This reading of the pantomime pleased Edouard greatly. Nothing could
have so crowned the feeling which the beauty of the stranger stirred
in him as the thought that another loved her as well as himself, and
that the other, who started with all things in his favor, met with
none from her.
Edouard assured himself that this was so because he had often heard
his people boast that men not of their country could not feel as they
could feel. If he had ever considered them at all it was as cold and
conscious creatures who taught themselves to cover up what they felt,
so that when their emotions strove to assert themselves they were
found, through long disuse, to be dumb and inarticulate. Edouard
rejoiced that to the men of his race it was given to feel and suffer
much. He was sure that beneath the calmness of her beauty this woman
before him could feel deeply; he read in her eyes the sympathy of a
great soul; she made him think of a Madonna in the church of St.
Sophia at Budapest. He saw in her a woman who could love greatly.
When he considered how impossible it was for the young man at her
side ever to experience the great emotions which alone could reach
her, his contempt for him rose almost to pity.
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