Anger swept the color up into her face, her hands clenched, and she
ground her heel down into the path as if she were grinding the
insolent smile from his cruel old face. Horrible old man! Dirty,
tremulous; with mumbling jaws chewing constantly; with untidy white
hairs pricking out from under his brown wig; with shaking, shrivelled
hands and blackened nails; this old man had fixed his melancholy eyes
upon her with an amused leer. He pretended, if you please! to think
that she was unworthy of his precious grandson's company--unworthy of
David's little handclasp. She would leave this impudent Old Chester!
She would tell Lloyd so, as soon as he came. She would not endure the
insults of these narrow-minded fools.
"Hideous! Hideous old wretch!" she said aloud furiously, between shut
teeth. "How dared he look at me like that, as if I were--Beast! I
hate--I hate--I hate him." Her anger was so uncontrollable that
for a moment she could not breathe. It was like a whirlwind, wrenching
and tearing her from the soil of contentment into which for so many
years her vanity and selfishness had struck their roots.
"But the Lord was not in the wind."