She looked as if she might hate, but could not love. She hardly
smiled at anything, spoke rarely, but seemed to feel that her natural
power of expression lay all in her bright eyes, the force of which so
many had felt, but none perhaps had tried to explain to themselves. A
person accustomed to watch the faces of those who were ailing in body
or mind, and to search in every line and tint for some underlying
source of disorder, could hardly help analyzing the impression such a
face produced upon him. The light of those beautiful eyes was like
the lustre of ice; in all her features there was nothing of that
human warmth which shows that sympathy has reached the soul beneath
the mask of flesh it wears. The look was that of remoteness, of utter
isolation. There was in its stony apathy, it seemed to him, the
pathos which we find in the blind who show no film or speck over the
organs of sight; for Nature had meant her to be lovely, and left out
nothing but love. And yet the master could not help feeling that some
instinct was working in this girl which was in some way leading her
to seek his presence. She did not lift her glittering eyes upon him
as at first.
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