midnight
Mustering with new eyes his short sturdily-built figure , his nondescript bearded face , and the eyes that dreamed and wandered , and then suddenly sank into you like claws , Susy seemed to have found the key to all his years of dogged toil , his indifference to neglect , indifference to poverty , indifference to the needs of his growing family ... . Yes : for the first time she saw that he looked commonplace enough to be a genius -- was a genius , perhaps , even though it was Violet Melrose who affirmed it ! Susy looked steadily at Fulmer , their eyes met , and he smiled at her faintly through his beard . `` Yes , I did discover him -- I did , '' Mrs. Melrose was insisting , from the depths of the black velvet divan in which she lay sunk like a wan Nereid in a midnight sea . `` You must n't believe a word that Ursula Gillow tells you about having pounced on his ` Spring Snow Storm ' in a dark corner of the American Artists ' exhibition -- skied , if you please ! They skied him less than a year ago ! And naturally Ursula never in her life looked higher than the first line at a picture-show .