This was a light in which she had never viewed Vincent. The only thing she could say was that she had felt an unaccountable sympathy for him.
“Yes, I think you are right,” she said, after a short pause. “But do you not think that such a long journey will fatigue him too much? Russia, in the winter?”
“Oh, no, not at all; the cold climate is good for his temperament, and he need not fatigue himself—there is no work for him to do; as for mere railway travelling, he is used to it. He need only wrap himself up in his furs and lie back in his carriage. That is all.”
From his words she suspected, as she had suspected from her conversation with Vincent, that St. Clare was in the habit of surrounding him with every possible comfort and luxury.
“I must say I think you are rather kind-hearted,” she could not help remarking.
He looked at her for a moment in some surprise.
“What makes you think of that all at once?” he asked laughing. [[272]]
“I don’t know,” she answered, and she blushed and laughed a little. “One cannot help getting certain impressions about people. Maybe I’m mistaken.”
He raised his hands with a deprecatory motion. She felt that in her last words there was just a shade of coquettishness, and now that she had spoken them it irritated her.
“You said just now something about energy and activity,” she resumed, “and you believe that when one is ill one ought to be excused for showing no such energy and activity?”