Her old inaptitude
with the needle, by no means overcome, hampered her so that her stitches
were often wandering gypsy trails to be ripped over and over, and then
her fingers leaving little prick stains to be washed out.
She had grown thinner, so much so that a slight jaw line had come out,
but the shells were gone from beneath her eyes and it pleased her, when
she brushed out her hair before going to bed, to see that its
electricity, which had departed for a while, was out in it again, so
that it would snap and stand out horizontally from her head. The little
spark of a smile was constantly over her face like a mirage before her
lips and her eyes and seeming to hover on the very peak of her brows
when she arched them.
She liked to stand before her wavy mirror, folding the completed
garments and looking back at herself. Newly freed, probably by the great
Auchinloss and her daughter between them, from the bondage of an idea,
she felt corporeally lighter, and was. The toothache of her being had
ceased its neuralgic stabbings.
It was not unusual for her to stand before this mirror before climbing
into bed, her mouth bunched to mimetics.
Pages:
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331