She shuddered, and a
troubled look came into her eyes. Yet she could not remember. She
leaned slightly forward, as if she were peering into that by-gone world
which, maybe, is wider than the future for all of us--the past. Her eyes
grew deep and melancholy. The sunset seemed to brighten around her all
at once, and enmesh her in a golden web, burnishing her hair, and it fell
across her brow with a peculiar radiance, leaving the temples in shadow,
softening and yet lighting the carmine of her cheeks and lips, giving a
feeling of life to her dress, which itself was like dusty gold. Her
hands were caught and clasped at her knees. There was something
spiritual and exalted in the picture. It had, too, a touch of tragedy,
for something out of her nebulous past had been reflected in faint
shadows in her eyes, and this again, by strange, delicate processes, was
expressed in every line of her form, in all the aspect of her face. It
was as if some knowledge were being filtered to her through myriad
atmospheres of premonition; as though the gods in pity foreshadowed a
great trouble, that the first rudeness of misery might be spared.
She did not note that Iberville had risen, and had come round the table
to look over Councillor Drayton's shoulder at a map spread out. After
standing a moment watching, the councillor's finger his pilot, he started
back to his seat.
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