Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/191

   from some peroration and caught the expression of his eye as he turned his face to mine in the yellow lamp-light, that he was listening to the echoes of an early anthem and found them sweet—even at the cost of his so-called honor!

"I was glad when the time came for us to leave, for I could see that between the wine and the woman Stewart was fast shedding his restraint. There was a cut to his voice, a fierce, deviltry in the ring of his laughter, and I have seen men shot for less than the expression of his eyes. At first it appeared that the Countess had an eye for her husband; then, seeing nothing but indulgence in his aristocratic face, she had yielded gradually to the fascinations of the hour, until one could see that she had quite lost the focus of her conventional perspective. You see, Doctor, she was not a high-bred woman, so that she was quite untrammeled by the instincts which come of long generations of culture. The only thing which held her in check was the [ 175 ]