The
agitation of the moment had raised a feverish color in her cheeks, and
had brightened the light in her large gray eyes. She was conscious of
looking her best; conscious how her beauty gained by contrast, after the
removal of the disguise. Her lovely light brown hair looked thicker and
softer than ever, now that it had escaped from its imprisonment under
the gray wig. She twisted it this way and that, with quick, dexterous
fingers; she laid it in masses on her shoulders; she threw it back from
them in a heap and turned sidewise to see how it fell--to see her back
and shoulders freed from the artificial deformities of the padded cloak.
After a moment she faced the looking-glass once more; plunged both hands
deep in her hair; and, resting her elbows on the table, looked closer
and closer at the reflection of herself, until her breath began to dim
the glass. "I can twist any man alive round my finger," she thought,
with a smile of superb triumph, "as long as I keep my looks! If that
contemptible wretch saw me now--" She shrank from following that thought
to its end, with a sudden horror of herself: she drew back from the
glass, shuddering, and put her hands over her face.
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