What would he think? What would he have to say? And
what was one to say to him?
Anthony, a little awed, as one is by a range of feelings stretching
beyond one's grasp, comforted himself by the thought that probably the
old fellow would have little to say. He wouldn't want to talk about it.
No man would. It must have been a real hell to him.
And then Anthony, at the end of the day in which he had gone through a
marriage ceremony with Flora de Barral, ceased to think of Flora's father
except, as in some sort, the captive of his triumph. He turned to the
mental contemplation of the white, delicate and appealing face with great
blue eyes which he had seen weep and wonder and look profoundly at him,
sometimes with incredulity, sometimes with doubt and pain, but always
irresistible in the power to find their way right into his breast, to
stir there a deep response which was something more than love--he said to
himself,--as men understand it. More? Or was it only something other?
Yes. It was something other. More or less. Something as incredible as
the fulfilment of an amazing and startling dream in which he could take
the world in his arms--all the suffering world--not to possess its
pathetic fairness but to console and cherish its sorrow.
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