here been anything left of her heart but a pump. Her
life was full to the brim. She was quite aware that the present rage
for stark and dour realism would pass--the indications were to be seen
in the more moderate but pronounced success of several novels by
authors impervious to crazes--but she was too fertile for apprehension
on that score. She had many and quite different themes wandering like
luminous ghosts about the corridors of a brain singularly free from
labyrinths, ready to emerge, full-bodied, when the world was ready for
them.

The last time Clavering had sat opposite a woman by a log fire both had
enjoyed the deep luxury of easy chairs and his hostess had seemed to
melt into the depths until they enfolded her. But Miss Dwight never
lounged. Her backbone appeared to be made of cast-iron. She sat erect
today on a hassock while he reclined in a chair that exactly fitted his
spine and enjoyed contrasting her with the other woman. Gora Dwight
had no beauty, but she never passed unnoticed in a crowd, even if
unrecognized. Her oval eyes were a pale clear gray, cold, almost
sinister, and she wore her mass of rich brown hair on top of her head
and down to her heavy eyebrows. Her mouth was straight and sharply
cut, but mobile and capable of relaxing into a charming smile, and she
had beautiful teeth. The nose was short and emphatic, the jawbone
salient. It was, altogether, a disharmonic type, for the head was long
and the face short, broad across the high cheekbones; and her large
light eyes set in her small dark face produced a disconcerting effect
on sensitive people, but more often fascinated them. Clavering had
been told that in her California days she had possessed a superb bust,
but long years of unremitting work in France and England had taken toll
of her flesh and it had never returned; she was very thin and the
squareness of her frame was emphasized by the strong uncompromising
bones. But her feet and her brown hands were long and narrow, and the
straight lines of the present fashion were very becoming to her. She
wore today a gown of dark red velvet trimmed with brown fur and a touch
of gold in the region of the waist. It was known that she got her
clothes at the "best houses."

She was a curious mixture, Clavering reflected, and not the least
contradictory thing about her was the way in which her rather sullen
face could light up: exactly as if some inner flame leapt suddenly
behind those u