ncanny eyes and shed its light over the very muscles of
her cheeks and under her skin. The oddest of her traits was her
apparent pleasure in seeing a man comfortable while she looked like a
ramrod herself; and she was the easiest of mortals to talk to when she
was in the right mood. She was morose at times, but her favorites were
seldom inflicted with her moods, and of all her favorites Clavering
reigned supreme. This he knew and took advantage of after the fashion
of his sex. He told her all his troubles, his ambitions, which he
believed to be futile--he had written plays which his own criticism had
damned and no eye but his own and Gora Dwight's had ever seen--and she
refreshed and stimulated his mind when his daily column must be written
and his brain was stagnant. She also knew of his secret quest of the
one woman and had been the repository of several fleeting hopes. And
never for a moment had she thought him saturnine or disillusioned. Not
she! Gora Dwight had an extraordinary knowledge of men for a woman to
whom men did not make love. But if she had neither beauty nor allure
she had genius; and a father confessor hardly knows more about women
than a nurse about men. Moreover, she had her arts, little as men
suspected it. Long ago she had read an appraisement of Madame Recamier
by Sainte-Beuve: "She listens _avec seduction_." Gora had no intention
of practising seduction in any of its forms, but she listened and she
never betrayed, and her reward was that men sound and whole, and full
of man's inherent and technical peculiarities, had confided in her.
Altogether she was well equipped for fiction.

[1] See the author's "Sisters-in-Law."

XV

She was listening now as Clavering told her of his adventurous meeting
with Madame Zattiany, of their subsequent conversations, and of his
doubts.

"Are you sure she is not playing a part deliberately?" she asked.
"Having her little fun after those horrible years? She looks quite
equal to it, and a personal drama would have its attractions after an
experience during which a nurse felt about as personal as an amputated
limb. And while one is still young and beautiful--what a lark!"

"No. I don't believe anything of the sort. I fancy that if she didn't
happen to be so fond of the theatre she'd have come and gone and none
of us been the wiser. Her secret is _sui generis_, whatever it is.
I've racked my mind in vain. I don't believe she is the Count