Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/167

THE IVORY TOWER of him, was his learning by inquiry, in case your friend could see him, whether there was any sort of thing he could do for him in his possible want of a man to put a hand on. Because poor Rosanna, for all one thinks of her," said the girl, "isn't exactly a man."

Morton's attention was deeply engaged; his hands, a little behind him, rested, as props to his slight backward inclination, on the convenient stone; his legs, extended before him, enabled him to dig in his heels a little, while his eyes, attached to the stretch of sea commanded by their rocky retreat, betrayed a fixed and quickened vision. Rich in fine lines and proportions was his handsome face—with scarce less, moreover, to be said of his lean, light and long-drawn, though so much more pointed and rounded figure. His features, after a manner of their own, announced an energy and composed an array that his expression seemed to disavow, or at least to be indifferent to, and had the practical effect of toning down; as if he had been conscious that his nose, of the bravest, strongest curve and intrinsically a great success, was too bold and big for its social connections, that his mouth protested or at least asserted more than he cared to back it up to, that his chin and jaw were of too tactless an importance, and his fine eyes, above all, which suggested choice samples of the more or less precious stone called aquamarine, too disposed to darken with the 153