"I am certain your heart is not unfeeling," said Miss Haldin softly.
"No. It is not as hard as a stone," he went on in the same introspective
voice, and looking as if his heart were lying as heavy as a stone in
that unwarmed breast of which he spoke. "No, not so hard. But how to
prove what you give me credit for--ah! that's another question. No one
has ever expected such a thing from me before. No one whom my tenderness
would have been of any use to. And now you come. You! Now! No, Natalia
Victorovna. It's too late. You come too late. You must expect nothing
from me."
She recoiled from him a little, though he had made no movement, as
if she had seen some change in his face, charging his words with the
significance of some hidden sentiment they shared together. To me, the
silent spectator, they looked like two people becoming conscious of a
spell which had been lying on them ever since they first set eyes on
each other. Had either of them cast a glance then in my direction, I
would have opened the door quietly and gone out. But neither did; and
I remained, every fear of indiscretion lost in the sense of my enormous
remoteness from their captivity within the sombre horizon of Russian
problems, the boundary of their eyes, of their feelings--the prison of
their souls.
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