Page 80 (1/1)

And all through dinner an indefinitely unpleasant reered with Sylvia, and she sat silent for , curious side-glance across at Siward, and an unco smile of assent for whatever Quarrier or Major Belwether had been saying to her

Cards she ed to avoid after dinner, and stood by Quarrier's chair for half an hour, absently watching the relentless method and steady adherence to rule which characterised his Bridge-playing, the eager, unslaked brutality of Mortimer, the set, selfish face of his pretty wife, the chilled intensity of Miss Caithness

And Grace Ferrall's phrase recurred to her, "Nobody ever has enough money!"--not even these people, whose only worry was to find invest of the es of these people, whose faces otherwise seemed so smooth and human? Was Leila Mortiatha Caithness realise how pinched her rown? Did even Leroy Mortimer dream hoollen the pouches under his eyes were; how red and puffy his hands, shuffling a new pack; how pendulous and dreadful his red under-lip when absorbedlyup his cards?

Instinctively she limpse of Quarrier's face The face appeared to be a study in blankness His natural visage was eh, but this face, froe of colour had fled, fascinated her with its dead whiteness; and the hair brushed high, the long, black lashes, the silky beard, struck her as absolutely ghastly, as though they had been glued to a face of wax

She turned on her heel, restless, depressed, inclined for coe boys had tempted Rena and Eileen to the billiard-room; Voucher, Alderdene, and Major Belwether were huddled over a table, immersed in Preference; Katharyn Tassel and Grace Ferrall sat together looking over the announceement in a batch of New York papers just arrived; Ferrall riting at a desk, and Siward and Marion were occupied in the for vehicle, to be built on the buckboard principle, with a clever arrangeuns, ammunition, and provisions Siward's profile, as it bent in the la The boyish note predo, now seriously intent on the sketch which was developing so swiftly under his facile pencil

Marion's clean-cut blond head was close to his, her supple body twisted in her seat, one bare ar in her attitude seemed to exclude intrusion; her voice, too, was hushed in coreeable key