She was abnormally
sensitive to impressions. A tone spoke volumes to her. He did not wish
to disturb her by his own anxiety at this critical period.
All the while, little by little, her sight was coming She could
distinguish now any violent contrast of colors. The blurred detail of
form grew less pronounced. In the chaos of sensory impressions she
began to distinguish order; and, when she began to peer unexpectedly
at the people she met, at the chubby boy in his cot, at her husband's
face, Hollister could stand it no longer. He was afraid, afraid of
what he might see in those gray eyes if she looked at him too long,
too closely.
He was doubly sensitive now about his face because of those weeks
among strangers, of going about in crowded places where people stared
at him with every degree of morbid curiosity, exhibiting every shade
of feeling from a detached pity to open dislike of the spectacle he
presented. That alone weighed heavily on him. Inaction rasped at his
nerves. The Toba and his house, the grim peaks standing aloof behind
the timbered slopes, beckoned him back to their impassive, impersonal
silences, those friendly silences in which a man could sit and
think--and hope.
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