"
He blushed a little more, and I laid my hand on his shoulder. "Do you
know why I tell you this? Because you remind me of what I was when I
knew her--when I loved her." My poor young Englishman gazed at me with a
sort of embarrassed and fascinated stare, and still I went on. "I say
that's the reason I told you this--but you'll think it a strange reason.
You remind me of my younger self. You needn't resent that--I was a
charming young fellow. The Countess Salvi thought so. Her daughter
thinks the same of you."
Instantly, instinctively, he raised his hand to my arm. "Truly?"
"Ah, you are wonderfully like me!" I said, laughing. "That was just my
state of mind. I wanted tremendously to please her." He dropped his
hand and looked away, smiling, but with an air of ingenuous confusion
which quickened my interest in him. "You don't know what to make of me,"
I pursued. "You don't know why a stranger should suddenly address you in
this way and pretend to read your thoughts. Doubtless you think me a
little cracked. Perhaps I am eccentric; but it's not so bad as that. I
have lived about the world a great deal, following my profession, which
is that of a soldier. I have been in India, in Africa, in Canada, and I
have lived a good deal alone.
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