Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/75

Rh has a remarkable deal of it to show. What's the vehemence with which she expresses herself but a sign of increasing life? It's excitement, of course—partly; but it's also striking energy."

"Excitement?" Rose repeated. "I thought you just said she was 'serene.'"

Tony hesitated, but he was perfectly clear. "She's calm about what she calls leaving me, bless her heart; she seems to have accepted that prospect with the strangest resignation. What she's uneasy, what she's in fact still more strangely tormented and exalted about, is another matter."

"I see—the thing you just mentioned."

"She takes an interest," Tony went on, "she asks questions, she sends messages, she speaks out with all her voice. She's delighted to know that Mr. Vidal has at last come to you, and she told me to tell you so from her, and to tell him so—to tell you both, in fact, how she rejoices that what you've so long waited for is now so close at hand."

Rose took this in with lowered eyes. "How dear of her!" she murmured.

"She asked me particularly about Mr. Vidal," Tony continued—"how he looks, how he strikes me,