He now had some claims to be called nice-looking, or at least
to a certain air of virility that would not lessen his value in the eyes
of the opposite sex.
All this, of course, was natural enough, and most welcome. But,
altogether apart from this physical change, which no doubt had also been
going forward in the rest of us, there was a subtle note in his
personality that came to me with a degree of surprise that almost
amounted to shock.
And two things--as he came down to welcome me and pull up the
canoe--leaped up in my mind unbidden, as though connected in some way I
could not at the moment divine--first, the curious judgment formed of
him by Joan; and secondly, that fugitive expression I had caught in his
face while Maloney was offering up his strange prayer for special
protection from Heaven.
The delicacy of manner and feature--to call it by no milder term--which
had always been a distinguishing characteristic of the man, had been
replaced by something far more vigorous and decided, that yet utterly
eluded analysis.
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