly that she would light the candle in haste to see if he were safe. If Ferdie should come here, after all! Cicely had said that he would not; but who could trust Cicely, – loving the man as she did? To Eve, after all that had happened, Cicely’s love seemed a mania as insane as the homicidal deliriums of the husband.
As to these deliriums, she tried to picture what they must be: the baby hurled from his little crib – that made her shudder with rage; she should not be afraid of the madman, then; she should attack him in return! Sometimes it was Cicely whom she saw, Cicely, shrinking under blows; it must have been something heavy and sharp, a billet of wood, perhaps, that had caused the scars across her white breast. She remembered that once, when inwardly exasperated by Cicely’s fresh fairness, she had accused her of never having known what it was to be really tired in all her life. Cicely had answered, rather hesitatingly, “I don’t know that I have ever been tired, exactly.” She had not been tired – no. She had only been half killed.
The poor little girl’s muteness, her occasional outbursts of wild sport, her jests and laughter, her abstractions, and the coldness sometimes seen in her beautiful eyes, were these the results of suffering? She questioned Miss Sabrina a little.
“She has always been the same, except that since her second marriage she is much more quiet,” replied the unconscious aunt. “Until then she was like quicksilver, she used to run through the thickets so swiftly that no one could follow her, and she used to play ball by the hour with – ” Here the speaker paused, disconcerted.
“With Jack,” Eve added, her face contracting with the old pain.
Miss Sabrina had at last perceived this pain, and the discovery had stopped her affectionate allusions. But she did not forget – Eve often found her carefully made wreaths laid upon Jack’s grave. As for Eve herself, she never brought a flower; she walked to and fro beside the mound, and the sojourn generally ended in angry thoughts. Why should other people keep their loved ones, and she be bereft? What had she done, what had Jack done, that was so wrong? God was not good, because He was not kind; people did not ask Him to create them, but when once He had done it for His own pleasure, and there they were, helpless, in His world, why should He torture them so? To make them better? Why didn’t He make them better in the beginning, when He was creating them? Or else not make them at all!
One afternoon during the fourth week after their return to Romney, she was on her way back with Miss Sabrina from Singleton Island; the two had been dining there, the Southern three-o’clock dinner, and now at sunset the row-boat was bringing them home. To Eve the visit had been like a day’s truce, a short period, when one merely waits; the afternoon was beautiful, the Sound like a mirror; the home-island, when they left it, had been peacefully lovely, the baby from his wagon kissing his hand to them, and Dilsey squatting on the bank by his side, a broad grin of contentment on her dusky face. Cicely had declined the invitation, sending a jocular message to “little Rupert,” which inspired him with laughter all day.
The dinner had been excellent as regards the succulence of its South Carolina dishes. The damask tablecloth was thin from age, the dinner-service a mixture of old Canton blue and the commonest, thickest white plates; coarse dull goblets stood beside cut-glass wine-glasses; the knives were in the last stage of decrepitude, and there was no silver at all, not even a salt-spoon; it had been replaced by cheaply plated spoons and forks, from which the plate was already half gone. Blanche, the old negro woman, waited, assisted by the long-legged Lucasta, and by little Boliver, who was attired for the occasion in a pair of trousers which extended from his knees to his shoulders, over which they were tightly strapped by means of strings. Boliver’s part was to bring the hot dishes from the outside kitchen, which was in a cabin at some distance – a task which he performed with dignity, varied, however, by an occasional somerset on the veranda, when he thought no one was looking. Rupert was genial, very gallant to the ladies; he carried his gallantry so far that he even drank their health several times, the only wine being the mainland Madeira. Mrs. Singleton was hospitable and affectionate, remaining unconscious (in manner) as to the many deficiencies. And Eve looked on admiringly, as though it had been a beautiful, half-pathetic little play; for to her it was all pictorial – these ruined old houses on their blooming desolate islands, with the ancient hospitality still animating them in spite of all that had passed. The short voyage over, the row-boat stopped at Romney landing. There was no one waiting for them; Abram assisted Miss Sabrina, and then Eve, to step from one of the boat’s seats to the dock. Eve lingered for a moment, looking at the sunset; then she too turned towards the house. The path winding under the trees was already dusky, Miss Sabrina was a dozen yards in advance; as she approached a bend, Eve saw some one come round it and meet her. It was a figure too tall to be the judge; it was a young man; it was a person she had not seen; she made these successive discoveries as she drew nearer. She decided that it was a neighbor from one of the southern islands, who had taken advantage of the lovely afternoon for a sail.
When she came up she found Miss Sabrina half laughing, half crying; she had given the stranger both her hands. “Oh, Eve, it is Ferdinand. And I did not know him!”
“How could you expect to know me, when you have never seen me in your life?” asked the young man, laughing.
“But we have your picture. I ought to have known – ”
“My dear aunt, never accuse yourself; your dearest friends will always do that for you. I dare say my picture doesn’t half do me justice.”
He spoke jestingly; but there was still twilight enough to show Eve that what he had said was simply the truth. The photograph was handsome, but the real face was handsomer, the features beautiful, the eyes blue and piercing.
“This is Cicely’s sister Eve,” said Miss Sabrina. “She has come out – so kindly – from England to pay us a visit.”
Ferdinand put out his hand with a bright smile. He had a smile which would have been a fitting one for a typical figure of youthful Hope.
Eve could not refuse, conspicuously, to give him her hand in return. It all seemed to her a dream – his sudden appearance in the dusky path, and his striking beauty. She did not speak. But her muteness passed unnoticed, because for once in her life Miss Sabrina was voluble, her words tumbled over one another. “Such a surprise! So nice! so delightful! How little we thought this morning, when we rose as usual, and everything was the same – how little we thought that it would be such a sweet, such a happy day!”
Ferdinand laughed again, throwing back his handsome head a little – a movement that was habitual with him. He gave Miss Sabrina his arm, drew her hand through it and held it in his own, as they moved onward towards the house. On the veranda, Cicely was waiting for them, her cheeks flushed with pink. Eve expected a defiant look, a glance that would dare her to express either her surprise or her fear; instead of that, Cicely’s eyes, meeting hers, were full of trust and sweetness, as if she believed that Eve would sympathize with her joy, as if she had entirely forgotten that there was any reason why Eve should not share it. Miss Sabrina sympathized, if Eve did not; she kissed Cicely with a motherly tenderness, and then, as she raised her wet eyes again towards Ferdinand, she looked so extraordinarily pleased that the young man bent and kissed her faded cheek. “There, auntie,” he said, “now we’ve made acquaintance; you must take me in as a genuine nephew. And improve me.”
“Oh, improve,” murmured Miss Sabrina, gazing at him near-sightedly. She put on her glasses (without turning her back) in order to see him more clearly. It marked a great emotion on her part – the not turning her back.
Eve went to her room; she thought that Cicely would follow her. But no one came until Powlyne knocked to say that tea was ready. At first Eve thought that she would not go to the dining-room, that she would send an excuse. The next moment she felt driven not only to go, but to hasten; to be always present in order to see everything and hear everything; this would be her office; she must watch for the incipient stages of what she dreaded. Cicely had said that it happened rarely. Would to God that the man would be touched by poor Miss Sabrina’s loving welcome, and by little Cicely’s deep joy, and refrain. But perhaps these very things would excite the longing that led to the madness!
When she reached the dining-room and saw the bright faces at the table, Miss Sabrina looking younger than she had looked for years, and wearing the white lace cape, Cicely, too, freshly dressed, and Ferdinand, they seemed to her like phantasmagoria. Or was it that these were the realities, and the phantasms the frightful visions which had haunted her nightly during all these waiting weeks?
As Ferdie talked (already Miss Sabrina had begun to call him Ferdie), it was impossible not to listen; there was a frankness in what he said, and in his sunny smile, which was irresistibly winning. And the contrast between these and his height and strength – this too was attractive. They sat long at the table; Eve felt that she was the foreign element, not he; that she was the stranger within their gates. She had made no change in her dress; suddenly it occurred to her that Ferdie must hate her for her mourning garb, which of course would bring Jack Bruce to his mind. As she thought of this, she looked at him. His eyes happened to meet hers at the moment, and he gave her a charming smile. No, there was no hate there. In the drawing-room, later, he told them comical stories of South America; he took Cicely’s guitar and sang South American songs; the three women sat looking at him, Cicely in her mute bliss, Miss Sabrina with her admiration and her interest, Eve with her perplexity. His hand, touching the strings, was well-shaped, powerful; was that the hand which had struck a woman? A little child? As the evening wore on, she almost began to believe that Cicely had invented the whole of her damning tale; that the baby’s arm had never been broken, and that her own hurts had been received in some other way. She looked at Cicely. But there was something very straightforward in her pure little face.
At ten o’clock she rose. Cicely made no motion, she was evidently not coming with her.
“Can I speak to you for a moment, Cicely?”
“Oh, yes,” answered Cicely, with alacrity. “What is it?” She followed Eve into the hall.
Eve closed the door; then she drew her into the dining-room, which was still lighted. “You said he would not come here.”
“Oh!” with a long breath; “he never would do it for me before, though I asked him, and asked him. And yet he has done it now! Think of that!”
Eve put her hands on Cicely’s shoulders as if to keep her, to call her back to realities. “Have you forgotten all you said that night at Mrs. Cray’s?”
Cicely gave a joyful laugh. “Yes.” Then, more defiantly, “Yes, I have forgotten the whole!” But her tone changed back swiftly to its happy confidence again: “Nothing will happen, Eve; you needn’t be afraid.”
“Has he told you so?”
“Oh, we never speak of it,” answered Cicely, looking at her with large, surprised eyes. “Did you think we spoke of it – of such a thing as that? A husband and wife – people who love each other? But you needn’t be troubled; it’s over forever.” She disappeared.
Eve waited a moment; then she went to her room. Before she reached her door Cicely overtook her; she had run swiftly after her down the long corridor. She put her arms round Eve from behind, and whispered, with her lips against Eve’s throat, “I ran after you to say that I hope that you will have, some day, as much happiness as mine.” Then she was gone, as swiftly as she had come.
To wish her a love like her own, this seemed almost a curse, a malediction. But, fortunately, there was no danger that she, Eve Bruce, should ever fall a victim to such miseries; to love any man so submissively was weakness, but to love as Cicely loved, that was degradation!
Her image gazed back at her from the mirror, fair in its tints, but strangely, almost fiercely, proud; at that moment she was revolting, dumbly, against the injustice of all the ages, past, present, and to come, towards women.
