He was watching her face beneath his grim old eyebrows.
“These details bore you,” he said.
“No.”
“When Paul and I are together we talk of a new heaven and a new Russia. But it will not come in our time. We are only the sowers, and the harvest is not yet. But I tell Paul that he has not sown wild oats, nor sour grapes, nor thistles.”
He paused, and the expression of his face changed to one of semi-humorous gravity.
“Mademoiselle,” he went on, “it has been my lot to love the prince like a son. It has been my lot to stand helplessly by while he passed through many troubles. Perhaps the good God gave him all his troubles at first. Do you think so?”
Maggie was looking straight in front of her across the quiet river.
“Perhaps so,” she said.
Steinmetz also stared in front of him during a little silence. The common thoughts of two minds may well be drawn together by the contemplation of a common object. Then he turned toward her.
“It will be a happiness for him to see you,” he said quietly.