As it happened, Al Faizi sot by me, and I, a-feelin’ that I had a duty to do, and a-layin’ out to do it if I got a chance, I kinder brung the conversation round to Alice; and as I spoke of her sweetness and charm, the strangest look come into his eyes you ever see, and he sez to me, jest as though I wuz a-beholdin’ his secret thoughts onbeknown to him—“I have a vow—I am wedded to the cause of truth.”
He said it with a deep shadder settlin’ down over his glowin’ eyes. And then with Duty and Pity a-bolsterin’ me up on both sides, I sez—
“Alice is engaged to another feller.”
He looked full at me as curous a look as I ever see in my life—what did I see in his eyes, or ruther what didn’t I see? I see Religion, Devotion, Deathless Human Love, warm, glowin’, eager Renunciation, Pity for himself (I could see plain that he wuz sorry for himself—sorry as a dog), Eager Zeal, Pity for the hull world layin’ in wickedness.
It wuz a strange look.
And I never said anythin’ to him, only the look I gin him in answer, where deep pity and admiration and respect blended about half and half. And a motherly look of full comprehension and sympathy a-shinin’ out a-tellin’ him that I knew all, and pitied all, and would never tell anybody what I knew.
We had volumes of conversation in jest them two looks, and no one wuz the wiser—I told nobody.
But, indeed, this secret knowledge added a ingregient of as deep curosity as wuz ever carried round by a menagerie as a side show, for me to transport round from place to place, or wherever we pitched our tent on our tower.
Yes, truly, things wuz in as curous a state as I ever see, so fur as the affections and sech wuz concerned.
Alice a-bein’ wropped up in the thoughts of her feller, and her father a-bein’ determined to not let her so much as think on him.