"Do you know," she said suddenly, "when Colonel Carmichael presented
himself to you, and all the others, I watched you, and I rather fancy I
read something on your face which you didn't want to show. I wonder if I
am right."
"It is possible," he answered gravely. "In this last hour I have already
begun to regret that I have never studied to control my emotions. I show
when I am surprised, disappointed, or--startled. Hitherto, there has been
no reason why I should not do so. But now that I am among my equals, it is
different."
She bit her lip, not in anger but in an almost pained surprise at this
man's ignorance of the world into which he was entering. He was not
presuming to place himself on the level with the Englishman; it seemed as
if he were inoffensively lifting the Englishman up to himself. She was
sorry for him as one is sorry for all kindly fools.
"Tell me what you read!" he begged, after a moment. "Perhaps you will know
better than I myself. I am almost sure you will."
"I read disappointment," she answered. "Was that so?"
His brows contracted slightly.
"I _was_ disappointed," he admitted, "but that was my own fault. I had
never met English people--only heard of them. What I had heard made me
imagine things which it seems have no reality."
"Did you expect demigods?" she asked.
"I do not know what I expected--but it was something different. You know
the men I have met to-day.
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