That visage,
which had a certain weird resemblance to Dante's, presided over the room
with cruel, tragic stoicism. No one could look on it without feeling
that, there, the human will had been pushed to its farthest limits of
endurance.
Seeing it for the first time, Courtier said:
"Fine thing--that! Only wants a soul."
Miltoun nodded:
"Sit down," he said.
Courtier sat down.
There followed one of those silences in which men whose spirits, though
different, have a certain bigness in common--can say so much to one
another:
At last Miltoun spoke:
"I have been living in the clouds, it seems. You are her oldest friend.
The immediate question is how to make it easiest for her in face of this
miserable rumour!"
Not even Courtier himself could have put such whip-lash sting into the
word 'miserable.'
He answered:
"Oh! take no notice of that. Let them stew in their own juice. She won't
care."
Miltoun listened, not moving a muscle of his face.
"Your friends here," went on Courtier with a touch of contempt, "seem in
a flutter. Don't let them do anything, don't let them say a word. Treat
the thing as it deserves to be treated. It'll die."
Miltoun, however, smiled.
"I'm not sure," he said, "that the consequences will be as you think,
but I shall do as you say."
"As for your candidature, any man with a spark of generosity in his soul
will rally to you because of it.
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