s it was that with
such a face as that she must be remarkable. He was sorry for her, but he
saw in a flash that no one could help her: that was what made her
tragic. He had not, seeking his fortune, come away from the blighted
South, which weighed upon his heart, to look out for tragedies; at least
he didn't want them outside of his office in Pine Street. He broke the
silence ensuing upon Mrs. Luna's departure by one of the courteous
speeches to which blighted regions may still encourage a tendency, and
presently found himself talking comfortably enough with his hostess.
Though he had said to himself that no one could help her, the effect of
his tone was to dispel her shyness; it was her great advantage (for the
career she had proposed to herself) that in certain conditions she was
liable suddenly to become bold. She was reassured at finding that her
visitor was peculiar; the way he spoke told her that it was no wonder he
had fought on the Southern side. She had never yet encountered a
personage so exotic, and she always felt more at her ease in the
presence of anything strange. It was the usual things of life that
filled her with silent rage; which was natural enough, inasmuch as, to
her vision, almost everything that was usual was iniquitous. She had no
difficulty in asking him now whether he would not stay to dinner--she
hoped Adeline had given him her message. It had been when she was
upstairs with Adeline, as his card was brought up, a sudden and very
abnormal inspiration to offer him this (for her) really ultimate favour;
nothing could be further from her common habit than to entertain alone,
at any repast, a gentleman she had never seen.

It was the same sort of impulse that had moved her to write to Basil
Ransom, in the spring, after hearing accidentally that he had come to
the North and intended, in New York, to practise his profession. It was
her nature to look out for duties, to appeal to her conscience for
tasks. This attentive organ, earnestly consulted, had represented to her
that he was an offshoot of the old slave-holding oligarchy which, within
her own vivid remembrance, had plunged the country into blood and tears,
and that, as associated with such abominations, he was not a worthy
object of patronage for a person whose two brothers--her only ones--had
given up life for the Northern cause. It reminded her, however, on the
other hand, that he too had been much bereaved, and, moreover, that he
had fought