Devlin's mills, Marmion. She will go with us."
In a little time we were on our way to Viking. I walked with Mrs.
Falchion, and Roscoe with Justine. I was aware of a new element in Mrs.
Falchion's manner. She seemed less powerfully attractive to me than in
the old days, yet she certainly was more beautiful. It was hard to trace
the new characteristic. But at last I thought I saw it in a decrease of
that cold composure, that impassiveness, so fascinating in the past. In
its place had come an allusive, restless something, to be found in words
of troublesome vagueness, in variable moods, in an increased
sensitiveness of mind and an undercurrent of emotional bitterness--she
was emotional at last! She puzzled me greatly, for I saw two spirits in
her: one pitiless as of old; the other human, anxious, not unlovely.
At length we became silent, and walked so side by side for a time. Then,
with that old delightful egotism and selfishness--delightful in its very
daring--she said: "Well, amuse me!"
"And is it still the end of your existence," I rejoined--"to be amused?"
"What is there else to do?" she replied with raillery.
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