When she had
added, "We must do what we can, of course; I'll see her; I've nobody with
me just now," he presumed that he had won the rubber.
Apart from the comfortable _cliche_ in which she was seen enfolded,
Sanchia pleased the eye. Her father, in league with her throughout, had
"stood" her a frock, the cunningest that Madame Freluche could supply, and
would have added pearls for her hair and neck if she had not tenderly
refused them. She took his counsels in the general--that she was to show
them what was what, "for the honour of the Percival girls"--and her own
for the particular; would have no ornaments at all. By an entirely right
instinct she chose to wear black. It set her off as dazzlingly fair, as
more delicate than she was. Her eyes, from her pale brows and faintly
tinted cheeks, gleamed intensely, burningly blue. Her strength appeared in
her shut lips and firm chin--subtle, and, as Mrs. Quantock said, like that
of steel wire.
She did not talk much, but what she said was simple and direct. She seemed
to be reticent about herself, not by any means from shame, but because her
acts and intentions appeared too obvious to be worth rehearsing. Once or
twice her laugh, low and musical, showed that she relished a joke.
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