The cruelty of her
position was so great, its complications so thorny, if I may express
myself so, that a passive attitude was yet her best refuge--as it had
been before her of so many women.
For that sort of inertia in woman is always enigmatic and therefore
menacing. It makes one pause. A woman may be a fool, a sleepy fool, an
agitated fool, a too awfully noxious fool, and she may even be simply
stupid. But she is never dense. She's never made of wood through and
through as some men are. There is in woman always, somewhere, a spring.
Whatever men don't know about women (and it may be a lot or it may be
very little) men and even fathers do know that much. And that is why so
many men are afraid of them.
Mr. Smith I believe was afraid of his daughter's quietness though of
course he interpreted it in his own way.
He would, as Mr. Powell depicts, sit on the skylight and bend over the
reclining girl, wondering what there was behind the lost gaze under the
darkened eyelids in the still eyes. He would look and look and then he
would say, whisper rather, it didn't take much for his voice to drop to a
mere breath--he would declare, transferring his faded stare to the
horizon, that he would never rest till he had "got her away from that
man.
Pages:
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580