"
She had given a stealthy sigh of relief when she discovered that
he was not making the protest she had feared. "Yes, I understand,"
replied she, her manner a gentle graciousness, which in some moods
would have sent his pride flaring against the very heavens in
angry scorn. But he thought her most sweet and considerate, and
she softened toward him with pity. It was very, pleasant thus to
be looked up to, and, being human, she felt anything but a
lessened esteem for her qualities of delicateness and refinement,
of patrician breeding, when she saw him thus on his knees before
them. He had invited her to look down on him, and she was
accepting an invitation which it is not in human nature to
decline.
There was one subject she had always avoided with him--the subject
of his family. He had not exactly avoided it, indeed, had spoken
occasionally of his brothers and sisters, their wives and
husbands, their children. But his reference to these humble
persons, so far removed from the station to which he had ascended,
had impressed her as being dragged in by the ears, as if he were
forcing himself to pretend to himself and to her that he was not
ashamed of them, when in reality he could not but be ashamed.
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