Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/135

 'Well, she doesn't seem like a friend, exactly, does she? though I could see that she was dreadfully upset over Marthe and her mother. She's a patroness rather than a friend.'

'All the same, Mademoiselle Ludérac sounds to me, and looks to me, like a very hard young person.'

'You wouldn't have said so if you could have seen her holding that cat and talking about animals this afternoon.—And about history, and how cruel people had been to each other.—Oh, Dick, it's very, very strange;—but she makes me feel things I never felt before. She made me feel it was cruel to hunt foxes.'

'Did she indeed. Confound her cheek!'

'It wasn't cheek.—And you don't think so yourself, though you have got a prejudice against her.—She's gentle—gentle—and dreadfully sad. It's as if she'd been through everything and come out on the other side. I can't explain. You'd feel it even more than I do if you were with her, because you are cleverer and deeper than I am. I know I'm right about her.—She gives me the feeling I've had sometimes when I've been out at dawn;—everything so still and just one star and a thin little moon in the sky.—When she looks at you she makes you feel like that. And she seems to be seeing much more than just yourself. She seems to be seeing something that explains you. She might not be able to show it to you; but when you're with her you feel it's there. And she makes you long, more than anything, to be the self she's seeing. It's like heaven, you know.'