It was in the last three weeks that the Polonaise had found her
out and had begun to go through and through her, till it was more than
she could bear. But Essy, crying into her apron, wouldn't have lifted
a finger to stop Miss Alice.
"Poor laass," Essy said to herself, "she looves to plaay. And Vicar,
he'll not hold out mooch longer. He'll put foot down fore she gets
trow."
Through the screaming of the Polonaise Essy listened for the opening
of the study door.
VIII
The study door did not open all at once.
"Wisdom and patience, wisdom and patience----" The Vicar kept on
muttering as he scowled. Those were his watchwords in his dealings
with his womenkind.
The Vicar was making a prodigious effort to maintain what seemed
to him his god-like serenity. He was unaware that he was trying to
control at one and the same time his temper and his temperament.
He was a man of middle height and squarish build, dark, pale-skinned
and blue-eyed like his daughter Gwendolen. The Vicar's body stretched
tight the seams of his black coat and kept up, at fifty-seven, a false
show of muscular energy. The Vicar's face had a subtle quality of
deception. The austere nose, the lean cheek-bones, the square-cut
moustache and close-clipped, pointed beard (black, slightly grizzled)
made it appear, at a little distance, the face of an ascetic. It
approached, and the blue of the eyes, and the black of their dilated
pupils, the stare of the nostrils and the half hidden lines of the red
mouth revealed its profound and secret sensuality.
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