She leaned slightly forward, as if she were peering into that by-gone world which, maybe, is wider than the future for all of us--the past.

Her eyes grew deep and melancholy.

The sunset seemed to brighten around her all at once, and enmesh her in a golden web, burnishing her hair, and it fell across her brow with a peculiar radiance, leaving the temples in shadow, softening and yet lighting the carmine of her cheeks and lips, giving a feeling of life to her dress, which itself was like dusty gold.
Her hands were caught and clasped at her knees.

There was something spiritual and exalted in the picture.

It had, too, a touch of tragedy, for something out of her nebulous past had been reflected in faint shadows in her eyes, and this again, by strange, delicate processes, was expressed in every line of her form, in all the aspect of her face.
It was as if some knowledge were being filtered to her through myriad atmospheres of premonition; as though the gods in pity foreshadowed a great trouble, that the first rudeness of misery might be spared.
She did not note that Iberville had risen, and had come round the table to look over Councillor Drayton's shoulder at a map spread out.