He
was blond and well-dressed, with the physical distinction
that comes from having a straight figure, a thin nose, and
the habit of looking slightly disgusted--as who should not,
in a world where authentic snuff-boxes were growing daily
harder to find, and the market was flooded with flagrant
forgeries?
Darrow had often wondered what possibilities of communion
there could have been between Mr. Leath and his wife. Now
he concluded that there had probably been none. Mrs.
Leath's words gave no hint of her husband's having failed to
justify her choice; but her very reticence betrayed her.
She spoke of him with a kind of impersonal seriousness, as
if he had been a character in a novel or a figure in
history; and what she said sounded as though it had been
learned by heart and slightly dulled by repetition. This
fact immensely increased Darrow's impression that his
meeting with her had annihilated the intervening years.
She, who was always so elusive and inaccessible, had grown
suddenly communicative and kind: had opened the doors of her
past, and tacitly left him to draw his own conclusions. As
a result, he had taken leave of her with the sense that he
was a being singled out and privileged, to whom she had
entrusted something precious to keep. It was her happiness
in their meeting that she had given him, had frankly left
him to do with as he willed; and the frankness of the
gesture doubled the beauty of the gift.
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