Had she, could she, ever have seen it in its realities, watched and read
and understood it, she would have been too intensely revolted to have
perceived the actual, latent nobility possible in such an existence. As
it was she heard but of it in such words as alone could meet the ear of
a great lady; she gazed at it only in pity from a far-distant height,
and its terrible tragedy had solemnity and beauty for her.
When her servant approached her now with Cecil's message she hesitated
some few moments in surprise. She had not known that he was in her
vicinity. The story she had heard had been simply of two unnamed
Chasseurs d'Afrique, and he himself might have fallen on the field weeks
before, for aught that she had heard of him. Some stray rumors of his
defense of the encampment of Zaraila, and of the fine prowess shown in
his last charge, alone had drifted to her. He was but a trooper; and he
fought in Africa. The world had no concern with him, save the miniature
world of his own regiment.
She hesitated some moments; then gave the required permission. "He has
once been a gentleman; it would be cruel to wound him," thought the
imperial beauty, who would have refused a prince or neglected a duke
with chill indifference, but who was too generous to risk the semblance
of humiliation to the man who could never approach her save upon such
sufferance as was in itself mortification to one whose pride survived
his fallen fortunes.
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