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She was a housemaid of great intelligence, and an imperfect sense of humor, and she obeyed with unsmiling scrupulosity the instructions she had to leave everything in Miss Charmian's studio exactly as she found it, but to leave it clean.
"Yes," he said, unsmiling. "I had to see you before I went on matters of business and " She was nearer to him now: for the first time he could see her eyes. In them lay a faint shadowiness like the memory of shed tears; but sweeping over that and blotting it out he saw a look which struck him like a blow. "There is nothing for you to see me about, I think any more," she said with a little laugh.
Tatsu suddenly sank to his knees, bowing again and again, stiffly, in a manner long forgotten in fashionable Yeddo. "Discard the ceremony of bowing, I entreat," said Kano. "Why? Is it not a custom here?" "Yes, to a lesser extent. But between us, dear youth, it is unnecessary." "Why should it be unnecessary between us?" persisted the unsmiling guest.
Until late in the afternoon they rode through a land that was bleak and barren of all grace or cheer. The dull browns and greys of the landscape were unrelieved by any green or freshness save close by the banks of an occasional stream. The vivid blue of a cloudless sky served only to light up its desolation to greater disadvantage. It was a grim unsmiling land, hard to like.
Many a traveler, approaching a rude hut in the woods in the gathering twilight, distrusting the gaunt and silent family who gave him an unsmiling welcome, the bare interior, the rifles and knives conspicuously displayed, has felt his fears vanish when he sat down to supper, and the master of the house, in a few fervent words, invoked the blessing of heaven on the meal.
Sometimes, she has bowed right and left, and smiled, as though pleased by the cheers of the people; but at other times she has scarcely inclined her head, and worn a look of unsmiling, utter weariness proving that a woman may have much worldly goods, many jewels, and brave velvet gowns, and heaps of India shawls, and half a dozen grand mansions, with a throne in every one, and yet at times feel that this brief life of ours is "all vanity and vexation of spirit."
There was nothing queer in her aspect to-day, at all events, as she demurely performed her duties at the tea table. To the occasional pleasant and surprised "Hello, Miss Field!" she returned a composed and unsmiling nod of greeting; for the rest, she poured and sweetened, and conferred with the maids, in a manner entirely businesslike.
"Oh, I never can bear it!" she said pathetically, under her breath. "I never can bear it in the world!" The tokens of illness were all put away. Her mother's bedroom lay cold in an unsmiling order. The ticking of the clock emphasized the inexorable silence of the house. Once Lucy Ann thought she heard a little rustle and stir.
Say, we'll fight for you as we've never fought before. We'll fight him, and beat him, and keep you safe from that hell he's got waitin' for you. Just say the word, and stop right here. And I'll swear before God " Leslie Standing raised a protesting hand. His eyes were unsmiling. "It's useless, old friend," he said with irrevocable decision.
As Hazel saw Miss Fletcher coming, she gazed at the unsmiling face looking out from hair drawn back in a tight knot; and Miss Fletcher, on her part, saw such winning eagerness in the smile that met her, that she modified the sharp reproof ready to spring forth. "Get down off the fence, little girl," she said. "You oughtn't ever to hang by the pickets; you'll break one if you do."
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