..
Effie, in the interregnum between governesses, had been
given leave to dine downstairs; and Anna, on the evening of
Darrow's return, kept the little girl with her till long
after the nurse had signalled from the drawing-room door.
When at length she had been carried off, Anna proposed a
game of cards, and after this diversion had drawn to its
languid close she said good-night to Darrow and followed
Madame de Chantelle upstairs. But Madame de Chantelle never
sat up late, and the second evening, with the amiably
implied intention of leaving Anna and Darrow to themselves,
she took an earlier leave of them than usual.
Anna sat silent, listening to her small stiff steps as they
minced down the hall and died out in the distance. Madame
de Chantelle had broken her wooden embroidery frame, and
Darrow, having offered to repair it, had drawn his chair up
to a table that held a lamp. Anna watched him as he sat with
bent head and knitted brows, trying to fit together the
disjoined pieces. The sight of him, so tranquilly absorbed
in this trifling business, seemed to give to the quiet room
a perfume of intimacy, to fill it with a sense of sweet
familiar habit; and it came over her again that she knew
nothing of the inner thoughts of this man who was sitting by
her as a husband might. The lamplight fell on his white
forehead, on the healthy brown of his cheek, the backs of
his thin sunburnt hands.
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