Page:The tortoise, a novel (IA tortoisenovel00bordiala).pdf/13

Rh She had told him, without speech, not to believe any more. Yet he would not give up hope—and how could he stop believing? She had acted. She had taken the issue out of his hands and yet he counted still on one chance. If he left her completely alone there was a chance. He could do nothing but leave her alone. Yet he could not help watching her. He could not help looking.

He felt sure that up to that moment she had not seen him looking. He believed that never had she seen him looking at her as he had actually always looked. And although it might possibly be that even now his face expressed nothing, he felt that it must at last be the ordinary man's face of self-betrayal.

She had once said what a pity it was that he had not a face of his own. Now he was glad of that, but was nevertheless afraid to trust the blankness of the mask God had lent him. He would have lived over again all the many dumb hours of hatred of that vast pale disc that said nothing to her to be sure now that it was quite as usual, a smooth round slit surface that made people stare curiously and told no tales of its owner.

His stillness was not dramatic as was her stillness. It was not a wild arrested movement. His was a far greater stillness than hers. It conveyed no possibility of relief. He was so still that he looked as though never again could any ripple of movement pass over his bulk, neither over his heavy shoulders, his huge torso, his massive legs, nor his feet. One