"
She looked at it, scarcely seeing, and forced a smile that could not
quite remove the furrow of silent intensity from her brows. Traill
saw that. He could not take his eyes from her face. Her almost
childish passivity was like a slow and heavy poison in his blood.
It crept gradually and gradually through the veins, leaving fire
wherever it touched.
Alexandre came back with the wine, and broke the spell of it. He
spread the change out on the table, and the sound of it then, at that
moment, was like the breaking of a thousand little pieces of glass,
over which his presence walked with clumsy feet.
"Well, what did Mr. Arthur say?" Traill asked when Alexandre had
disappeared again and Berthe had brought them their second course.
Sally looked up and smiled at his encouragement, a smile that lit
through him. He could feel it dancing in his eyes.
"He asked me if I had made up my mind," she replied.
"Made up your mind to marry him?"
"Yes."
The pause was heavy, it seemed to swing against them.
"And you? What did you say?"
He tried to conceal the burning of his interest to know. His voice
was steady--each note of each word quiet, true, subdued; but when
the brain is tautened, vibrating as was his, it gives out of itself
unconsciously.
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