"Very well. But I'll be with you first thing to-morrow."
"No ... please. I must be alone. I must think."
Olive, whose heart was sound though so elastic, understood perfectly.
"Very well," she said again. "But mind you send for me the first moment you feel you need me."
"Thanks," murmured Sophy. "Thanks—dear Olive."
Amaldi did not try to talk to her. She was very grateful to him for this. He understood too well. These others pitied but did not understand. To have felt the close contact of a compassion that comprehended was more than she could have endured. It would have broken her down utterly. But he watched her from afar with a quiet yet absorbed look, that was not without meaning to Suberov, on whom, also, Sophy had made a deep and poignant impression.
He came near the young man, and said in Italian in his sweet, melancholy voice, after himself regarding Sophy in silence for a moment:
"A strong soul—heroic!"
Amaldi answered dreamily, as though it were quite natural for the old statesman to address him in his native tongue.
"Yes, Excellency, but souls like that are made for sorrow."