Yet she could hardly take her eyes
from his good looks.
Nick had dressed himself for evening in some of those clothes bought in
haste, ready-made, to please a woman who had laughed at them and at him,
during his abbreviated visit in New York. The woman did not laugh now. She
forgot that she had ever laughed; and the thought was in her mind that the
large white oval of evening shirt set off his head like a marble pedestal.
"How do you do?" she said, giving him her hand, and holding it rather
high, in the English way, which seemed excessively formal to Nick. "I'm
glad to see you again."
Nick's heart went down. Her voice did not sound glad. This was just what
he had expected, though not what he had hoped. She had changed toward him
the day they parted, and though she had flung him a word of encouragement,
evidently she had gone on changing more and more. There seemed little good
in asking what he had come to ask; but he had to get through with it now.
"I guess I don't need to tell you I'm glad to see you," he said. He looked
at that nimbus round her head, as she stood with her back to the window.
He could say no more, though he had meant to add something.
"What are you thinking about?" she questioned him almost sharply.
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