His posture, as he stared obliquely at Eva, with
a sort of beaming defiance, recalled to him something seen in an
"illustration." This reminiscence, however--if such it was, save in
the scarred, the poor dear old woebegone and so very beguilingly _not_
refractive mirror of the moment--took a peculiar twist from Eva's
behaviour. She had, with startling suddenness, sat bolt upright, and
looked to him as if she were overhearing some tragedy at the other end
of the wire, where, in the nature of things, she was unable to arrest
it. The gaze she fixed on her extravagant kinsman was of a kind to
make him wonder how he contrived to remain, as he beautifully did,
rigid. His prop was possibly the reflection that flashed on him that,
if _she_ abounded in attenuations, well, hang it all, so did _he_! It
was simply a difference of plane. Readjust the "values," as painters
say, and there you were! He was to feel that he was only too crudely
"there" when, leaning further forward, he laid a chubby forefinger on
the stocking, causing that receptacle to rock ponderously to and fro.
This effect was more expected than the tears which started to Eva's
eyes, and the intensity with which "Don't you," she exclaimed, "see?"
"The mote in the middle distance?" he asked.
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