"Come and have a game of chess," said Strickland.
I do not know why at the moment I could think of no excuse.
I followed them rather sulkily to the table at which Strickland
always sat, and he called for the board and the chessmen.
They both took the situation so much as a matter of course
that I felt it absurd to do otherwise. Mrs. Stroeve watched
the game with inscrutable face. She was silent, but she had
always been silent. I looked at her mouth for an expression
that could give me a clue to what she felt; I watched her eyes
for some tell-tale flash, some hint of dismay or bitterness;
I scanned her brow for any passing line that might indicate a
settling emotion. Her face was a mask that told nothing.
Her hands lay on her lap motionless, one in the other loosely clasped.
I knew from what I had heard that she was a woman of
violent passions; and that injurious blow that she had given
Dirk, the man who had loved her so devotedly, betrayed a
sudden temper and a horrid cruelty. She had abandoned the
safe shelter of her husband's protection and the comfortable
ease of a well-provided establishment for what she could not
but see was an extreme hazard.
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