She wore a dress of golden brown which matched
her hair, and at her throat was a black velvet ribbon with a brooch of
antique paste which flashed the light like diamonds, but more softly.
Suddenly, as she came on, she stopped and raised her head in a listening
attitude, her eyes opening wide as if listening, too--it was as though
she heard with them as well; alive to catch sounds which evaded capture.
She was like some creature of an ancient wood with its own secret and
immemorial history which the world could never know. There was that in
her face which did not belong to civilization or to that fighting world
of which Ingolby was so eager a factor. All the generations of the wood
and road, the combe and the river, the quarry and the secluded boscage
were in her look. There was that about her which was at once elusive and
primevally real.
She was not of those who would be lost in the dust of futility. Whatever
she was, she was an independent atom in the mass of the world's breeding.
Perhaps it was consciousness of the dynamic quality in the girl, her
nearness to naked nature, which made Madame Bulteel say that she would
"have a history."
If she got twisted as she came wayfaring, if her mind became possessed of
a false passion or purpose which she thought a true one, then tragedy
would await her.
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