It was, however, I could see, quite
unconscious; and I tried hard not to be intolerant towards him, because
fortune had blessed me with an earlier illumination.
Pray, go not away with the misconception that Narcissus was ever base to
a woman. No! he left that to Circe's hogs, and the one temptation he
ever had towards it he turned into a shining salvation. No! he had
nothing worse than the sins of the young egoist to answer for, though he
afterwards came to feel those pitiful and mean enough.
Another noticeable feature of Hesper's face was an ever-present
sadness--not as of a dull grief, but as of some shining sorrow, a
quality which gave her face much arresting interest. It seemed one
great, rich tear. One loved to dwell upon it as upon those intense
stretches of evening sky when the day yearns through half-shut eyelids
in the west. One continually wondered what story it meant, for some it
must mean.
Watching her thus quietly, day by day, it seemed to me that as the weeks
from her first coming went by, this sadness deepened; and I could not
forbear one day questioning the elder Hesperides about her, thus
bringing upon myself a revelation I had little expected. For, said she,
'she was glad I had spoken to her, for she had long wished to ask me to
use my influence with my friend, that he might cease paying Hesper
attentions which he could not mean in earnest, but which she knew were
already causing Hesper to be fond of him.
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