" Howat said,
"Excellent." Ludowika gazed at him swiftly. "It will be difficult." His
face became grim, but he made no direct reply. A silence fell on the
room through which vibrated the blows of the trip hammer at the Forge.
The day was grey and definitely cold; a small cannon stove glowed in the
counting house; but Ludowika kept mostly to her room. She sent him a
note by the Italian, and Howat eyed the fellow bowing in the doorway. A
flexibility that seemed entirely without bones. His eyes were jet slits,
his lips shaven and mobile; a wig was repulsively saturated with scented
grease. Yet it was not in actual details that he oppressed Howat; but by
the vague suggestion of debasing commendations, of surreptitious
understanding, insinuations. He seemed, absurdly, unreal, a symbol the
intent of which Howat missed; he suppressed an insane movement to touch
the Italian, discover if he was actually before him.
He reread Ludowika's note whenever he was not actually employed in
recording, until he was obliged to conceal it in the Forge book.
Later Abner Forsythe arrived with David, and there was a stir of
preparing rooms and communication with the farm. David's mother was
dead, and Abner conducted the wedding negotiations with the Pennys.
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