To-night he seemed to have a very devil in his fingers, and
the coach seemed to fly along the road, beside the river. As usual,
he did not speak to her, but stared straight in front of him, the
ribbons seeming to lie quite loosely in his slender, white hands.
Marguerite looked at him tentatively once or twice; she could see his
handsome profile, and one lazy eye, with its straight fine brow and
drooping heavy lid.
The face in the moonlight looked singularly earnest, and
recalled to Marguerite's aching heart those happy days of courtship,
before he had become the lazy nincompoop, the effete fop, whose life
seemed spent in card and supper rooms.
But now, in the moonlight, she could not catch the expression
of the lazy blue eyes; she could only see the outline of the firm
chin, the corner of the strong mouth, the well-cut massive shape of
the forehead; truly, nature had meant well by Sir Percy; his faults
must all be laid at the door of that poor, half-crazy mother, and of
the distracted heart-broken father, neither of whom had cared for the
young life which was sprouting up between them, and which, perhaps,
their very carelessness was already beginning to wreck.
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