Newton extended one hand, palm up, and Eliza supposed for a moment that he was directing her attention to the window set into the wall above this table. But Newton waved his hand around in the air as if trying to catch a moth, and finally steadied it. His palm, which was as pale as parchment, was striped with a little rainbow, projected by some bevel or irregularity in the windowpane. Eliza turned her attention to it. The swath of colors was steady as a gyroscope on a stand, even though Newton’s hand never stopped moving. This was a trompe l’oeil to best anything daubed on a wall by a mischievous painter at Versailles. Eliza acted without thinking: she reached out with both hands, cupping them together beneath Newton’s, and cradled his wayward hand in hers, steadying it. "I see that you are unwell," she said, "for this is not the tremor of a coffee-enthusiast, but the shivering of a man with a fever." Yet Newton’s hand felt cold.