She was
looking down at the pavement before her, as though picking her way, for
there were patches of ice upon the stones. She seemed very quiet. He
could not guess that her heart was beating violently, and that she found
it hard to say six words in a natural tone.
So far as he himself was concerned he was in no humour for talking. He
had seen almost everything in the world, and had read or heard almost
everything that mankind had to say. The streets of Prague had no
novelty for him, and there was no charm in the chance acquaintance of a
beautiful woman, to bring words to his lips. Words had long since grown
useless in the solitude of a life that was spent in searching for one
face among the millions that passed before his sight. Courtesy had
bidden him to walk with her, because she had asked it, but courtesy did
not oblige him to amuse her, he thought, and she had not the power that
Keyork Arabian had to force him into conversation, least of all into
conversing upon his own inner life. He regretted the few words he had
spoken, and would have taken them back, had it been possible. He felt no
awkwardness in the long silence.
Unorna for the first time in her life felt that she had not full control
of her faculties. She who was always so calm, so thoroughly mistress of
her own powers, whose judgment Keyork Arabian could deceive, but whose
self-possession he could not move, except to anger, was at the present
moment both weak and unbalanced.
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