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Leaning back languidly, she was eyeing him closely from under drooping lids, smiling, too, in an unimportant sort of way, as if what she had said was a trifle. Consummate liar and comedian, or true man and no pretender, his eyes did not falter. They were absorbed, as if in eager study of a theme. "Yes, yes, that's it; and if he has it, what next?" said he meaningly.
He had discovered that it was different from the other walls long before he had any thoughts of his own, any conscious volitions. It had been an irresistible attraction before ever his eyes opened and looked upon it. The light from it had beat upon his sealed lids, and the eyes and the optic nerves had pulsated to little, sparklike flashes, warm-coloured and strangely pleasing.
"It is very friendly of him," said Rowland, smiling. The Cavaliere contracted his lids a little more and gave another keen glance. "It is very natural, signore. The Christina is a good girl; she remembers my little services. But here comes," he added in a moment, "the young Prince of the Fine Arts. I am sure he has bowed lowest of all."
"What else did you dream?" Lamberti's lids drooped as if he were concentrating his attention on the remembered vision. "I dreamt," he said, "that I saw a veiled woman in white come out of the temple door straight into the sunlight, and though I could not see the face, I knew who she was.
He lay on his back as he had fallen, his feet towards her, his graceful limbs relaxed, one arm beside him, the other thrown back beyond his head, the colourless fingers just bent a little and showing the nervous beauty of the hand. The beautiful young face was white as marble, and the eyes were half open, very dark under the waxen lids.
"It is one of the charms of Nature." "A charm that I have never discovered. What about the ever-present hum of multitudinous insects, the song of birds, the moan of winds, the laughter of leaping water? It seems to me that Nature is all voice." "Then, suppose," said the undaunted young lady, lifting her languorous lids, "that we listen to her voice."
And the child's lids drooped languidly, until the long lashes lay close against her cheeks. There was silence for a little while, and then Mrs. Morgan said in a half-whisper to Mrs. Slade: "Oh, we've had such a dreadful time with poor Joe. He got in that terrible way again last night. I had to go for Doctor Green and leave him all alone.
There was no mistaking young Denton's words or looks. Faith could not have been a woman and not understood their meaning. For a second her lids fell in a tell-tale manner, and her cheeks paled and reddened with each alternating emotion. She knew she must resent the young man's words at once, but her confusion of the moment rendered her powerless to do so.
Her high physical animation and the burden of themes it plucked for delivery carried her flowing over impediments of virginal self-consciousness, to set her at her ease in the talk with men; she had not gone through the various Nursery exercises in dissimulation; she had no appearance of praying forgiveness of men for the original sin of being woman; and no tricks of lips or lids, or traitor scarlet on the cheeks, or assumptions of the frigid mask, or indicated reserve-cajoleries.
It was his turn to be grave now and she glanced at him with a gleam of satisfaction beneath her lids. She was not content with that, however, but wished to make him angry. So she laughed again and they would have quarrelled if he had not kept his lips firmly closed and looked straight in front of him. They passed between the unfinished ruin known as the Italian house and the rampart.
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