bed. Out of doors, the night seemed to be wilder and stormier than ever; and the house creaked, the windows rattled. Mathilde sat staring before her, her ears filled with the sounds of the night. Nevertheless she heard her husband come in; but she did not move.
"Tilly . . ."
There was now an undoubted tenderness in his voice, in his deep, earnest voice. She was certainly very fond of him, she thought, if only he did not neglect her. She just raised her head towards him, sideways. She was a handsome woman; and her young, healthy blood seemed to give her a complexion of milk and roses. Her features were not delicate, but they were pure; her eyes were gold-grey and large, clear and bright; her hair had a natural wave in it and was almost too heavily coiled. Beneath her black silk blouse her bust was heavy, with a low breast and a naturally wide waist too tightly laced. She had the full, spacious form of a young and healthy woman and lacked all the morbid distinction of finer breeding. Her eyes seemed to stare at a vision of physical delight; her lips seemed ready to salute that delight; the grip of her large hands was greedy and decisive. Her foot, in its substantial shoe, was large, too large for a woman of fashion. Nor was she that: she was rather a woman of health. She had no delicacy of wit: she had rather common sense; and the only morbid part of her intelligence was an irrepressible vanity. She had no delicate taste: she wore a simple black blouse and a black skirt, both from Brussels; and yet there was a coarse line and a heavy fold in both. The brilliant on her finger gleamed insolently, white and hard. It was very strange, but she saw this herself. Her mamma-in-law had given her that brilliant during her engagement, out of her
