Her lips were parted.
She was shrinking, fluttering, trembling at what she saw. She was indeed
like a spaniel dog who sees her master coming. Bianca had no need of
being told that Hilary was outside. She went into the passage and opened
the front door.
He was coming up the steps, his face worn like that of a man in fever,
and at the sight of his wife he stood quite still, looking into her
face.
Without the quiver of an eyelid, without the faintest trace of emotion,
or the slightest sign that she knew him to be there, Bianca passed and
slowly walked away.
CHAPTER XL
FINISH OF THE COMEDY
Those who may have seen Hilary driving towards the little model's
lodgings saw one who, by a fixed red spot on either cheek, and the
over-compression of his quivering lips, betrayed the presence of that
animality which underlies even the most cultivated men.
After eighteen hours of the purgatory of indecision, he had not so
much decided to pay that promised visit on which hung the future of two
lives, as allowed himself to be borne towards the girl.
There was no one in the passage to see him after he had passed Bianca
in the doorway, but it was with a face darkened by the peculiar stabbing
look of wounded egoism that he entered the little model's room.
The sight of it coming so closely on the struggle she had just been
through was too much for the girl's self-control.
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