I am indebted to you that for once you
made me remember those who suffered."
She spoke with a certain impulse of candor and of self-accusation that
broke with great sweetness the somewhat coldness of her general manner;
it was like a gleam of light that showed all the depth and the warmth
that in truth lay beneath that imperious languor of habit. It broke
further the ice of distance that severed the grande dame from the
cavalry soldier.
Insensibly to himself, the knowledge that he had, in fact, the right to
stand before her as an equal gave him the bearing of one who exercised
that right, and her rapid perception had felt before now that this Roumi
of Africa was as true a gentleman as any that had ever thronged about
her in palaces. Her own life had been an uninterrupted course of luxury,
prosperity, serenity, and power; the adversity which she could not but
perceive had weighed on his had a strange interest to her. She had
heard of many calamities, and aided many; but they had always been far
sundered from her, they had never touched her; in this man's presence
they seemed to grow very close, terribly real. She led him on to speak
of his comrades, of his daily life, of his harassing routine of duties
in peace, and of his various experiences in war. He told her, too, of
Leon Ramon's history; and as she listened, he saw a mist arise and dim
the brilliancy of those eyes that men complained would never soften.
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