Though at this time neither she nor I perceived it.
* * * * *
Penton came in ... the little, handsome, red-faced man, with his
Napoleonic head too large for his small, stocky body ... his large,
luminous eyes like those of the Italian fisher boy in the painting ...
his mouth a little too large ... his chin a trifle too heavy-jowled. His
hands were feminine ... but his feet were encased in heavy shoes that
made them seem the feet of a six-foot day labourer....
Ruth, his secretary, coming close behind him,--was tall, not ungraceful
in an easy, almost mannish way ... slab-figured ... built more like a
boy than a young woman dangerously near the old maid. She too wore
bloomers. Her face was tanned. It was too broad and placid for either
prettiness or beauty, but a mischievous tilt to the nose and large calm
hazel eyes kept her this side of mere plainness....
Penton glanced from me to his wife, from his wife to me, in one look of
instinctive inquiry, before he addressed me....
"Well, Johnnie, here you are ... East at last ... and about to become a
real literary man."
"He's been here a full hour ... we didn't want to interrupt you--" his
wife explained.
"Your work is too important for the world"--I began sincerely and
reverently.
Baxter beamed. His being expanded under my worship.
He caught both my hands, friendlily, in his.
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