putterings 455c < 456 > 457 index
abandoned; puttering about
“The lady of stainless raiment!”
As such he painted her. Claudia sat for the portrait with gracious willingness. She could not withstand reverence and from the first moment Zosime elevated her.
Zosime’s reverence obviated all awkwardness that might have sprung from the fact of Julian’s failure to apprise his wife of the protracted visit of the guests at Number 28. Claudia devised her own explanation. Julian doubtless cherished a lingering regret for the profession he had abandoned; puttering about with Zosime over paints and canvases in the attic, he enjoyed a vicarious satisfaction that implied no renewed interest in art on his own account; she suspected that [232] he was ashamed of his secret sentiment for the student days in Paris of which these French friends were a reminder, and had not spoken of the latter for fear she might despise his weakness.
Her analysis was exactly correct with regard to his original silence.
ex Mathilde Eiker. The Lady of Stainless Raiment (1928) : 231
U Michigan copy/scan (via google books) : link
same U Michigan copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
The novel received a critical (and favorable) review, among several other recent works of fiction, in the New York Times (September 23, 1928) : link (paywall)
Mathilde Eiker (1893-1982)
- images of her books (and dustjackets, with blurbs) at
literarydc / Poets, Writers, and Indie History (25 September 2020) : linkaside —
an interesting blog btw, last active in June 2023. - good profile and summary of major fiction — evidently from Gayle Gaskill, American Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide from Colonial Times to the Present — at encyclopedia.com : link