"He is such a taster," she added,
but particularized no more. She sat, with the scarlet bound book clouded
in the white chiffon of her lap, gazing at the wall. Her lips were
parted, and a brighter colour rose in her cheeks. Her attitude, her
expression, vaguely disturbed him; he had never seen her more warmly,
dangerously, alive. A new reluctance stopped the question forming in
his mind; she seemed to have retreated from him. "Moore is a very great
artist," he said instead.
"That's little to me," she replied flippantly, rising. "I think I'll go
up; and I almost think I will kiss you again." He grumbled a protest,
and watched her trail from the room, the silver girdle and chiffon
emphasizing her thin, vigorous body, the lamplight falling on her bare,
sharp shoulders. Howat Penny had early acquired a habit of long hours,
and it was past one when he put aside his papers, stood for a moment on
the porch. The fireflies were gone, the locusts seemed farther away, and
the soft, heavy flight of an owl rose from the warm grass.
Below, on the right, he could vaguely see the broken bulk of what had
been Shadrach Furnace, the ruined shape of the past. The Pennys no
longer made iron. His father had marked the last casting. They no longer
listened to the beat of the trip hammer, but to the light rhythm of a
conductor's baton; they heard, in place of ringing metal, a tenor's
grace notes.
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