Certain phrases in Fred's
letter had sunk deep into her mind, they were recalled very vividly
by the presence of the man himself, telling his own story. She sat
in the sunlight with the music in her ears, listening to his abrupt,
vivid speech, and a fear came to her which blanched her cheeks and
caught at her throat. The hand which held her dainty parasol of
lace shook, and an indescribable thrill ran through her veins. She
could no more think of this man as a clodhopper, a coarse upstart
without manners or imagination. In many ways he fell short of all
the usual standards by which the men of her class were judged, yet
she suddenly realised that he possessed a touch of that quality
which lifted him at once far over their heads, The man had genius.
Without education or culture he had yet achieved greatness. By his
side the men who were passing about on the lawn became suddenly
puppets. Form and style, manners and easy speech became suddenly
stripped of their significance to her. The man at her side had none
of these things, yet he was of a greater world. She felt her enmity
towards him suddenly weakened. Only her pride now could help her.
She called upon it fiercely. He was the man whom she had
deliberately believed to be guilty of her father's death, the man
whom she had set herself to entrap.
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