They
looked askance at this trim and upright figure with the fighting face;
then, some subtle thing informing them that he was not of the disturbing
breed called officer, they ceased to regard him, abandoning themselves
to dumb and inexpressive felicity. Arm in arm, touching each other, they
seemed to Courtier very jolly, having that look of living entirely in
the moment, which always especially appealed to one whose blood ran too
fast to allow him to speculate much upon the future or brood much over
the past.
A leaf from the bough above him, loosened by the sun's kisses, dropped,
and fell yellow at his feet. The leaves were turning very soon?
It was characteristic of this man, who could be so hot over the lost
causes of others, that, sitting there within half an hour of the final
loss of his own cause, he could be so calm, so almost apathetic.
This apathy was partly due to the hopelessness, which Nature had long
perceived, of trying to make him feel oppressed, but also to the habits
of a man incurably accustomed to carrying his fortunes in his hand, and
that hand open. It did not seem real to him that he was actually going
to suffer a defeat, to have to confess that he had hankered after this
girl all these past weeks, and that to-morrow all would be wasted, and
she as dead to him as if he had never seen her.
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