Sometimes his eyes met hers; and hers fell before them.

But as soon as they turned away from her she was watching him again, almost greedily, as if she could not see enough of his face in which strength of will and purpose was mingled with a faint, ironic scepticism, and tempered by a fine air of race.
He finished his tea; then he took a morocco case from his pocket, and said to Germaine, "It must be quite three days since I gave you anything." He opened the case, disclosed a pearl pendant, and handed it to her.
"Oh, how nice!" she cried, taking it.
She took it from the case, saying that it was a beauty.

She showed it to Sonia; then she put it on and stood before a mirror admiring the effect.

To tell the truth, the effect was not entirely desirable.

The pearls did not improve the look of her rather coarse brown skin; and her skin added nothing to the beauty of the pearls.