She shrugged her beautiful shoulders, and arranged the brooch at her breast before replying in a low tone.
'I don't care if it has.'
'What does it say?' asked the journalist, with imperturbable cruelty.
By way of reply she raised her eyes to his. A faint cloud of tobacco-smoke floated upwards, passed overhead, and left his strange incongruous face exposed to the full light of the shaded lamp. The beautiful eyes searched his features, and I maintain that few men could have looked down at that lovely woman, could have met those pleading eyes, could have ventured within the reach of that subtle feminine influence, unmoved. If Trist was uneasy no outward sign betrayed him; no quiver of the eyelids; no motion of the lips. During some moments there was a tense silence, while these two looked into each other's eyes, probed each other's souls. The veil which hangs round that treasure we all possess—the treasure of an unassailable, illegible, secret individuality—seemed to fall away. Without words they understood each other. Indeed, no words could have explained as that mutual searching glance had done.
Alice Huston knew then that she had met a man—the first in all probability—who was totally impervious to the baleful influence of the charms she had wielded so long, without defining or seeking to define them. She only knew that a turn of her head, a glance of her eyes, a touch of her hand, had been sufficient to work her will upon men. Without theorizing upon sexual influence she had used it unscrupulously, as most women do, and hitherto it had never failed. She was aware that she could lead men who were beyond the reach of the strongest purpose possessed by their own sex without any exercise of her will at all. Her strength lay in physical, not in moral influence. If her beauty failed she had nothing to support her.
And now she sat with interlocked and writhing fingers, gazing upwards at this man, awaiting his will. Her agonized eyes quailed beneath his gentle glance. It is a picture I recommend to the notice of such plain and unwomanly females as love to talk of woman's rights and woman's superior nature, which awaits but the opportunity of asserting itself. Ah, my sisters!—you, the womanly women!—believe me, your greatest earthly happiness lies in love as it is understood now and has been understood since the Lion lay down with the Lamb in that old Garden which we catch glimpses of still over a fence when the love-light is in our eyes.
Trist broke the silence at last, and his voice was hollow, with a singular 'far-off' sound, like the voice of a man speaking in great pain, with an effort.
'If the world has made a mistake, Alice,' he said slowly and impressively, 'I hope to God you have not!'
She made no answer. The power of speech seemed to have left her beautiful lips, which were livid and dry. She rubbed her hands together, palm to palm, in a horribly mechanical manner, which was almost inhuman in its dumb despair. Before her eyes a veil—dull, neutral-tinted, impenetrable—seemed to rise, and her vision failed. The tendons of her lovely throat were tense, like wires, beneath the milky skin.
At length her senses returned, her bosom rose and fell rhythmically, and she looked round the room in a dazed, stupid way like one who has fallen from a height.