Had he not turned aside to avoid the priest in
the tunnel? Probably he was one of those many men who actively hate
the priesthood, to whom the soutane is anathema. Could he find pleasant
companionship with such a man as Count Anteoni, an original man, no
doubt, but also a cultivated and easy man of the world? She smiled
internally at the mere thought. Whatever this stranger might be she felt
that he was as far from being a man of the world as she was from being a
Cockney sempstress or a veiled favourite in a harem. She could not,
she found, imagine him easily at home with any type of human being with
which she was acquainted. Yet no doubt, like all men, he had somewhere
friends, relations, possibly even a wife, children.
No doubt--then why could she not believe it?
The man had finished his fish. He rested his broad, burnt hands on the
table on each side of his plate and looked at them steadily. Then he
turned his head and glanced sideways at the priest, who was behind him
to the right. Then he looked again at his hands. And Domini knew that
all the time he was thinking about her, as she was thinking about
him.
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