In appearance, anyhow, Linda told herself with a measure of
reassurance, she was practically unchanged. She still, with the
support of Arnaud, disregarding current fashion, wore her hair in a
straight bang across her brow and blue gaze. She was as slender as
formerly, but more gracefully round, in spite of the faint
characteristic stiffness that was the result of her mental
hesitation. Her clothes, too, had hardly varied--she wore, whenever
possible, white lawns ruffled about the throat and hem, with broad
soft black sashes, while her more formal dresses were sheaths of
dull unornamented satin extravagant in the perfection of their
simplicity.




XXIV


Arnaud Hallet stirred, sharply closing his book. He had changed--except
for a palpable settling down of grayness--as little as Linda. For a
while she had tried to bring about an improvement in his appearance,
and he had met her expressed wish whenever he remembered it; but this
was not often. In the morning a servant polished his shoes, brushed
and ironed his suits; yet by evening, somehow, he managed to look as
though he hadn't been attended to for days. She would have liked him
to change for dinner; other men of his connection did, it was a part
of his inheritance. Arnaud, however, in his slight scoffing
disparagement, declined individually to annoy himself. He was, she
learned, enormously absorbed in his historical studies and papers.