For each
little gesture that she made--unconsciously, of course--expressed more
than the swiftest language could have compassed in an hour. And he
noted every one: the occasional flourish of the little hands, the
bending of the graceful neck, the shadowy head turned sideways, the
lift of one shoulder, almost imperceptible, and sometimes the attitude
of the entire body. To him they were, one and all, eloquently
revealing. Behind each little gesture loomed a yet larger one, the
scale increasing strangely, till his thoughts climbed up them as up a
ladder into the region where her ideas lay naked before casual
interpretation clothed them. Those, he reflected, who are rich in
ideas, but find words difficult, may reveal themselves prodigally in
gesture. Expression of one kind or another there must be; yet lavish
action, the language of big souls, seems a man's expression rather
than a woman's.... He built up swiftly, surely, solidly his
interpretation of this little foreign visitor who came to him thus
suddenly from the stars, whispering to his inmost thought, 'You must
come up to me.' The whole experience dazed him. He sat in utter
dumbness, shyer than a boy, but happier than a singing star!... The
Joy in his heart was marvellous.
Yet how could he know all this?
In the intervals that came to him like breathing spaces he asked
himself this childish question.
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