I
During a rehearsal of a new play in which he was engaged Wynne noticed Eve Dalry. She was walking-on in the crowd, and did not seem of a piece with the other girls. When her scene was over she slipped away to a quiet corner and produced a book. Finding the required page, she shook her head as though to banish other considerations, seated herself on an upturned box, and began to read with great absorption.
Partly from curiosity to see the title of the book Wynne moved toward her. Carlyle’s “Heroes and Hero Worship.” A queer choice for a girl to make, he thought, and wondered how much she understood. For awhile he stood behind her glancing at a paragraph here and there, and watching the careful way she turned over a page, then turned it back again to reread and reconsider some passage not wholly understood. He was unused to women who read so seriously, and, despite the semi-cynical smile at the corners of his mouth, her studiousness impressed him.
Presently, impelled by a new and curious familiarity, he drew a long, tapered forefinger over the straight, thin parting in her hair. She looked up slowly, as though his action had been scarcely enough to distract her attention.
“I like the shape of your head,” he found himself saying in reply to the query in her eyes, “it is the kind of vessel which is never empty. The square of your chin, too, is so very right. One seldom sees the two together.”
She met the critical survey with equal candour.
“I have been liking your head,” she said, “but not the chin. Its—”
She drew a slanting line in the air.
“I know,” he nodded; “but it’s not significant.”
“I meant that—insignificant.”