Page:The Great Secret.djvu/32

16 passed, for after grief comes the period of defiance, which produces cynicism, and after that the death-in-life—apathy. She was at the apathetic stage, which even the shock of an anticipated bomb could not shake or terrorise.

She partook of the dishes regularly, and with moderation, dressed always well, yet without ostentation, as a lady must do. When speaking, she uttered her words evenly and correctly, with a voice that was silvery and soft, yet, like her eyes, a little too colourless. To the others she seemed to be an uninteresting person, for the jokes passed without any recognition from her, and humorists, great or little, do not like that kind of reception of their small change, yet, if the subject was serious, she took her share in it, without any apparent effort, and conversed modestly and well.

She looked to be twenty-nine or thirty; possibly she was younger, for sorrow and disappointment age one quickly. Philip saw more than a few white hairs shining amongst her brown tresses; these, with the tiny lines at the side of her firm lips and across and between the brows, revealed a history to him which he would fain have penetrated for the purpose of consoling. Perhaps she read that intuition in him, as well as something of his own drama, for she made him more of an intimate than she did the others.

Her figure was willowy and slender, yet firmly built and healthy; the hands were white, small, and carefully cared for—such hands, long and shapely, that wearied men like to have passed over their fevered brows. The wedding-ring and keeper were on the left hand, with a few other rings. The strongest minded of women cannot dispense with those feminine adornments. This taste has come down the ages with them from the days when