“Wouldn’t I?” she exclaimed; “oh, wouldn’t I?—smart crowds and gay streets and shops on fire with jewels. That’s where I belong; I’d show them; I’ve got a style, if I only had a chance! I’ve got a figure ... shoulders.”
He appraised in a veiled glance her physical pretensions. He discovered, to his surprise, that she had “shoulders”; her body resembled her hands, it was smoothly rounded, provocative; its graceful proportion deceived the casual eye.
With a disdainful motion she kicked off a heavily clumsy slipper—her instep arched narrowly to a delicate ankle, the small heel was sharply cut. “In silk,” she said, “and a little brocaded slipper, you would see.” She replaced the inadequate thing of leather. The animation died from her countenance, she surveyed him with cold eyes, narrowed lips. Her gaze, he felt, included him in the immediate, hateful scene; she gained fresh repugnance from his stained, collarless shirt, his bagging knees coated with sawdust.
She rose, and, her skirt gathered in one hand, descended the precarious flight of steps. She crossed the grass slowly, her head bent, her hands tightly clenched.
Later, in the yard, Gordon saw, at a lighted, upper window, the silhouette of her back, a gleam of white arm. The window cast an elongated rectangle of warm light on the blue gloom of the grass. It illuminated him, with his gaze lifted; and, while, standing in the open window, she saw him clearly, she was as indifferent, as contemptuous of his presence, as though he had been an animal. A film of cambric, golden in the lamplight, settled about her smooth shoulders, fell in long diaphanous lines. She raised her arms to her head, her hair slid darkly across her face, and she turned and disappeared. He moved away, but the memory rankled delicately in his imagination, returned the following morning. The thought lingered of that body, as fine as ivory, unguessed, hidden, in a coarse sheath.
XXVII
His miscellaneous labors at the minister’s filled nearly a week of unremitting labor. But, upon the advent of Sunday, mundane affairs were suspended in the general confusion of preparation for church. It had rained during the night, the day was cool and fragrant and clear, and Gordon determined to evade the morning’s services, and plunge aimlessly into the pleasant fields. He kept in the background until the cavalcade had started, headed by the minister—the circuit rider had driven off earlier in his cart to an outlying chapel—and his wife. It was inviting on the deserted veranda, and Gordon lingered while the village emptied into the churches, the open.
Finally he sauntered over the street, past the Courthouse, by Pompey Hollidew’s residence. It was, unlike the surrounding dwellings, built of brick; there was no porch, only three stone steps descending from the main entrance, and no flowers. The path was overgrown with weeds, the front shutters were indifferently flung back, half opened, closed. The door stood wide open, and, as he passed, Gordon gathered the impression of a dark heap on the hall floor. He dismissed an idle curiosity; and then, for no discoverable reason, halted, turned back, for a second glance.