She watched him for a moment. He had taken a chair near her and was leaning forward looking at the fire, his elbow on his knee, his chin in the cup of his hand. His strong, clean-cut profile stood out like a bas-relief against the dark wood of the mantel. The squareness of his jaw and the thickness of his neck indicated the intense vitality of his organism; his thick, black mustache overshadowed a mouth heavy and determined; his dense, fine hair clung about a head of admirable lines; and his blue eyes were very dark and piercing. He had the long, clean-limbed, sinewy figure of a trained athlete, and there was not an ounce of superfluous flesh on it. He combined the best of the old world’s beauty with the best of the new, and Hermia looked at him with a curious mixture of national and personal pride. “I like brutality,” she said, abstractedly; “all the great men of the world had it.” She turned to him suddenly. “You look as if you always got whatever you made up your mind to have,” she said. “Do you?” “Yes,” he said, “usually.” * * * * * CHAPTER XXVI. HERMIA HEARS THE TRUTH. He called one morning soon after and spent the entire day with her. He had finished the last of the stories and he read it to her. The tale was a tragic one, and had a wild, savage pathos in it. It brought the tears to her eyes, and at the climax she leaned forward with a gasp. “Oh, you can cry?” said Quintard. “It is only nervousness,” hastily. “I never do. I may have been able to once, but I no longer possess feeling of any sort. Don’t think that I am ridiculous and blasé; it is simply that I cannot take any personal interest in life. I have made the discovery that there is nothing in it a little sooner than most people—that is all.” “You are a little crazy,” said Quintard. “You will get over it.” The blood mounted to the roots of Hermia’s hair, and her eyes looked as fierce as if she were one of Quintard’s barbarians. She felt more anger than she cared to betray. No other man living would have dared make such a speech to her. Cryder would have humored her, and she had expected Quintard to be suitably impressed. “What did you say?” she demanded, with an effort at control. He looked at her unmoved. “You have a great many ridiculous notions about life,” he said. “In addition, you have less knowledge of yourself than any woman I have ever known. The two things combined have put your mind out of joint.” Hermia felt as if she were stifling. “I wonder you dare,” she said through her teeth.