"He will try to be kind."
"I hope we all try," said she, smiling nervously.
"Because we think it improves our characters. But he is kind to
people because he loves them; and they find him out, and are
offended, or frightened."
"How silly of them!" said Lucy, though in her heart she
sympathized; "I think that a kind action done tactfully--"
"Tact!"
He threw up his head in disdain. Apparently she had given the
wrong answer. She watched the singular creature pace up and down
the chapel. For a young man his face was rugged, and--until the
shadows fell upon it--hard. Enshadowed, it sprang into
tenderness. She saw him once again at Rome, on the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel, carrying a burden of acorns. Healthy and
muscular, he yet gave her the feeling of greyness, of tragedy
that might only find solution in the night. The feeling soon
passed; it was unlike her to have entertained anything so subtle.
Born of silence and of unknown emotion, it passed when Mr.
Emerson returned, and she could re-enter the world of rapid talk,
which was alone familiar to her.
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