It was a strangely pleasing face; the very dark pallor, so evenly distributed, so perfectly shaded caught her attention as a kind of beauty new to her. There was no ruddiness here, no boisterous energy. Rather it was a silent, subtle kind of beauty. The power behind it was not so much a crude energy as a strength that was placid yet possessed of the quality of steel. It was a strength that revealed itself in the firm, clean line of the jaw and in the square, almost hard modeling of the intelligent head. If there was a hint of passion it lay in the red lips that were so full and sensual beneath the fine black mustache. He wore the collar of his coat turned up a little, with his hat pulled well over his eyes so that the whole gave an impression of rakishness and adventure. Yet her instinct told her that here was something to be feared, something subtle and rather neat, of a sort strange to her.
They must have ridden several blocks in silence when he said to her, in a voice that was warm and carried faint traces of an accent, “I say, you are a remarkable person. I’d never dreamed how much it took to bring you where you are.”
When she answered, Ellen felt a new and absurd inclination to become a helpless, almost arch, young girl. “It’s nothing,” she said. “I’d never thought about it.”
“It was an entertaining story you gave us.... You see people like me and Sabine seldom get any idea of what the real world is like.” He paused for a moment and then continued as if to make clear what he meant—“I mean a world in which people have to fight for things. We just have them. We forget about the others. And we’re in the minority of about ... shall we say ... one to a thousand. I’ve always had what I wanted.... I suppose I’ll always have it.”
This was strange talk, in a queer philosophic vein, to which Ellen answered again, “I don’t know ... I’ve never thought about the difference. I know what I want and some day ... I suppose I’ll have it.”
“You are an extraordinary musician ... you know,” he continued. “I wonder if you know how extraordinary.”
Ellen did know; she was sure of it. But she saw fit not to answer because she was a little puzzled. In a world bounded by Clarence and Herman Biggs, she had not met a man of this sort. He was younger than Clarence and not much older than Herman but that made no difference. It was something that had nothing to do with age. Rather it was a matter of experience. She knew she was an excellent musician; she must have believed it or she could not have gone her own way with such unswerving directness, but she chose to answer modestly. In the dim light of the cab, it was impossible to know whether or not she actually smirked.
“Perhaps I am. How is one to know?... About one’s self, I mean.”
“My mother and I know about such things,” he replied, and then for a time the cabriolet fell into silence. They turned from the avenue into the park, and presently out of his corner he spoke again.
“You’re sure you told us everything to-night? You didn’t leave out of the story anything that might interest us?”