But now she had the fell look of a cat, the long, sleek, cruel smile,
the staring and avid eyes. A cat she might be, playing with her own
beating heart, patting it, watching its throbs.
These moments of witchcraft gazing were not many. They had been
deliberately begun, and were deliberately done with. Within their span her
cares were faced and co-ordinated; and the business over, she sighed and
sank more snugly into her chair. She leaned back; her hands crossed
themselves in her lap; she shut her eyes. All the lines upon her face
softened, melted away. She looked now like an Oread aswoon in the midday
heats, pure of thought or dread or memory. Her bosom below her laces rose
and fell gently. She slept.
Outside, in the dusky dark, was one who padded up and down the grass on
noiseless feet, passing and repassing the window, with an eye for the
narrow chink of light.
She slept for a very short time. Towards ten o'clock she awoke. Collecting
herself luxuriously, she was seen to face her facts again. Evidently they
held her eyes waking; they were dreadfully there, still unresolved or
still unpalatable. Before them now she plainly quailed. The flush of her
sleep gave delicacy to her carven beauty; she looked fragile and
tremulous; it would seem that a little more pity of herself would bring
her to tears.
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