He brought a bowl of hot savory soup and started feeding them. Lawrence swallowed mechanically, but he could hardly get the spoon out of Claire's mouth.
"Not too much, señora," he said, turning away.
When he looked again toward them they were both asleep. The utter exhaustion of their long night claimed rest. He walked over to Claire and stood looking down at her.
"She was beautiful," he thought. "And he is blind. Ah, well, for her, beauty is again possible, but for him"—he shrugged his shoulders—"it is bad, bad!" he said softly, and, turning to a shelf of books that stood against the wall, he drew out a volume and sat down before the fire to read.
CHAPTER VI.
THE STONE THREAT.
When Claire awoke she stared around her for a few minutes before the events of their frantic struggle came back to her. Her eyes strayed to the figure before the fireplace. Idly she noted the lustrous, wavy black hair and deep brown eyes protected by unusually heavy lashes. It was clearly the face of a thinker, a dreamer, yet there was something sensual about the mouth, potentially voluptuous, abandoned, and suggestive of tremendous passion that slumbered close beneath the brain that was so actively awake. Claire ached, and her body tingled with the unaccustomed warmth. She lay quiet, looking at the fire, her mind still uncertain in its action, weaving sharp, dynamic images about this new personality. While his appearance gripped and awed her strangely, at the same time she felt drawn to him. She turned and threw out her hand. Her host closed his book and looked up, smiling.
"Ah, la señora se siente mejor?" His deep, rich voice, although lighter than Lawrence's, was full of music, but she did not understand his words. Her blank expression told him, and he smiled again.
"I remember, you spoke English," he said with only the slightest accent. "Are you better, madame?"
She answered his warm smile and said weakly: "Much better, thank you!"