But was it nothing but looks? people said. What was there behind it⁠—her beauty, her splendour? Had he blown his brains out, they asked, had he died the week before they were married⁠—some other, earlier lover, of whom rumours reached one? Or was there nothing? nothing but an incomparable beauty which she lived behind, and could do nothing to disturb? For easily though she might have said at some moment of intimacy when stories of great passion, of love foiled⁠—of ambition thwarted came her way how she too had known or felt or been through it herself, she never spoke. She was silent always. She knew then⁠—she knew without having learnt. Her simplicity fathomed what clever people falsified. Her singleness of mind made her drop plumb like a stone, alight exact as a bird, gave her, naturally, this swoop and fall of the spirit upon truth which delighted, eased, sustained⁠—falsely perhaps.