It did not
take the floor, it is true, but remained in its frame upon the wall. Yet
it too came alive, and looked full at her, compelling her attention,
dominating, commanding her; while, slowly, deliberately it changed, the
features slightly losing their accentuation, growing youthful, softer in
outline, the long drooping moustache giving place to a close-cut beard.
The eyes alone stayed the same, steady, luminous, a living silence in
them at once formidable and strangely sad. Finally--and this the poor
child found indescribably agitating and even horrible--their silence was
broken by a question. For they asked what she, Damaris, meant to say,
meant to do, when he--her father, the all-powerful Commissioner Sahib of
her babyhood's faith and devotion--came home here, came back?
Yet whose eyes, after all, were they which thus asked? Was it not, rather
the younger man, the bearded one, who claimed, and of right, an answer to
that question? And upon Damaris it now dawned that these two, distinct
yet interchangeable personalities--imprisoned, as by some evil magic in
one picture--were in opposition, in violent and impious conflict, which
conflict she was called upon, yet was powerless, to avert or to assuage.
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