She had not
given the man more than an occasional glance until he had told her his
name. She had been too much absorbed, too much moved, by what she had
been seeing. She wondered, if she had been more aware of him, whether
his face would have revealed a great deal. She believed it would not. He
had made himself outwardly stolid. But the thing must have been bitter.
To him the whole story of the splendid past was familiar even if through
his own life he had looked on only at gradual decay. There must be
stories enough of men and women who had lived in the place, of what they
had done, of how they had loved, of what they had counted for in their
country's wars and peacemakings, great functions and law-building. To
be able to look back through centuries and know of one's blood that
sometimes it had been shed in the doing of great deeds, must be a thing
to remember. To realise that the courage and honour had been lost in
ignoble modern vices, which no sense of dignity and reverence for race
and name had restrained--must be bitter--bitter! And in the role of a
servant to lead a stranger about among the ruins of what had been--that
must have been bitter, too. For a moment Betty felt the bitterness of it
herself and her red mouth took upon itself a grim line.
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