What could it spring from? It was
not like ordinary shyness, the _gaucherie_ of a big, awkward lout
unaccustomed to woman's society but able to be at his ease and
boisterous in the midst of a crowd of men. Domini thought that he would
be timid even of men. Yet it never struck her that he might be a coward,
unmanly. Such a quality would have sickened her at once, and she knew
she would have at once divined it. He did not hold himself very well,
but was inclined to stoop and to keep his head low, as if he were in the
habit of looking much on the ground. The idiosyncrasy was rather ugly,
and suggested melancholy to her, the melancholy of a man given to
over-much meditation and afraid to face the radiant wonder of life.
She caught herself up at this last thought. She--thinking naturally that
life was full of radiant wonder! Was she then so utterly transformed
already by Beni-Mora? Or had the thought come to her because she stood
side by side with someone whose sorrows had been unfathomably deeper
than her own, and so who, all unconsciously, gave her a knowledge of her
own--till then unsuspected--hopefulness?
She looked at her companion again.
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