As she lay with tossed arms and pale
streaming hair under the feather coverlet of a great hotel bed he saw
with a sharp uneasiness that, in a subtle but unmistakable accent, she
resembled her mother, Essie Scofield.
XIII
His thoughts darkened with the falling day; he supposed them to be
solely addressed to the problem of Eunice; but, in reality, they
constantly evaded his will, following countless trivialities, and
returned to his own, peculiar need. He made some small changes of dress
for the evening, replacing brown with glazed black boots, and struggled,
with one hand, through the ordeal of tying a formal neckcloth. He had
purposely left behind his negro servant as a possible source of
unguarded chatter. When Jasper Penny had finished he went in to Eunice
and found her awake. The new clothes lay in their open boxes; and,
lighting candles, he wondered if he had better have some one in to
assist her. "Can you fix yourself up in these?" he asked, indicating the
purchases.
"Oh, yes," she assured him gravely; "that is except the very backest
buttons." She stood by the folded piles of shirred muslin, the elaborate
velvets and silks and ribbons, obviously at a loss before such an
unparalleled choice; and he was once more disturbed by the attenuation
of her small body.
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