But now there was beginning to show
in her a radical difference from the rest of the crowd pouring
through the streets of the city. It made the quicker observers
in the passing throng turn the head for a second and wondering
glance. Most of them assumed they had been stirred by her
superiority of face and figure. But striking faces and figures
of the various comely types are frequent in the streets of New
York and of several other American cities. The truth was that
they were interested by her expression--an elusive expression
telling of a soul that was being moved to its depths by
experience which usually finds and molds mere passive material.
This expression was as evident in her mouth as in her eyes, in
her profile as in her full face. And as she sat there on the
edge of the bed twisting up her thick dark hair, it was this
expression that disconcerted Freddie Palmer, for the first time
in all his contemptuous dealings with the female sex. In his
eyes was a ferocious desire to seize her and again try to
conquer and to possess.
She had become almost unconscious of his presence. He startled
her by suddenly crying, "Oh, you go to hell!" and flinging from
the room, crashing the door shut behind him.
Maud had grown tired of the haberdasher's clerk and his
presumptions upon her frank fondness which he wholly
misunderstood. She had dropped him for a rough looking
waiter-singer in a basement drinking place.
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