“What of that, sire?” he said curtly.
“You have a deadly pride.”
“I own it.”
Uther leant forward in his chair, and looked earnestly into the other’s face.
“I too am a proud man in my trouble,” he said, "buckling up unutterable things from the baseness of the world, jealous of my inward miseries. Yet when I see a strong man and a friend chained with the iron of a silent woe, I cannot keep my sympathy in leash, so tell him to unburden to a man whose pride feels for the pride of others."
The words seemed to stir Gorlois from his lethargy of reserve and silence. Uther’s very largeness of soul, his stately faith and courtesy, were qualities that won largely upon the mind, lifting it above factious things to the serene level of his own soul. Gorlois, impulsive spirit, could not rebuff such a man as Uther. There was a certain calm disinterestedness in the King’s nature that made trust imperative and condemned secretiveness as churlish. Gorlois was an obstinate man in the extreme rendering of the epithet. He had spoken to no one of his trouble, leaving his thoughts to be inferred. Yet staunch sympathy like Gige’s ring has power over most hidden things of the heart, and Gorlois was very human.
“It is a woman, sire.”
“Mine was a woman, too.”
Gorlois scattered the half-dead embers with his foot.
“I married a wife,” he said.