In old days she
would have been a Cleopatra, a Theodora, a Delilah. To-day,
lacking opportunity, she is the 'smart woman' grubbing for an
opening into society--and old Fawley's daughter. I'm tired; let us
go home."
His allusion to her parentage was significant. Few people thought
of connecting clever, handsome Geraldine Fawley with "Rogue
Fawley," Jew renegade, ex-gaol bird, and outside broker; who,
having expectations from his daughter, took care not to hamper her
by ever being seen in her company. But no one who had once met the
father could ever forget the relationship while talking to the
daughter. The older face, with its cruelty, its cunning, and its
greed stood reproduced, feature for feature, line for line. It was
as though Nature, for an artistic freak, had set herself the task
of fashioning hideousness and beauty from precisely the same
materials. Between the leer of the man and the smile of the girl,
where lay the difference? It would have puzzled any student of
anatomy to point it out. Yet the one sickened, while to gain the
other most men would have given much.
Cyril's answer to my question satisfied me for the time.
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