"Oh yes, I see," she said with a touch of contempt. "And such a man! You were fond of him I know. But he was a sham. He used to look on me, I remember, as an amusing sort of animal out of the Zoological Gardens. It never occurred to him that I had sense. He was a fool."
Intimately as we had known Liosha, this was the first time she had ever expressed an opinion regarding Adrian. We had assumed that, having touched her life so lightly, he had been but a shadowy figure in her mind, and that, save in so far as his death concerned us, she had viewed him with entire indifference. But her keen feminine brain had picked out the fatal flaw in poor Adrian's character, the shallow glitter that made us laugh and the want of vision from which he died.
"Go on," said Liosha.
I continued. In justice to Doria, I elaborated her reasons for setting Adrian on his towering pinnacle. Liosha nodded. She understood. False gods, whatever degree of godhead they usurped, had for a time the mystifying power of concealing their falsehood. And during that time they were gods, real live dwellers on Olympus, flaming Joves to poor mortal Semeles. Liosha quite understood.
I ended, more or less, a recapitulation of what she had heard, uncomprehending, in the car.
"And that's how it stands," said I.
I was rather shaken, I must confess, by my narrative, and I turned aside and lit another cigarette. Liosha remained silent for a while, resting her cheek on her hand. At last she said in her deep tones:
"Poor little devil! Good God! Poor little devil!"
Tears flooded her eyes.
"By heavens," I cried, "you're a good creature."