It was the great bundle of Prosper's mail that first brought home to
Joan the awareness of an outside world. She knew that Prosper was a
traveled and widely experienced man, but she had not fancied him held
to this world by human attachments. Concerning the "tall child" she
had not put a question and she still believed her to have been
Prosper's wife. But when, leaving her place under the tree, she came
into the house and found Prosper feverishly slitting open envelope
after envelope, with a pile of papers and magazines, ankle-high,
beside him on the floor, she stood aghast.
"What a lot of people must have been writing to you, Prosper!"
He did not hear her. He was greedy of eye and fingertips, searching
written sheet after sheet. He was flushed along the cheek-bones and a
little pale about the lips. Joan stood there, her hands hanging, her
head bent, staring up and out at him from under her brows. She looked,
in this attitude, rather dangerous.
Prosper sped through his mail, made an odd gesture of desperation, sat
still a moment staring, his brilliant, green-gray eyes gone dull and
blank, then he gave himself a shuddery shake, pulled a small parcel
from under the papers, and held it out to Joan. He smiled.
"Something for you, leopardess," he said--he had told her his first
impression of her.
She took the box haughtily and walked with it over to her chair. But
he came and kissed her.
"Jealous of my mail? You foolish child. What a girl-thing you are! It
doesn't matter, does it, how we train you or leave you untrained,
you're all alike, you women, under your skins. Open your box and thank
me prettily, and leave matters you don't understand alone. That's the
way to talk, isn't it?"
She flushed and smiled rather doubtfully, but, at sight of his gift,
she forgot everything else for a moment. It was a collar of topaz and
emerald set in heavy silver. She was awe-struck by its beauty, and
went, after he had fastened it for her, to stand a long while before
the glass looking at it. She wore her yellow dress cut into a V at the
neck and the jewels rested beautifully at the base of her long, round
throat, faintly brown like her face up to the brow. The yellow and the
green brought out all the value of her grave, scarlet lips, the soft,
even tints of her skin, the dark lights and shadows of her hair and
eyes.
"It's beautiful," she said. "It's wonderful. I love it."