Tall and fair, with
very bright flashing eyes, and a wonderfully high bred air of
concentrated pride and resolution, united to a grace and courtesy
which exhaled from him, so to speak, with his every movement and
gesture, he was not a man to pass by without comment, even in a
crowd. A peculiar distinctiveness marked him,--out of a marching
regiment one would have naturally selected him as the commanding
officer, and in any crisis of particular social importance or
interest his very appearance would have distinguished him as the
leading spirit of the whole. On perceiving the Cardinal he advanced
at once to be presented, and as Angela performed the ceremony of
introduction he slightly bent one knee, and bowed over the venerable
prelate's extended hand with a reverence which had in it something
of tenderness. His greeting of Abbe Vergniaud was, while perfectly
courteous, not quite so marked by the grace of a strong man's
submission.
"Ah, Mr. Leigh! So you have not left Paris as soon as you
determined?" queried the Abbe with a smile, "I thought you were
bound for Florence in haste?"
"I go to Florence to-morrow," answered Leigh briefly.
"So soon! I am indeed glad not to have missed you," said Cardinal
Bonpre cordially.
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