“It is unusual.”
“Oh!”
“I wasn’t a bit nervous. Uncle says that’s a bad sign. He says I looked all right, though I’m sure I was an object with that paint stuff on my face and the red all in the wrong place. Aunt wouldn’t let me do it myself. . . . You will cut your beard off?”
“I don’t know. I might like it.”
She handed him a mirror, and mischief danced in her eyes as she watched his disconcerted expression. “Bit of a surprise, eh?”
He could find nothing to say. Impossible for him to lay the mirror down. For years he had accepted a certain idea of his personal appearance—ruddy, heavy-jowled, with a twinkle behind spectacles surmounted by a passably high forehead that was furrowed by the lines of a frown almost deliberately cultivated for the purposes of inspiring terror in small boys delinquent. Now, in the sharpened receptivity of his issue from unconsciousness, his impression was one of roundness, round face, round eyes, round brow, round head (balder than he had thought)—all accentuated by the novelty of his beard, that was gray, almost white. Age and roundness. Fearful of meeting Matilda’s gaze, he went on staring into the mirror. Her youth, the fun bubbling up in her, reproached him, made him feel defenceless against her, and, though he delighted in her presence, he was resentful. She had so many precious qualities to which he could not respond.
“I ’spect I must go now,” she said.
“Yes. I’m rather tired.”
She took the mirror from him, patted his hand, and soothed him, saying: