All he had to do was to say, "Yes,
madame," or "Indeed, madame," the while he knew that Natalie Lind was
breathing the same air with him--that at any moment the large, lustrous
dark eyes might look up and meet his. And she spoke little, too; and had
scarcely her usual frank self-confidence: perhaps a chance reference of
Madame Potecki to the fact that her adopted daughter had been brought up
without a mother had somewhat saddened her.
The room was shaded in a measure, for the French silk blinds were down;
but there was a soft golden glow prevailing all the same. For many a day
George Brand remembered that little luncheon-party; the dull, bronze
glow of the room; the flowers; the soft, downcast eyes opposite him; the
bright, pleasant garrulity of the little Polish lady; and always--ah,
the delight of it!--that strange, trembling, sweet consciousness that
Natalie Lind was listening as he listened--that almost he could have
heard the beating of her heart.
And a hundred and a hundred times he swore that, whoever throughout the
laboring and suffering world might regret that day, the man Kirski
should not.
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