"You are wrong," she said. "You will live to tell me that you are wrong. There may be no Helen such as she who lived at Troy, and no Cleopatra such as Egypt's dusky queen, but there are grand women living yet, worthy of heroes' love."
"I am sure of it," he said, "now that I have seen you."
But she made no reply; she did not even appear to have heard his words.
"I can understand you," she said, gently. "Women have sometimes the rare gift of entering into the minds of reserved men. I understand you as though I had known you for years."
His face cleared, his heart beat, his eyes brightened for her as they had never done for any other woman.
"I can remember," she said, "when I had many similar opinions. I used to think these, our present days of steam and progress, quite unfit for heroes; I used to long for olden times again, when, by one great deed, a man made a great name."
His eyes shone with new fire as he looked at her; it seemed to him that he had found his other soul at last. His mother laughed at him; Marion Hautville was sarcastic to him, but this beautiful woman—this magnificent queen at whose feet men bowed—she not only sympathized with him, but she had the self-same ideas.
"The great thing that I complain of," said Lady Amelie, "is that there really seems in these days nothing to do. You, for instance, supposing that you were ambitious, how would you distinguish yourself?"
And as she asked the question, my lady gave a sidelong look at her victim and was charmed to see the progress she had made.