"You--you must not think me unfeeling," she said in a sweet hurried voice. "I want to be as considerate as possible. I am terribly sorry for him--terribly--and you must tell him so, from me. But I--I am in a peculiar position. I am not free to--"
"I see. I understand now."
His strange tone fell upon her ears as a challenge, quiet though it was; and it was a challenge which Carlisle, though instantly regretting her generosity (when she might just have walked away), saw no entirely dignified way of avoiding.
"You see what?" she said, faltering a little. "I don't know what you mean."
The man replied slowly, almost as if he were thinking of something else, and the thought rather hurt him:
"I see your only thought is to gain some point for yourself--you alone know what--no matter what pain your silence may give to others.... Ah, that's sad...."
Angry and a little frightened, too, Carlisle Heth drew her gossamer shawl more closely about her shoulders, with a movement that also wore the air of plucking together her somewhat wavering hauteur.
"You are at liberty to think and say what you please," she said, distantly, and with a slight inclination of her head started past him.
But he did not seem to hear the dismissal order; stood unmoving, blocking her progress; and looking up with now tremulous indignation, Carlisle ran once more full on the battery of his speaking eyes....
Perhaps it was not difficult to guess what John the Baptist would have said, in such a case as this: but then the young man V.V. was not thinking of John the Baptist now. He was not feeling grim at all at this moment; not fierce at all. So in his look there was to be seen nothing of the whiplash, not one thing reminiscent of the abhorring fanatic on the outskirts of the city. His eyes were filled, indeed, with a sudden compassion; a compassion overflowing, unmistakable, and poignant. And from that look the richly dressed girl with the seraph's face instantly averted her gaze.