"
Something in his face, something in her heart, startled her so
that she made a quick little move like that of a restless bird.
"You are beautiful and that makes my eyes and my hand uncertain,"
he went on. "Were I fencing with a man there would be no glamour."
He spoke in English, which he did not often do in conversation
with her. It was a sign that he was somewhat wrought upon. She
followed his rapid words with difficulty; but she caught from them
a new note of feeling. He saw a little pale flare shoot across her
face and thought she was angry.
"You should not use your dimples to distract my vision," he
quickly added, with a light laugh. "It would be no worse for me to
throw my hat in your face!"
His attempt at levity was obviously weak; she looked straight into
his eyes, with the steady gaze of a simple, earnest nature shocked
by a current quite strange to it. She did not understand him, and
she did. Her fine intuition gathered swiftly together a hundred
shreds of impression received from him during their recent growing
intimacy. He was a patrician, as she vaguely made him out, a man
of wealth, whose family was great. He belonged among people of
gentle birth and high attainments. She magnified him so that he
was diffused in her imagination, as difficult to comprehend as a
mist in the morning air--and as beautiful.
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