He thought that face handsome, well-bred, and refined. But this
breeding and refinement seemed to him--in his ignorance of the world,
possibly--as only a graceful concealment of a self of which he knew
nothing; and he was not surprised to find that her pretty gray eyes, now
no longer hidden by her veil, really told him no more than her lips.
He was a little afraid of her, and now that she had lost her naive
enthusiasm he was conscious of a vague remorsefulness for his
interrupted work in the forest. What was he doing here? He who had
avoided the cruel, selfish world of wealth and pleasure,--a world that
this woman represented,--the world that had stood apart from him in the
one dream of his life--and had let Loo die! His quickly responsive face
darkened.
"I am afraid I really interrupted you up there," she said gently,
looking in his face with an expression of unfeigned concern; "you were
at work of some kind, I know, and I have very selfishly thought only of
myself. But the whole scene was so new to me, and I so rarely meet any
one who sees things as I do, that I know you will forgive me." She bent
her eyes upon him with a certain soft timidity. "You are an artist?"
"I am afraid not," he said, coloring and smiling faintly; "I don't think
I could draw a straight line."
"Don't try to; they're not pretty, and the mere ability to draw them
straight or curved doesn't make an artist.
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