He evidently sought and wished
for her society; and yet as they walked back and forth, even though
she did not look at him when the light gave her the opportunity
to do so, she felt intuitively that he did not enjoy her company.
She saw that he was laboring hard to make himself agreeable; but
his small talk had not the familiar flippancy and fluency of one
speaking in his native tongue; nor was his manner that of one who,
infatuated with her beauty, had thrown aside all other considerations.
She felt that the man at her side measured her, and understood her
littleness thoroughly.
And she herself had a growing consciousness of insignificance that
was as painful as it was novel. Adding to all the humiliations
of this day here was a man, not so very much older than herself,
trying to come down to her level, as he would accommodate his
language to a child. No labored argument could have revealed her
ignorance to her so clearly, as her conscious inability to follow
him into his ordinary range of thought. Unwittingly he had demonstrated
his superiority in a way that she could not deny, however much she
might be inclined to resent it. And yet he treated her with a sort
of respect, and occasionally she saw that he bent his eyes upon
her face as if in search of something.
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