As
he entered she turned, hearing the sound, and their eyes met. He stood
silent, trying to fathom the strange look on that pale face. It was the
same beautiful face that he had seen in pictured loveliness that last
night at Monticello, the same that he had seen in reality for the first
time at Mr. Jefferson's levee at the Legation, and yet how changed! All
the haughty pride, the caprice, the vanity, the artificiality were gone,
and instead, upon the finely chiselled features and in the blue eyes,
rested a serene, if melancholy beauty, a quiet nobility born of
suffering. There rushed through Calvert's mind the thought that, after
all, that loveliness had at last developed into all that was best and
finest.
He stood thus looking at her in silence and thinking of these things,
and then he went slowly forward, scarce knowing how to address her or
explain his presence, who had so long avoided her.
"I am come," he says, at length, "to thank you for the great service
that you have this night rendered me and those other gentlemen engaged
with myself in the King's business. I dare not think what might have
been the fate of us all had you not come to our assistance.
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