"
She raised her radiant eyes to his.
"Would you do that much for a woman's smile, Mr. Carruthers?"
He paused a moment before speaking, then said: "For one such woman as
those men loved, I would." She sighed deeply; the jewels on her white
breast gleamed and glistened.
"Ah, you think, then, that the glorious race of women heroes loved and
died for, have disappeared?"
"I thought so, until I saw you," he replied.
"You are wrong," she said. "You will live to tell me that you are wrong.
There may be no Helen such as she who lived at Troy, and no Cleopatra
such as Egypt's dusky queen, but there are grand women living yet,
worthy of heroes' love."
"I am sure of it," he said, "now that I have seen you."
But she made no reply; she did not even appear to have heard his words.
"I can understand you," she said, gently. "Women have sometimes the rare
gift of entering into the minds of reserved men. I understand you as
though I had known you for years."
His face cleared, his heart beat, his eyes brightened for her as they
had never done for any other woman.
"I can remember," she said, "when I had many similar opinions. I used to
think these, our present days of steam and progress, quite unfit for
heroes; I used to long for olden times again, when, by one great deed, a
man made a great name."
His eyes shone with new fire as he looked at her; it seemed to him that
he had found his other soul at last.
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