Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/61

 expected a painted prettiness, at the most. Of course, her paleness was explained, when Calvin recollected that she had returned to this building and gone to bed, after her visit to the lake; so she had washed off the color which, undoubtedly, had daubed her cheeks and lips.

But the mere lack of rouge could not endow this girl with the definiteness of character which, at the first encounter of her eyes, she appeared to possess.

She had been seated, with a police officer beside her, upon a window bench when Calvin entered; but she arose immediately and advanced, as though she had been eagerly awaiting him. Since he was tall, and she was not, she came scarcely higher than his shoulder as she confronted him.

She had dark hair and she was wearing a black silk kimono with little flowers embroidered in red and yellow and blue; and between the shadow of her hair, which was bobbed, and the black of her kimono, her face and her smooth, lovely neck were very white. Her arms were white where they came out of the short kimono sleeves and she had small, white hands clenched at her sides.

"You are Mr. Clarke?" she asked him, in a queer, hoarse voice.

"Yes."

"You—you are the one who comes for the People of Illinois!" she said, and her hoarse voice offered a thrilling challenge to him.

"Yes," he repeated and gazed at her eyes which had not wavered from his.

Her eyes were blue and wide and beautifully shaped and with dark, even lashes; the contours of her face and her head were exquisite. She had not merely a smooth, white, beautiful brow, but behind it the shaping of will and intelligence. She was not at all like the girl who lay