A stout wench answered the bell, a loosely ample person, with red cheeks, glossy jet hair, and scintillant brown eyes. Her hair was fringed about a sensual face; she wore a red-flannel blouse, a black skirt, and certain tawdry fripperies that denounced the donor. She was Zeus Gildersedge’s only servant, and might indeed have been included with his opium and his claret as an especial luxury selfishly cherished for the sake of avarice.
There was a familiar and insolent frankness in the voice that seemed to imply that no very abundant respect was wasted between master and servant.
“Pah! you cook enough for a tavern. What’s the use of talking to you of economy. I’ll take it out of your wages.”
“No, you won’t,” said the woman by the doorway, pouting out her lips. “I’m not here to starve.”
“Don’t answer me, woman. Bring in supper.”
“Taters and sheeps’ ribs. I hope that’ll suit. Wouldn’t ruin a pauper. Have any cheese?”
“It’s stale; but you’ll eat less. Ain’t we economic!”
Zeus Gildersedge returned to his chair and his paper, muttering under his breath. He had not been seated five minutes when a young girl entered the room, an old sun-hat trimmed with red roses in one hand, a basket of primroses in the other. She set the basket on the table and seated herself down in a window-seat with the air of one who has learned the wisdom of self-repression in her intercourse with her father. Joan Gildersedge could read the man’s humor as fairly as she could decipher the face of the sky. His prevailing mood in her presence was gray, northerly, and cheerless. She knew that it was useless to approach him when the cloud of avaricious calculation hung low over his brain.
Considered feature by feature, Joan Gildersedge escaped the vulgar charge of being declared pretty. Considered as an individual creation, as a woman, she possessed a charm that was inevitable and unique. She had great, gray eyes, a large chin, a clear, satiny complexion, and delicate coloring. Her hair was abundant, glossed with a golden tinge, drawn back loosely and knotted low upon her neck. Her neck, indeed, was the most lovely portion of her figure—long, graceful, with a perfect sweep from her shoulders, smooth, stately as a gracious tower. She had long limbs, a big yet somewhat bony frame, a bosom girlish and hollowed under the shoulders. There was a rich and generous amplitude about her face and figure that made her appear womanly beyond her years.
