She was charming in a dark way, beautiful, with eyes that burned with an unsatisfied fire; and Cowperwood, although at first only in the least moved by her, became by degrees interested in her, wondering at the amazing, transforming power of the American atmosphere.
"Are your parents English, Antoinette ?" he asked her, one morning, with that easy familiarity which he assumed to all underlings and minor intellects--an air that could not be resented in him, and which was usually accepted as a compliment.
Antoinette, clean and fresh in a white shirtwaist, a black walking-skirt, a ribbon of black velvet about her neck, and her long, black hair laid in a heavy braid low over her forehead and held close by a white celluloid comb, looked at him with pleased and grateful eyes.

She had been used to such different types of men--the earnest, fiery, excitable, sometimes drunken and swearing men of her childhood, always striking, marching, praying in the Catholic churches; and then the men of the business world, crazy over money, and with no understanding of anything save some few facts about Chicago and its momentary possibilities.

In Cowperwood's office, taking his letters and hearing him talk in his quick, genial way with old Laughlin, Sippens, and others, she had learned more of life than she had ever dreamed existed.

He was like a vast open window out of which she was looking upon an almost illimitable landscape.
"No, sir," she replied, dropping her slim, firm, white hand, holding a black lead-pencil restfully on her notebook.

She smiled quite innocently because she was pleased.
"I thought not," he said, "and yet you're American enough." "I don't know how it is," she said, quite solemnly.