Ida replied in perfect courtesy and not with unnecessary brevity,
but if her words were polished, they were also as cold and hard
as ice. Nothing that Miss Burton said could bring the glimmer of
a smile athwart her features that were growing so thin and transparent
that even an approach to a pleasant thought would have lighted them
up with a momentary gleam. Miss Burton found her task a difficult
one.
"She affected me as strangely," she afterwards said to Van Berg,
"as if a dead maiden were sitting at my side, who had still, by
some horrible mystery, the power of speech."
As for Van Berg, he had hitherto supposed that his quiet, well-bred
ease would be equal to every social emergency, but he now found
himself tongue-tied and embarrassed to the last degree. He could
not speak to the woman whom he felt he had so deeply wronged in
his thoughts and manner, and who was also well aware of the fact.
He felt that he had no right to speak to her until he had first
asked and secured her forgiveness. This could not be done in
public, and he greatly doubted whether she ever would pardon him.
As a chivalric man of honor, he was overwhelmed with a sense of
the insult he had unwittingly offered to the maiden opposite him,
who now appeared as if mortally wounded.
Pages:
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429