At length, unable longer to brook that discomposing silence--
"Mademoiselle!" I called softly. The sound of my own voice seemed to
invigorate me, to strip me of my awkwardness and self-consciousness.
It broke the spell that for a moment had been over me, and brought me
back to myself - to the vain, self-confident, flamboyant Bardelys that
perhaps you have pictured from my writings.
"I hope, monsieur," she answered, without turning, "that what you
may have to say may justify in some measure your very importunate
insistence."
On my life, this was not encouraging. But now that I was master of
myself, I was not again so easily to be disconcerted. My eyes
rested upon her as she stood almost framed in the opening of that
long window. How straight and supple she was, yet how dainty and
slight withal! She was far from being a tall woman, but her clean
length of limb, her very slightness, and the high-bred poise of her
shapely head, conveyed an illusion of height unless you stood beside
her. The illusion did not sway me then. I saw only a child; but a
child with a great spirit, with a great soul that seemed to
accentuate her physical helplessness. That helplessness, which I
felt rather than saw, wove into the warp of my love. She was in
grief just then - in grief at the arrest of her father, and at the
dark fate that threatened him; in grief at the unworthiness of a
lover. Of the two which might be the more bitter it was not mine
to judge, but I burned to gather her to me, to comfort and cherish
her, to make her one with me, and thus, whilst giving her something
of my man's height and strength, cull from her something of that
pure, noble spirit, and thus sanctify my own.
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