As she stood by the window in her scarlet silk robe she made a sharp
contrast in person to the woman whose shadow had fallen to-night
across her life. She was a petite brunette of distant Spanish
ancestry, a Spottswood from old Tidewater Virginia. To the tenderest
motherhood she combined a passionate temper with intense jealousy.
The anxious face was crowned with raven hair. Her eyes were dark
and stormy, and so large that in their shining surface the shadows
of the long lashes could be seen.
Her nature, for all its fiery passions, was refined, shy and
tremulous. A dimple in her chin and a small sensitive mouth gave
her an expression at once timid and childlike. Her footstep had
feline grace, delicacy and distinction. She had a figure almost
perfect, erect, lithe, with small hands and feet and tiny wrists.
Her voice was a soft contralto, caress-ing and full of feeling,
with a touch of the languor and delicate sensuousness of the Old
South. About her personality there was a haunting charm, vivid and
spiritual, the breath of a soul capable of the highest heroism if
once aroused.
At twelve o'clock she relighted the gas and went downstairs to
stand at the parlour window to scan more clearly every face that
might pass, and--yes, she would be honest with herself now--to
spring into his arms the moment he entered, smother him with kisses
and beg him to forgive the bitter words she had spoken in anger.
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