Only one glanced at him with a touch of wondering pity, softening her pride; she who had rejected the gift of those mimic squadrons.
“You were surely a sculptor once?” she asked him with that graceful, distant kindness which she might have shown some Arab outcast.
“Never, madame.”
“Indeed! Then who taught you such exquisite art?”
“It cannot claim to be called art, madame.”
She looked at him with an increased interest: the accent of his voice told her that this man, whatever he might be now, had once been a gentleman.
“Oh, yes; it is perfect of its kind. Who was your master in it?”
“A common teacher, madame—Necessity.”
There was a very sweet gleam of compassion in the luster of her dark, dreaming eyes.
“Does necessity often teach so well?”