You know I always
thought you beautiful, I always thought you so clever--I was even a
little frightened of you; but I never until now knew you were so GOOD.
No, stop! Yes, I DID know it. Do you remember once in San Francisco,
when I found you with Sta in your lap in the drawing-room? I knew it
then. You tried to make me think it was a whim--the fancy of a bored
and worried woman. But I knew better. And I knew what you were thinking
then. Shall I tell you?"
As her eyes were still cast down, although her mouth was still smiling,
in his endeavors to look into them his face was quite near hers. He
fancied that it bore the look she had worn once before.
"You were thinking," he said in a voice which had grown suddenly quite
hesitating and tremulous,--he did not know why,--"that the poor little
baby was quite friendless and alone. You were pitying it--you know you
were--because there was no one to give it the loving care that was its
due, and because it was intrusted to that hired nurse in that great
hotel. You were thinking how you would love it if it were yours, and how
cruel it was that Love was sent without an object to waste itself upon.
You were: I saw it in your face."
She suddenly lifted her eyes and looked full into his with a look that
held and possessed him. For a moment his whole soul seemed to tremble
on the verge of their lustrous depths, and he drew back dizzy and
frightened.
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