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As I looked him over with a half-shrinking glance, I became aware of a slash indenting his pock-marked cheek that might have been made by a sabre cut was, probably, for it takes a brave man to be a warden; a massive head set on big shoulders; a square chin, the jaw hinged like a burglar's jimmy; and two keen, restless, elephant eyes.
The dream of years was to come true and the darling of Willie's brain, his greatest and most ambitious idea, was to be made a potent factor in the broad universe. So perfectly did he understand the quaint, half-shrinking inventor that he knew well no money, no fame, no praise could mean to him what this recognition would.
With winning courtesy, but at the same time with a half-shrinking, troubled look in her eyes, Mistress Forrester led the way to the table, and as soon as he was seated the guest seemed to cast off his imperious military manner, and become the courtly scholarly gentleman who had read much, travelled far, and thought deeply.
Concurrently with these comments, he more than once burst out a laughing, with the half-enjoying and half-piqued air of a man, who had given up a good conundrum, after much guessing, and been told the answer. Bella was so timid of him, that she noted these things in a half-shrinking, half-perceptive way, and similarly noted that there was a great change in his manner towards John.
Suddenly, with the letters in her hand with which she had entered the room, she saw the white rose on her pillow. Slowly she got up from the dressing-table and went over to the bed in a hushed kind of way. With a strange, inquiring, half-shrinking look she regarded the flower. One white rose. It was not there when she left.
She looked at him with eagerness, an ugly, half-shrinking innuendo in her expression. George had suddenly moved away, and was sitting now some little distance from his wife, his eyes bent on the ground. However, at her question he made a sign of assent. "You do remember? Well," said Letty, triumphantly, "it is he who is at the bottom of it all. I knew there must be somebody.
Frona was helplessly aware that she had no grip over the situation, and, though a rebellion at the cruelty and injustice of it was smouldering somewhere deep down, she could only watch the swift culmination of the little tragedy. The woman met his gaze with a half-shrinking, as from an impending blow, and with a softness of expression which entreated pity.
"Something in his appearance and manner, a half-shrinking and smiling diffidence, an unworn and childlike ardor and unconsciousness, a freshness of feeling and frankness of address, invested his personality with what we call quaintness. He was always active, even to apparent restlessness, not from nervous excitement, but from fulness of life and sympathy.
His voice trembled, and then he added, "He has twice been the protector of my dear adopted daughter, let me join their hands together as a pledge that he may shortly obtain a better title to be her protector while life shall last." And so, placing the half-shrinking hand of Mary in the young man's stronger grasp, he held them together with a fervent blessing.
She was thoroughly enjoying herself, and the nearest approach that men can experience to the joy that was hers is the joy of battle. "I cannot answer that not now." And the little half-shrinking glance over her shoulder was a low-minded, unmaidenly invitation. But he was in earnest, and he was, above all, a gentleman. He stood his ground a yard away from her.
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