"I thought you were out of the city—at the North," he says, in answer to some remark. "Your father told me two months ago he meant to take his family away from the pestilence."
"And so we were. We have but just gotten back since the fever began to lose its hold. How brave you were to stay here! Ugh!" she shuddered a little, "that terrible fever! Do you know people say that you are a hero?"
"Do they?"
A low laugh ripples over his serene, finely cut lips. He wears no beard, no mustache, and every flitting emotion shows itself about his mobile mouth.
She sees a careless sort of surprise on his face now—nothing more.
"Don't you care for it? It is so pleasant to be praised," she says, in some wonder.
"I don't know—is it?"
"Is it not? Do you mean to say that you attach no value to fame—fame that is won by good deeds?"
"I don't know," he answers again, in an absent way. "I might have done it in my younger days—scarcely now. I like to do good for its own sake—not for any praise that may follow it."