Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/183

 Mrs. Hale had in common,—self-constraint and reserve. Hale, himself, wanted these qualities; he was a man constantly expressing himself, enjoying feelings and liking to stir others to feelings; so a girl, such as his wife had been, must have come to him as a sort of challenge. She had been beautiful and constrained and reserved; and he had set himself to make her show feeling.

Thought Gregg, probably he—having so much feeling of his own—never imagined that a person could exist without as much; probably he was sure, when he married, he could kindle that cool, self-assured, reserved girl who, by her very constraint, allured him. But at last, thought Gregg, he found he could not. Gregg recollected the stiffness of Mrs. Hale's hand when in his own and he realized—as subconsciously he had understood before—that she had not been making her handclasp meaningless for him; it always was a meaningless formality with her—a rite of tactual sensation which she did not desire and which, probably, actually offended her.

Gregg could not imagine Sybil Russell making her handclasp meaningless, if she tried; she might express dislike of a person by it, as surely she could convey much feeling; but she could not keep sensation out of the contact; for she compressed passions below her exterior of reserve.

He pictured her standing in one aisle at Field's while, in another, or a little away in the same aisle, Mrs. Hale made her thoughtful, deliberate purchases with her husband at her side; and Gregg wondered whether Charles Hale saw Sybil Russell and, if he did, whether the two spoke.

"Of course it is the daughter," Mrs. Russell com-