In fact, the human side of him had
impressed her only as a certain dim appeal to sympathy; the
masculine side had simply not existed. Now it was as if he had
unmasked. The visage, so grotesque and gnomish behind its
mechanical apparatus, had given place to a wholly different and
formidably strange face. The change all centered in the eyes. They
were wide-set eyes of the clearest, steadiest, and darkest gray
she had ever met; and they looked out at her from sharply angled
brows with a singular clarity and calmness of regard. In their
light the man's face became instinct with character in every line.
Strength was there, self-control, dignity, a glint of humor in the
little wrinkles at the corner of the mouth, and, withal a sort of
quiet and sturdy beauty.
She had half-turned her face from him. Now, as her gaze returned
and was fixed by his, she felt a wave of blood expand her heart,
rush upward into her cheeks, and press into her eyes tears of
swift regret. But now she was sorry, not for him, but for herself,
because he had become remote and difficult to her.
"Have I startled you?" he asked curiously.
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