He had resented this assumption, but had not known how to
dispute it.
Besides being of a loveliness which he had come to think unsurpassed, she
was so gentle, so tender-hearted, so pitiful, this young Deleah; so
adorably kind. She had learnt in that grief and shame which he knew had
befallen her a lesson, taught her he was sure by the pitying angels of
God; to think no sorrow too trivial to be despised, to be tender even to
the scratched finger, the bruised shins of the poor men and women
scrambling painfully along the tough and thorny path of life.
He was a short and broad and ugly man, approaching middle age; of a
commonplace cut of features, of poor birth, of mean fortunes, of small
account in the scheme of things; but he had an eye for beauty; he had a
soul; and his eye was filled with a beauty completely satisfying his
conception; and with his soul he worshipped the soul of Deleah.
"I am sorry," he suddenly said, cutting across some little triviality of
hers with which she was striving to cover his silence--"sorry you did not
have even one of the roses I walked ten miles to get for you."
"I?" she glanced fleetingly at him. "Oh, it does not matter, of course.
Bessie has them, and she loves them so.
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