Somehow as he gazed, his earliest conscious emotion was that of
sympathy--it all appeared so unspeakably pathetic, so homesick, so
dismally forlorn and barren. Then that half-upturned face riveted his
attention and seemed to awaken a vague, dreamy memory he found himself
unable to localize; it reminded him of some other face he had known,
tantalizing from its dim indistinctness. Then this earlier impression
slightly faded away, and he merely beheld her alone, a perfect stranger
appropriating little by little her few claims to womanly beauty. There
was no certain guessing at her age as she lay thus, one hand pressed
beneath her cheek, her eyes closed, the long, dark lashes clearly
outlined against the white flesh, her bosom rising and falling with the
steady breathing of absolute exhaustion. She appeared so extremely
tired, discouraged, unhappy, that the young man involuntarily closed
his teeth tightly, as though some wrong had been personally done to
himself. He marked the dense blackness of her heavy mass of hair; the
perfect clearness of her skin; the shapeliness of the slender,
outstretched figure; the narrow boot, with its high-arched instep,
peeping shyly beneath the blue skirt; the something rarely interesting,
yet which scarcely made for beauty, revealed unconsciously in the
upturned face with its rounded chin and parted lips.
There was no distinct regularity of features, but there was
unquestionably character, such character as we recognize vaguely in a
sculptured face, lacking that life-like expression which the opened
eyes alone are capable of rendering. All this swept across his mind in
that instant during which he remained irresolute from surprise. Yet
Winston was by nature a gentleman; almost before he had grasped the
full significance of it all he stepped silently backward, and gently
closed the door. For an uncertain moment he remained there staring
blankly at the wood, that haunting memory once again mocking every vain
attempt to associate this girl-face with some other he had known
before. Finally, leaving valise and overcoat lying in the hall, he
retraced his way slowly down the stairs.
"Tom," and the young man leaned against the rough counter, his voice
grown graver, "there chances to be a woman at present occupying that
room you just assigned me."
"No! Is that so?" and the clerk swung easily down from his high stool,
drawing the register toward him. "Must be one of the troupe, then.
Let's see--Number Twenty-seven, was n't it? Twenty-seven--oh, yes,
here it is. That's a fact," and his finger slowly traced the line as
he spelled out the name, "'Miss Beth Norvell.' Oh, I remember her
now--black hair, and a long gray coat; best looker among 'em. Manager
said she 'd have to be given a room all to herself; but I clean forgot
I assigned her to Twenty-seven. Make much of a row?"