Gordon Makimmon stood at the end of the porch,
morosely ill at ease: the memories of Clare as a girl,
as a woman going about and performing the duties
of their home, the dignity of his sense of loss and
sorrow, had vanished before this public ceremony;
they had sunk to perfunctory, conventional emotions
before the glib flood of the paid eulogist, the facile
emotion of the women.

Suddenly he saw, partially hidden by the dull
dresses of the older women, a white, ruffled skirt,
the turn of a young shoulder, a drooping straw hat.
A meager, intervening form moved, and he saw that
Lettice Hollidew had come to his sister's funeral.
He wondered, in a momentary, instinctive resentment,
what had brought her among this largely
negligent gathering. She had barely known Clare;
Gordon was not certain that she had ever been in
their house. He could see her plainly now -- she
stood clasping white gloves with firm, pink hands;
her gaze was lowered upon the uneven flooring of
the porch. He could see the soft contour of her
chin, a shimmer of warm, brown hair. She was
crisply fresh, incredibly young in the group of
gaunt, worn forms; her ruffled fairness was an affront
to the thin, rigid shoulders in rusty black, the
sallow, deeply-bitten faces of the other women.

She looked up, and surprised his intent gaze: she
flushed slightly, the gloves were twisted into a knot,

[[90]]

p089 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p090w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p091

v?