It's an old friend by this time." She looked at it, scarcely seeing, and forced a smile that could not quite remove the furrow of silent intensity from her brows.

Traill saw that.

He could not take his eyes from her face.

Her almost childish passivity was like a slow and heavy poison in his blood.
It crept gradually and gradually through the veins, leaving fire wherever it touched.
Alexandre came back with the wine, and broke the spell of it.

He spread the change out on the table, and the sound of it then, at that moment, was like the breaking of a thousand little pieces of glass, over which his presence walked with clumsy feet.
"Well, what did Mr.Arthur say ?" Traill asked when Alexandre had disappeared again and Berthe had brought them their second course.
Sally looked up and smiled at his encouragement, a smile that lit through him.