Page:Episodes-before-thirty.djvu/134

Rh It beamed with good-nature, kindness, sympathy. He at once said something that was gentle, soothing, like music to me. My heart suddenly expanded in a most uncomfortable way. I believe a lump came up in my throat. This was all so contrary to what I had expected. He was not only an angel, he was a womanly angel. I must have been in a very weak state, for it was all I could do to keep my tears back. The same instant his eye fell on my fiddle case. He looked at it, then at me, then back again at the fiddle.

"You play?" he asked, with a twinkle in his big eyes.

"I ought to pawn it," I said, "but"

"Don't," he answered with decision. He added an odd sentence: "It's an esgape from self." I remember that I couldn't say a word to this. His kindness melted me. The struggle to keep my eyes from betraying me seemed the most idiotic yet bitter I had ever known. I could have kissed the old man's hand, when he examined me then at once, but with a gentleness, even a tenderness, that both astonished me, yet did not astonish me at all. I felt, too, already the support of his mind and character, of his whole personality, of a rugged power in him, of generosity, true goodness, above all, of sympathy. I think he had made up his mind to treat me for nothing. No reference, in any case, was made to money; nor did I dare even to mention it myself. An operation, moveover, of any big kind, was not necessary; he thought he could save me that; he performed a small one then and there, for he had brought all that was required for it. The pain seemed nothing, his kindness made me indifferent to it. "You are brave," he said, with a smile that seemed to me really beautiful, when it was over. "That hurt, I know." He promised to come daily to drain the wound and so forth; he bandaged me up; a month to six weeks would see me out of bed, he hoped; he packed up his bag, but, instead of leaving the room, he then sat down deliberately and began to talk.

I was too surprised, too happy, to wonder why he Rh