and her feelings.

Anyhow, she sat down opposite me and then, for the first time, she
paid any attention to my existence. She gave me, suddenly, yet
deliberately, one long stare. Her eyes too were blue and dark and
the eyelids were so arched that they gave you the whole round of
the irises. And it was a most remarkable, a most moving glance,
as if for a moment a lighthouse had looked at me. I seemed to
perceive the swift questions chasing each other through the brain
that was behind them. I seemed to hear the brain ask and the eyes
answer with all the simpleness of a woman who was a good hand
at taking in qualities of a horse--as indeed she was. "Stands well;
has plenty of room for his oats behind the girth. Not so much in
the way of shoulders," and so on. And so her eyes asked: "Is this
man trustworthy in money matters; is he likely to try to play the
lover; is he likely to let his women be troublesome? Is he, above
all, likely to babble about my affairs?"

And, suddenly, into those cold, slightly defiant, almost defensive
china blue orbs, there came a warmth, a tenderness, a friendly
recognition . . . oh, it was very charming and very touching--and
quite mortifying. It was the look of a mother to her son, of a sister
to her brother. It implied trust; it implied the want of any necessity
for barriers. By God, she looked at me as if I were an invalid--as
any kind woman may look at a poor chap in a bath chair. And,
yes, from that day forward she always treated me and not Florence
as if I were the invalid. Why, she would run after me with a rug
upon chilly days. I suppose, therefore, that her eyes had made a
favourable answer. Or, perhaps, it wasn't a favourable answer.
And then Florence said: "And so the whole round table is begun."