It interested her. She looked at it critically, as at some
face other than her own, some portrait, appraising and studying it. It
was young and fresh, surely, as the morn--in its softness of contour and
fine clear bloom; yet grave to the verge of austerity, owing partly to
the brown hair which, parted in the middle and drawn down in a plain
full sweep over the ears, hung thence in thick loose plait on either
side to below her waist. She looked long and curiously into her own
eyes, "dear wonderful eyes," as Faircloth, her brother, so deliciously
called them. And with that her mouth curved into a smile, sight of which
brought recognition, new and very moving, of her own by no means
inconsiderable beauty.
She went red, and then white almost as her white nightdress and the white
pillows behind her. Laid the mirror hastily down, and held her face in
both hands as--as Carteret had held it last night, at the moment of
parting, when he had kissed not her lips but her forehead. Yet very
differently, since she now held it with strained, clinging fingers, which
hurt, making marks upon the flesh.
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