V
Early the next morning her letter to Bartholomew was sent. Bartholomew had gone to Munich for a week. The letter begged, commanded, that he should make some pretext that would call David Rod from Sorrento at the earliest possible moment. She counted upon her fingers; four days for the letter to go and the answer to return. Those four days she would spend at Capri.
Eva went with her quietly. There had been no more conversation between mother and daughter about Rod; Fanny thought that this was best.
On the fourth day there came a letter from Bartholomew. Fanny returned to Sorrento almost gayly: the man would be gone.
But he was not gone. Tranquillized, glad to be at home again, Mrs. Churchill was enjoying her terrace and her view, when Angelo appeared at the window: "Signor Ra."
Angelo's mistress made him a peremptory sign. "Ask the gentleman to wait in the drawing-room," she said. Then crossing to Eva, who had risen, "Go round by the other door to our own room, Eva," she whispered.
The girl did not move; her face had an excited look. "But why – "
"Go, child; go."
Still Eva stood there, her eyes fixed upon the long window veiled in lace; she scarcely seemed to breathe.
Her mother was driven to stronger measures. "You told me yourself that he cared nothing for you."
A deep red rose in Eva's cheeks; she turned and left the terrace by the distant door.
The mother crossed slowly to the long window and parted the curtains. "Mr. Rod, are you there? Won't you come out? Or stay – I will join you." She entered the drawing-room and took a seat.
Rod explained that he was about to leave Sorrento; Bartholomew had summoned him so urgently that he did not like to refuse, though it was very inconvenient to go at such short notice.
"Then you leave to-morrow?" said Fanny; "perhaps to-night?"
"No; on Monday. I could not arrange my business before."
"Three days more," Fanny thought.
She talked of various matters; she hoped that some one else would come in; but, by a chance, no one appeared that day, neither Dallas, nor Ferguson, nor Gordon-Gray. "What can have become of them?" she thought, with irritation. After a while she gave an inward start; she had become conscious of a foot-fall passing to and fro behind the half-open door near her – a door which led into the dining-room. It was a very soft foot-fall upon a thick carpet, but she recognized it: it was Eva. She was there – why? The mother could think of no good reason. Her heart began to beat more quickly; for the first time in her life she did not know her child. This person walking up and down behind that door so insistently, this was not Eva. Eva was docile; this person was not docile. What would be done next? She felt strangely frightened. It was a proof of her terror that she did not dare to close the door lest it should be instantly reopened. She began to watch every word she said to Rod, who had not perceived the foot-fall. She began to be extraordinarily polite to him; she stumbled through the most irrelevant complimentary sentences. Her dread was, every minute, lest Eva should appear.
But Eva did not appear; and at last, after long lingering, Rod went away. Fanny, who had hoped to bid him a final farewell, had not dared to go through that ceremony. He said that he should come again.
When at last he was gone the mother pushed open the half-closed door. "Eva," she began. She had intended to be severe, as severe as she possibly could be; but the sight of Eva stopped her. The girl had flung herself down upon the floor, her bowed head resting upon her arms on a chair. Her attitude expressed a hopeless desolation.
"What is it?" said Fanny, rushing to her.
Eva raised her head. "He never once spoke of me – asked for me," she murmured, looking at her mother with eyes so dreary with grief that any one must have pitied her.
Her mother pitied her, though it was an angry pity, too – a non-comprehending, jealous, exasperated feeling. She sat down and gathered her child to her breast with a gesture that was almost fierce. That Eva should suffer so cruelly when she, Fanny, would have made any sacrifice to save her from it, would have died for her gladly, were it not that she was the girl's only protector – oh, what fate had come over their happy life together! She had not the heart to be stern. All she said was, "We will go away, dear; we will go away."
"No," said Eva, rising; "let me stay here. You need not be afraid."
"Of course I am not afraid," answered Fanny, gravely. "My daughter will never do anything unseemly; she has too much pride."
"I am afraid I have no pride – that is, not as you have it, mamma. Pride doesn't seem to me at all important compared with – But of course I know that there is nothing I can do. He is perfectly indifferent. Only do not take me away again – do not."
"Why do you wish to stay?"
"Because then I can think – for three days more – that he is at least as near me as that." She trembled as she said this; there was a spot of sombre red in each cheek; her fair face looked strange amid her disordered hair.
Her mother watched her helplessly. All her beliefs, all her creed, all her precedents, the experience of her own life and her own nature even, failed to explain such a phenomenon as this. And it was her own child who was saying these things.
The next day Eva was passive. She wandered about the terrace, or sat for hours motionless staring blankly at the sea. Her mother left her to herself. She had comprehended that words were useless. She pretended to be embroidering, but in reality as she drew her stitches she was counting the hours as they passed: seventy-two hours; forty-eight hours. Would he ever be gone?
On the second day, in the afternoon, she discovered that Eva had disappeared. The girl had been on the terrace with Mademoiselle; Mademoiselle had gone to her room for a moment, and when she returned her pupil could not be found. She had not passed through the drawing-room, where Fanny was sitting with her pretended industry; nor through the other door, for Rosine was at work there, and had seen nothing of her. There remained only the rock stairway to the beach. Mademoiselle ran down it swiftly: no one. But there was a small boat not far off, she said. Fanny, who was near-sighted, got the glass. In a little boat with a broad sail there were two figures; one was certainly David Rod, and the other – yes, the other was Eva. There was a breeze, the boat was rapidly going westward round the cliffs; in two minutes more it was out of sight.
Fanny wrung her hands. The French woman, to whom the event wore a much darker hue than it did to the American mother, turned yellowly pale.
At this moment Horace Bartholomew came out on the terrace; uneasy, for Fanny's missive had explained nothing, he had followed his letter himself. "What is it?" he said, as he saw the agitation of the two women.
"Your friend —yours– the man you brought here, has Eva with him at this moment out on the bay!" said Fanny, vehemently.
"Well, what of that? You must look at it with Punta Palmas eyes, Fanny; at Punta Palmas it would be an ordinary event."
"But my Eva is not a Punta Palmas girl, Horace Bartholomew!"
"She is as innocent as one, and I'll answer for Rod. Come, be sensible, Fanny. They will be back before sunset, and no one in Sorrento – if that is what is troubling you so – need be any the wiser."
"You do not know all," said Fanny. "Oh, Horace – I must tell somebody – she fancies she cares for that man!" She wrung her hands again. "Couldn't we follow them? Get a boat."
"It would take an hour. And it would be a very conspicuous thing to do. Leave them alone – it's much better; I tell you I'll answer for Rod. Fancies she cares for him, does she? Well, he is a fine fellow; on the whole, the finest I know."
The mother's eyes flashed through her tears. "This from you?"
"I can't help it; he is. Of course you do not think so. He has got no money; he has never been anywhere that you call anywhere; he doesn't know anything about the only life you care for nor the things you think important. All the same, he is a man in a million. He is a man – not a puppet."
Gentle Mrs. Churchill appeared for the moment transformed. She looked as though she could strike him. "Never mind your Quixotic ideas. Tell me whether he is in love with Eva; it all depends upon that."
"I don't know, I am sure," answered Bartholomew. He began to think. "I can't say at all; he would conceal it from me."
"Because he felt his inferiority. I am glad he has that grace."
"He wouldn't be conscious of any inferiority save that he is poor. It would be that, probably, if anything; of course he supposes that Eva is rich."
"Would to Heaven she were!" said the mother. "Added to every other horror of it, poverty, miserable poverty, for my poor child!" She sat down and hid her face.
"It may not be as bad as you fear, nor anything like it. Do cheer up a little, Fanny. When Eva comes back, ten to one you will find that nothing at all has happened – that it has been a mere ordinary excursion. And I promise you I will take Rod away with me to-morrow."
Mrs. Churchill rose and began to pace to and fro, biting her lips, and watching the water. Mademoiselle, who was still hovering near, she waved impatiently away. "Let no one in," she called to her.
There seemed, indeed, to be nothing else to do, as Bartholomew had said, save to wait. He sat down and discussed the matter a little.
Fanny paid no attention to what he was saying. Every now and then broken phrases of her own burst from her: "How much good will her perfect French and Italian, her German, Spanish, and even Russian, do her down in that barbarous wilderness?" – "In her life she has never even buttoned her boots. Do they think she can make bread?" – "And there was Gino. And poor Pierre." Then, suddenly, "But it shall not be!"
"I have been wondering why you did not take that tone from the first," said Bartholomew. "She is very young. She has been brought up to obey you implicitly. It would be easy enough, I should fancy, if you could once make up your mind to it."
"Make up my mind to save her, you mean," said the mother, bitterly. She did not tell him that she was afraid of her daughter. "Should you expect me to live at Punta Palmas?" she demanded, contemptuously, of her companion.
"That would depend upon Rod, wouldn't it?" answered Bartholomew, rather unamiably. He was tired – he had been there an hour – of being treated like a door-mat.
At this Fanny broke down again, and completely. For it was only too true; it would depend upon that stranger, that farmer, that unknown David Rod, whether she, the mother, should or should not be with her own child.
A little before sunset the boat came into sight again round the western cliffs. Fanny dried her eyes. She was very pale. Little Mademoiselle, rigid with anxiety, watched from an upper window. Bartholomew rose to go down to the beach to receive the returning fugitives. "No," said Fanny, catching his arm, "don't go; no one must know before I do – no one." So they waited in silence.
Down below, the little boat had rapidly approached. Eva had jumped out, and was now running up the rock stairway; she was always light-footed, but to her mother it seemed that the ascent took an endless time. At length there was the vision of a young, happy, rushing figure – rushing straight to Fanny's arms. "Oh, mamma, mamma," the girl whispered, seeing that there was no one there but Bartholomew, "he loves me! He has told me so! he has told me so!"
For an instant the mother drew herself away. Eva, left alone, and mindful of nothing but her own bliss, looked so radiant with happiness that Bartholomew (being a man) could not help sympathizing with her. "You will have to give it up," he said to Fanny, significantly. Then he took his hat and went away.
Fifteen minutes later his place was filled by David Rod.
"Ah! you have come. I must have a few words of conversation with you, Mr. Rod," said Fanny, in an icy tone. "Eva, leave us now."
"Oh no, mamma, not now; never again, I hope," answered the girl. She spoke with secure confidence; her eyes were fixed upon her lover's face.
"Do you call this honorable behavior, Mr. Rod?" Fanny began. She saw that Eva would not go.
"Why, I hope so," answered Rod, surprised. "I have come at once, as soon as I possibly could, Mrs. Churchill (I had to take the boat back first, you know), to tell you that we are engaged; it isn't an hour old yet – is it, Eva?" He looked at Eva smilingly, his eyes as happy as her own.
"It is the custom to ask permission," said Fanny, stiffly.
"I have never heard of the custom, then; that is all I can say," answered Rod, with good-natured tranquillity, still looking at the girl's face, with its rapt expression, its enchanting joy.
"Please to pay attention; I decline to consent, Mr. Rod; you cannot have my daughter."
"Mamma – " said Eva, coming up to her.
"No, Eva; if you will remain here – which is most improper – you will have to hear it all. You are so much my daughter's inferior, Mr. Rod, that I cannot, and I shall not, consent."
At the word "inferior," a slight shock passed over Eva from head to foot. She went swiftly to her lover, knelt down and pressed her lips to his brown hand, hiding her face upon it.
He raised her tenderly in his arms, and thus embraced, they stood there together, confronting the mother – confronting the world.
Fanny put out her hands with a bitter cry. "Eva!"
The girl ran to her, clung to her. "Oh, mamma, I love you dearly. But you must not try to separate me from David. I could not leave him – I never will."
"Let us go in, to our own room," said the mother, in a broken voice.
"Yes; but speak to David first, mamma."
Rod came forward and offered his arm. He was sorry for the mother's grief, which, however, in such intensity as this, he could not at all understand. But though he was sorry, he was resolute, he was even stern; in his dark beauty, his height and strength, he looked indeed, as Bartholomew had said, a man.
At the sight of his offered arm Mrs. Churchill recoiled; she glanced all round the terrace as though to get away from it; she even glanced at the water; it almost seemed as if she would have liked to take her child and plunge with her to the depths below. But one miserable look at Eva's happy, trustful eyes still watching her lover's face cowed her; she took the offered arm. And then Rod went with her, supporting her gently into the house, and through it to her own room, where he left her with her daughter. That night the mother rose from her sleepless couch, lit a shaded taper, and leaving it on a distant table, stole softly to Eva's side. The girl was in a deep slumber, her head pillowed on her arm. Fanny, swallowing her tears, gazed at her sleeping child. She still saw in the face the baby outlines of years before, her mother's eye could still distinguish in the motionless hand the dimpled fingers of the child. The fair hair, lying on the pillow, recalled to her the short flossy curls of the little girl who had clung to her skirts, who had had but one thought – "mamma."
"What will her life be now? What must she go through, perhaps – what pain, privation – my darling, my own little child!"
The wedding was to take place within the month; Rod said that he could not be absent longer from his farm. Fanny, breaking her silence, suggested to Bartholomew that the farm might be given up; there were other occupations.
"I advise you not to say a word of that sort to Rod," Bartholomew answered. "His whole heart is in that farm, that colony he has built up down there. You must remember that he was brought up there himself, or rather came up. It's all he knows, and he thinks it the most important thing in life; I was going to say it's all he cares for, but of course now he has added Eva."
Pierre came once. He saw only the mother.
When he left her he went round by way of the main street of Sorrento in order to pass a certain small inn. His carriage was waiting to take him back to Castellamare, but there was some one he wished to look at first. It was after dark; he could see into the lighted house through the low uncurtained windows, and he soon came upon the tall outline of the young farmer seated at a table, his eyes bent upon a column of figures. The Belgian surveyed him from head to foot slowly. He stood there gazing for five minutes. Then he turned away. "That, for Americans!" he murmured in French, snapping his fingers in the darkness. But there was a mist in his boyish eyes all the same.
The pink villa witnessed the wedding. Fanny never knew how she got through that day. She was calm; she did not once lose her self-control.
They were to sail directly for New York from Naples, and thence to Florida; the Italian colonists were to go at the same time.
"Mamma comes next year," Eva said to everybody. She looked indescribably beautiful; it was the radiance of a complete happiness, like a halo.
By three o'clock they were gone, they were crossing the bay in the little Naples steamer. No one was left at the villa with Fanny – it was her own arrangement – save Horace Bartholomew.
"She won't mind being poor," he said, consolingly, "she won't mind anything – with him. It is one of those sudden, overwhelming loves that one sometimes sees; and after all, Fanny, it is the sweetest thing life offers."
"And the mother?" said Fanny.
THE STREET OF THE HYACINTH
I
IT was a street in Rome – narrow, winding, not over-clean. Two vehicles meeting there could pass only by grazing the doors and windows on either side, after the usual excited whip-cracking and shouts which make the new-comer imagine, for his first day or two, that he is proceeding at a perilous speed through the sacred city of the soul.
But two vehicles did not often meet in the street of the Hyacinth. It was not a thoroughfare, not even a convenient connecting link; it skirted the back of the Pantheon, the old buildings on either side rising so high against the blue that the sun never came down lower than the fifth line of windows, and looking up from the pavement was like looking up from the bottom of a well. There was no foot-walk, of course; even if there had been one no one would have used it, owing to the easy custom of throwing from the windows a few ashes and other light trifles for the city refuse-carts, instead of carrying them down the long stairs to the door below. They must be in the street at an appointed hour, must they not? Very well, then – there they were; no one but an unreasonable foreigner would dream of objecting.
But unreasonable foreigners seldom entered the street of the Hyacinth. There were, however, two who lived there one winter not long ago, and upon a certain morning in the January of that winter a third came to see these two. At least he asked for them, and gave two cards to the Italian maid who answered his ring; but when, before he had time to even seat himself, the little curtain over the parlor door was raised again, and Miss Macks entered, she came alone. Her mother did not appear. The visitor was not disturbed by being obliged to begin conversation immediately; he was an old Roman sojourner, and had stopped fully three minutes at the end of the fourth flight of stairs to re-gain his breath before he mounted the fifth and last to ring Miss Macks's bell. Her card was tacked upon the door: "Miss Ettie F. Macks." He surveyed it with disfavor, while the little, loose-hung bell rang a small but exceedingly shrill and ill-tempered peal, like the barking of a small cur. "Why in the world doesn't she put her mother's card here instead of her own?" he said to himself. "Or, if her own, why not simply 'Miss Macks,' without that nickname?"
But Miss Macks's mother had never possessed a visiting-card in her life. Miss Macks was the visiting member of the family; and this was so well understood at home, that she had forgotten that it might not be the same abroad. As to the "Ettie," having been called so always, it had not occurred to her to make a change. Her name was Ethelinda Faith, Mrs. Macks having thus combined euphony and filial respect – the first title being her tribute to æsthetics, the second her tribute to the memory of her mother.
"I am so very glad to see you, Mr. Noel," said Miss Macks, greeting her visitor with much cordial directness of voice and eyes. "I have been expecting you. But you have waited so long – three days!"
Raymond Noel, who thought that under the circumstances he had been unusually courteous and prompt, was rather surprised to find himself thus put at once upon the defensive.
"We are not always able to carry out our wishes immediately, Miss Macks," he replied, smiling a little. "I was hampered by several previously made engagements."
"Yes; but this was a little different, wasn't it? This was something important – not like an invitation to lunch or dinner, or the usual idle society talk."
He looked at her; she was quite in earnest.
"I suppose it to be different," he answered. "You must remember how little you have told me."
"I thought I told you a good deal! However, the atmosphere of a reception is no place for such subjects, and I can understand that you did not take it in. That is the reason I asked you to come and see me here. Shall I begin at once? It seems rather abrupt."
"I enjoy abruptness; I have not heard any for a long time."
"That I can understand, too; I suppose the society here is all finished off – there are no rough ends."
"There are ends. If not rough, they are often sharp."
But Miss Macks did not stop to analyze this; she was too much occupied with her own subject.
"I will begin immediately, then," she said. "It will be rather long; but if you are to understand me you ought, of course, to know the whole."
"My chair is very comfortable," replied Noel, placing his hat and gloves on the sofa near him, and taking an easy position with his head back.
Miss Macks thought that he ought to have said, "The longer it is, the more interesting," or something of that sort. She had already described him to her mother as "not over-polite. Not rude in the least, you know – as far as possible from that; wonderfully smooth-spoken; but yet, somehow – awfully indifferent." However, he was Raymond Noel; and that, not his politeness or impoliteness, was her point.
"To begin with, then, Mr. Noel, a year ago I had never read one word you have written; I had never even heard of you. I suppose you think it strange that I should tell you this so frankly; but, in the first place, it will give you a better idea of my point of view; and, in the second, I feel a friendly interest in your taking measures to introduce your writings into the community where I lived. It is a very intelligent community. Naturally, a writer wants his articles read. What else does he write them for?"
"Perhaps a little for his own entertainment," suggested her listener.
"Oh no! He would never take so much trouble just for that."
"On the contrary, many would take any amount just for that. Successfully to entertain one's self – that is one of the great successes of life."
Miss Macks gazed at him; she had a very direct gaze.
"This is just mere talk," she said, not impatiently, but in a business-like tone. "We shall never get anywhere if you take me up so. It is not that your remarks are not very cultivated and interesting, and all that, but simply that I have so much to tell you."
"Perhaps I can be cultivated and interesting dumbly. I will try."
"You are afraid I am going to be diffuse; I see that. So many women are diffuse! But I shall not be, because I have been thinking for six months just what I should say to you. It was very lucky that I went with Mrs. Lawrence to that reception where I met you. But if it had not happened as it did I should have found you out all the same. I should have looked for your address at all the bankers', and if it was not there I should have inquired at all the hotels. But it was delightful luck getting hold of you in this way almost the very minute I enter Rome!"
She spoke so simply and earnestly that Noel did not say that he was immensely honored, and so forth, but merely bowed his acknowledgments.
"To go back. I shall give you simply heads," pursued Miss Macks. "If you want details, ask, and I will fill them in. I come from the West. Tuscolee Falls is the name of our town. We had a farm there, but we did not do well with it after Mr. Spurr's death, so we rented it out. That is how I come to have so much leisure. I have always had a great deal of ambition; by that I mean that I did not see why things that had once been done could not be done again. It seemed to me that the point was – just determination. And then, of course, I always had the talent. I made pictures when I was a very little girl. Mother has them still, and I can show them to you. It is just like all the biographies, you know. They always begin in childhood, and astonish the family. Well, I had my first lessons from a drawing-teacher who spent a summer in Tuscolee. I can show you what I did while with him. Then I attended, for four years, the Young Ladies' Seminary in the county-town, and took lessons while there. I may as well be perfectly frank and tell the whole, which is that everybody was astonished at my progress, and that I was myself. All sorts of things are prophesied out there about my future. You see, the neighborhood is a very generous-spirited one, and they like to think they have discovered a genius at their own doors. My telling you all this sounds, I know, rather conceited, Mr. Noel. But if you could see my motive, and how entirely without conceit my idea of myself really is, you would hold me free from that charge. It is only that I want you to know absolutely the whole."
"I quite understand," answered her visitor.
"Well, I hope you do. I went on at home after that by myself, and I did a good deal. I work pretty rapidly, you see. Then came my last lessons, from a third teacher. He was a young man from New York. He had consumption, poor fellow! and cannot last long. He wasn't of much use to me in actual work. His ideas were completely different from those of my other teachers, and, indeed, from my own. He was unreliable, too, and his temper was uneven. However, I had a good deal of respect for his opinion, and he told me to get your art-articles and read them. It wasn't easy. Some of them are scattered about in the magazines and papers, you know. However, I am pretty determined, and I kept at it until I got them all. Well, they made a great impression upon me. You see, they were new." She paused. "But I doubt, Mr. Noel, whether we should ever entirely agree," she added, looking at him reflectively.
"That is very probable, Miss Macks."
Miss Macks thought this an odd reply. "He is so queer, with all his smoothness!" she said to her mother afterwards. "He never says what you think he will say. Now, any one would suppose that he would have answered that he would try to make me agree, or something like that. Instead, he just gave it right up without trying! But I expect he sees how independent I am, and that I don't intend to reflect any one."
"Well, they made a great impression," she resumed. "And as you seemed to think, Mr. Noel, that no one could do well in painting who had not seen and studied the old pictures over here, I made up my mind to come over at any cost, if it was a possible thing to bring it about. It wasn't easy, but – here we are. In the lives of all – almost all – artists, I have noticed – haven't you? – that there comes a time when they have to live on hope and their own pluck more than upon anything tangible that the present has to offer. They have to take that risk. Well, I have taken it; I took it when we left America. And now I will tell you what it is I want from you. I haven't any hesitation in asking, because I am sure you will feel interested in a case like mine, and because it was your writings really that brought me here, you know. And so, then, first: I would like your opinion of all that I have done so far. I have brought everything with me to show you. Second: I want your advice as to the best teacher; I suppose there is a great choice in Rome. Third: I should be glad if you would give a general oversight to all I do for the next year. And last, if you would be so kind, I should much enjoy making visits with you to all the galleries and hearing your opinions again by word of mouth, because that is always so much more vivid, you know, than the printed page."
"My dear Miss Macks! you altogether over-estimate my powers," said Noel, astounded by these far-reaching demands, so calmly and confidently made.
"Yes, I know. Of course it strikes you so – strikes you as a great compliment that I should wish to put myself so entirely in your hands," answered Miss Macks, smiling. "But you must give up thinking of me as the usual young lady; you must not think of me in that way any more than I shall think of you as the usual young gentleman. You will never meet me at a reception again; now that I have found you, I shall devote myself entirely to my work."
"An alarming girl!" said Noel to himself. But, even as he said it, he knew that, in the ordinary acceptation of the term at least, Miss Macks was not alarming.
She was twenty-two; in some respects she looked older, in others much younger, than most girls of that age. She was tall, slender, erect, but not especially graceful. Her hands were small and finely shaped, but thin. Her features were well cut; her face oval. Her gray eyes had a clear directness in their glance, which, combined with the other expressions of her face, told the experienced observer at once that she knew little of what is called "the world." For, although calm, it was a deeply confident glance; it showed that the girl was sure that she could take care of herself, and even several others also, through any contingencies that might arise. She had little color; but her smooth complexion was not pale – it was slightly brown. Her mouth was small, her teeth small and very white. Her light-brown hair was drawn back smoothly from her forehead, and drawn up smoothly behind, its thickness braided in a close knot on the top of her head. This compact coiffure, at a time when most feminine foreheads in Rome and elsewhere were shaded almost to the eyebrows by curling locks, and when the arched outline of the head was left unbroken, the hair being coiled in a low knot behind, made Miss Macks look somewhat peculiar. But she was not observant of fashion's changes. That had been the mode in Tuscolee; she had grown accustomed to it; and, as her mind was full of other things, she had not considered this one. One or two persons, who noticed her on the voyage over, said to themselves, "If that girl had more color, and if she was graceful, and if she was a little more womanly – that is, if she would not look at everything in such a direct, calm, impartial, impersonal sort of way – she would be almost pretty."