She had a small, heart-shaped face, so light
in colour as to suggest anaemia, with a high, thin nose, of which
the nostrils were excessively pinched together, a short upper lip,
and a thick, quite colourless mouth, small when closed, when she
laughed opening wide far back to her throat, showing, as it seemed,
an infinite quantity of long, narrow, white, wolf-like teeth.
How hideous she had suddenly appeared to him in those moments, seen
through the dark waves of passion she rolled back upon him! In the
hot, rosy glow she had deliberately conjured up before his eyes of
love and love returned he had thought her beautiful. Now, as she
took the veil from her mean, base mind, it fell also from her
beauty, and he saw her ugly, as she really was, body and soul.
Stunned and amazed, loathing his own folly, his own blindness,
condemning these more than he did her cruelty, Hamilton had
listened in silence while she revealed herself. When the first
shock was over, he had set himself to talk and reason with her.
Naturally intensely kind and sympathetic, it was easy for him to
see another's view, to put himself in another's place. He blamed
himself at once, more than her, for the position he now found
himself in. And patiently he tried to understand it, to find the
clue, if possible, to remedy it. He reasoned long and gently with
her, but she, knowing well the generous nature she had to deal
with, yielded not an inch.
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