"The greatest men in the world have been small
like me, but they have brought the giant things to their feet."
She waved a hand disdainfully. "What are you going to do now?" she asked.
He drew himself up. He seemed to rearrange the motions of his mind with a
little of the old vanity, which was at once grotesque and piteous. "I am
going to forgive you and to try to put things right," he said. "I have
had my faults. You were not to blame altogether. I have left you too much
alone. I did not understand everything all through. I had never studied
women. If I had I should have done the right thing always. I must begin
to study women." The drawn look was going a little from his face, the
ghastly pain was fading from his eyes; his heart was speaking for her,
while his vain intellect hunted the solution of his problem.
She could scarcely believe her ears. No Spaniard would ever have acted as
this man was doing. She had come from a land of No Forgiveness. Carvillho
Gonzales would have killed her, if she had been untrue to him; and she
would have expected it and understood it.
But Jean Jacques was going to forgive her--going to study women, and so
understand her and understand women, as he understood philosophy! This
was too fantastic for human reason. She stared at him, unable to say a
word, and the distracted look in her face did not lessen.
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