"Oh, you're expecting something, then?"
"I'm watching to see. I confess I shall watch you. I said that you interested me—that's what I mean. You're going to—well, change."
As she stood between him and the light her soft hair showed as fine and crisp as spun glass. Her lips were sensitively curved with a flitting smile, her eyes were dreamy again. Everything about her bespoke a high spiritual caste, but, to Granthope, this only accented the desirability of her bodily self—it would make her the greater prize, unlike anything he had, so far, been able to win. He had an epicure's delight in feminine beauty, and he knew how its flavor should be finely tinctured by mind and soul; even beauty was not exciting without that, and of mere beauty he had his fill. Besides, she had unexpected reserves of emotion that he was continually tempted to arouse. But so far he had hopelessly misplayed his part, and he longed to prove his customary skill with women.
"Well," he said finally, offering his hand, "I hope I'll be able to satisfy you, sooner or later. I'll come, soon, for a report!"
"Oh, my mood may have changed, by that time."
He gave her the farewell amenities and went down the path to the gate. There he turned and saw her still watching him. He waved his hat and went down the steps, his mind restless with thoughts of her.
Clytie remained a while in the arbor. The fog had begun to come in now with a vanguard of light fleecy clouds riding high in the air, closing the bay in from all sides. The massive bank behind followed slowly, tinted with opal and rose from the setting sun. It settled down, shutting out her sight of the water, and its cohorts were soon scurrying past her on their charge overland from ocean to harbor. The siren at Point Bonita sighed dismally across the channel. It soon grew too cold to remain longer in the garden, and she went into the house shivering, lighted an open fire in the library and sat down.
For half an hour she sat there in silence, inert, listless, lost in thought, her eyes on the blurred landscape mystic with driving fog. The room grew darker, illuminated only by the fitful flashes of the fire. Her still, relaxed figure, fragile and delicate as an ivory carving, was alternately captured and hidden by the shadow and rescued and restored by the sudden gleam from the hearth. She had not moved when her father's step was heard in the hall. He came in, benignly sedate. His deep voice vibrated through the room.
"Well, Cly, dreaming again?"
She started at the sound and came out of her reverie to rise and greet him affectionately. He put down some books and a package of papers and lighted the chandelier, exchanging commonplaces with her—of her bookbinding work, which she confessed to have shirked; of the weather, with a little of old age's querulous complaint of rheumatic touches; of the black cat, which was their domestic fetish and (an immortally interesting topic to him) of the vileness and poisonous quality of San Francisco illuminating gas. His voice flowed on mellifluously with unctuous authority, as he seated himself in his arm-chair beneath the lamp, shook out his evening paper and rattled its flapping sheets.