Page:Glimpses of the Moon (Wharton 1922).djvu/195

Rh Hicks's profile, thrown back against the cushions of the deck-chair at his side. There was something harsh and bracing in her blunt primitive build, in the projection of the black eyebrows that nearly met over her thick straight nose, and the faint barely visible black down on her upper lip. Some miracle of will-power, combined with all the artifices that wealth can buy, had turned the fat sallow girl he remembered into this commanding young woman, almost handsome at times indisputably handsome—in her big authoritative way. Watching the arrogant lines of her profile against the blue sea, he remembered, with a thrill that was sweet to his vanity, how twice—under the dome of the Scalzi and in the streets of Genoa—he had seen those same lines soften at his approach, turn womanly, pleading and almost humble. That was Coral.

Suddenly she said, without turning toward him: "You've had no letters since you've been on board."

He looked at her, surprised. "No—thank the Lord!" he laughed.

"And you haven't written one either," she continued in her hard statistical tone.

"No," he again agreed, with the same laugh.

"That means that you really are free—"

"Free?"

He saw the cheek nearest him redden. "Really off on a holiday, I mean; not tied down."