Rowcliffe's shoulders and his jaw were
still squared in the antagonism that had closed their interview.
He too observed the most perfect courtesy. Only by the consummate
restraint of his manner did he show how impossible he had found the
Vicar, while his face betrayed a grave preoccupation in which the
Vicar counted not at all.
Mary began to talk to him about the weather. Neither she nor Gwenda
dared ask him what he thought of Alice.
And in ten minutes he was gone. The Vicar went with him to the gate.
Still standing as they had stood to take leave of Rowcliffe, the
sisters looked at each other. Mary spoke first.
"Whatever _can_ Papa have said to him?"
This time Gwenda knew what Mary was thinking.
"It isn't that," she said. "It's something he's said to Papa."
XXXVI
That night, about nine o'clock, Gwenda came for the third time to
Rowcliffe at his house.
She was shown into his study, where Rowcliffe was reading.
Though the servant had prepared him for her, he showed signs of
agitation.
Gwenda's eyes were ominously somber and she had the white face of
a ghost, a face that to Rowcliffe, as he looked at it, recalled the
white face of Alice. He disliked Alice's face, he always had disliked
it, he disliked it more than ever at that moment; yet the sight
of this face that was so like it carried him away in an ecstasy of
tenderness. He adored it because of that likeness, because of all that
the likeness revealed to him and signified.
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