He seemed to work hard, leaving
home at nine each morning, getting back to dinner at half-past six,
and, as often as not, spending the evening away from home, and not
returning till the small hours. He had the feverish eye of a man
whose subsistence depends upon speculative acuteness and restless
calculation. No doubt he was still so far the old Paul, that,
whatever he undertook, he threw himself into it with surpassing
vigour.
Mrs. Enderby was in her thirty-eighth year, and still handsome. Most
men, at all events, would have called her so, for most men are
attracted by a face which is long, delicate, characterless, and
preserves late the self-conscious expression of a rather frivolous
girl of seventeen. She had ideals of her own, which she pursued
regardless of the course in which they led her; and these ideals
were far from ignoble. To beauty of all kinds she was passionately
sensitive. As a girl she had played the piano well, and, though the
power had gone from long disuse, music was still her chief passion.
Graceful ease, delicacy in her surroundings, freedom from domestic
cares, the bloom of flowers, sweet scents--such things made up her
existence. She loved her husband, and had once worshipped him; she
loved her recovered daughter; but both affections were in her, so to
speak, of aesthetic rather than of moral quality.
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