any frivolous parody thereof. Freeman had
been acquainted with Miriam scarcely two
days, but he had already begun to perceive
the main indications of a character which a
lifetime might not be long enough wholly
to explore. Marriage had never been among
the enterprises he had, in the course of his
career, proposed to himself: he did not
propose it now: yet he dared not risk the
utterance of a word that would lead Miriam
to look at him with an offended or contemptuous
glance. It was not that she was, from
the merely physical point of view, transcendently
beautiful. His first impression
of her, indeed, had been that she was
merely an unusually good example of a type
by no means rare in that region. But ere
long he became sensible of a spiritual
quality in her which lifted her to a level far
above that which can be attained by mere
harmony of features and proportions.
Beneath the outward aspect lay a profound
depth of being, glimpses of which were
occasionally discernible through her eyes,
in the tones of her voice, in her smile, in
unconscious movements of her hands and
limbs. Demonstrative she could never be;
but she could, at will, feel with tropical
intensity, and act with the swiftness and
energy of a fanatic.