"Well, well," groaned Mrs. Mayhew, "do your best."
But Ida was not to be found.
She appeared at dinner, however, and not a few looked at her,
and stole furtive glances again and again. Among these observers
was the artist, and it was evident that he was both perplexed and
troubled. Was this cold, marble-cheeked woman the butterfly that
had fluttered into the country a few weeks since?
"She may be a bad woman," he thought, "but she has become a woman
in the last few days. She looks years older. I thought her shallow,
but she's too deep for me. For some reason I can't associate
that face, as it now appears, with Sibley, and yet it is so full
of mingled pain and defiance, that one might almost think she
meditated a crime. She looks ill. She is ill--she is growing
thin and hollow-eyed. What a magnificent study she would make of
a half-famished captive; or of beauty chained--not married to a
man hateful and hated; or, possibly, of innocence meditating guilt,
and yet seeking vainly to disguise the dark thoughts by a marble
mask. There is some transforming process going on in Ida Mayhew's
mind, and from her appearance I rather dread the outcome; but her
face is becoming a rare study.
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