responsibility was as baldly apparent as the February noon, its greyness
now blotted by a wind-driven, metallic shift of snow.

He had been criminally negligent of Eunice. This realization was
accompanied by no corresponding warmth of parenthood; there was no
quickening of blood at the thought of his daughter, but only a newborn
condemnation of his neglected, proper pride. He had, thoughtlessly,
descended to a singularly low level of conduct. And it must abruptly
terminate. Jasper Penny had not seen Eunice for seven, nine, months; he
would remedy this at once, supervise advantages, a proper place, for
her. Afterward Essie and himself could make a mutually satisfactory
agreement.




XI


Throughout an excellent dinner, terrapin and bass, wild turkey with
oysters and fruit preserved in white brandy, he maintained a sombre
silence. His mother, on the right, her sister opposite--Phebe's place
seemed scarcely emptier than when she had actually occupied it--held an
intermittent verbal exchange patently keyed to Jasper Penny's mood. They
were women with yellow-white, lace-capped hair, blanched eyebrows and
lashes, and small, quick eyes on hardy, reddened faces. Gilda Penny was
slightly the larger, more definite; Amity Merken had a timid, almost
furtive, expression in the opulence of the Penny establishment, while
Gilda was complacent; but otherwise the two women were identical. Their
dresses were largely similar--Amity's a dun, Gilda Penny's grey, moire