With a strong and uncontrollable instinct she
appeared to shrink from him.
"Kent served one who had lost the power to make return," she said,
shaking her head sadly as she turned away.
"Let me reply with Kent again," he earnestly responded. "'You
have that in your countenance'--in your character--'which I would
fain call master'; and I am mastered, nor can I be shaken from my
allegiance. I can at least imitate Kent's faithfulness, if not
his obtrusiveness, in the service of his king. You have already
claimed me as a friend, and so much at least I shall ever be. Let
me win more if I can."
She became very quiet now, and looked steadily into his flushed,
eager face with an expression of sorrowful regret and pain that
would have restrained him had a ten-fold stronger and more impetuous
love been seeking utterance, and by a gesture, simple yet eloquently
impressive, she put her finger to her lips. Then giving him her
hand she said, with strong emphasis:
"Mr. Van Berg, I would value such a FRIEND as you could be to me
more than I can tell you."
"I shall be to you all that you will permit," he said, gently yet
firmly. "As you now appear I could as soon think of urging my
clamorous human love on a sad-eyed saint that had suffered some
cruel form of martyrdom for her faith, and then, as the legends
teach, had been sent from heaven among us mortals upon some errand
of mercy.
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