Even
her red lips had gone pale; she dropped her head; her white eyelids
and black lashes fluttered as she looked up at him piteously, seeming
to ask: "What have I done that you treat me like this, oh, my cruel
master?" He had driven his hands deep into his pockets, had shrugged
his shoulders, and spoken almost roughly--telling her to go about her
business, and not bother. He thought if he gave her time to do it, she
might cry again; and he did not want to see any more of her tears.
But off and on throughout the day he had watched her when she did not
in the least know that she was being observed. Just after breakfast he
had watched her as she scrubbed the kitchen floor, and had noticed the
pretty lines of her figure in these sprawling attitudes--her ankles,
stockings, and the upturned soles of her buckle-shoes.
He was watching her when she came up from the dairy with the pail that
held Mavis' afternoon supply of milk, and he noticed her stretched
arm, bare to the elbow, and the other arm balancing, the tilted body
helping also to maintain equilibrium. Almost more than she could
manage--why didn't that broad-backed thick-legged lump of a dairy-maid
carry the house-pail? He would have liked to go out and carry the pail
himself; but that was one of the many things which he must carefully
refrain from doing.
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