He knew what Nina had meant when she said that he need not be afraid of her, that she couldn't do him any harm.
He saw a mere slender slip of a body, a virginal body, straight-clad; the body and the face of a white child. Her almost rudimentary features cast no shade; her lips had kept the soft, low curve of their childhood, their colourless curl flattened against her still, white face. He saw all that, and he saw the sleeping tenderness in her eyes; deep-down it slept, under dark blue veils. Her eyes made him forgive her forehead, the only thing about her which was not absurdly small.
And of all this he was afraid, afraid for the wonder and mystery it evoked in him. He saw that Nina watched him and that she was aware of his fear.
She was dangerously, uncontrollably aware of it, and aware of her own folly in bringing him to Laura against his judgment and his will. She might have known that for him there would be a charm, a perfection in her very immaturity, that she would have for him all the appealing, pathetic beauty of her type. For him, Nina, watching with a fierce concentration, saw that she was virginity reduced to its last and most exquisite simplicity.
They had said nothing to each other. Laura, in the wonderful hour of his coming, could find nothing to say to him. He noticed that she and Nina talked in low, rapid voices, as if they feared that at any moment the old man might awake.
Then Laura arose and began to get tea ready, moving very softly in her fear.
"You'd better let me cut the bread and butter," said Prothero.
Laura let him.
Nina heard them talking over the bread and butter while Laura made the tea. She saw that his eyes did not follow her about the room, but that they rested on her when she was not looking.
"You were hard at work when we came," he was saying.