She was sorry for him, but she would not have told him so for worlds; he would have shrunk from pity as much as she did.

And yet the sympathy which she thought she did not want for herself, she was silently giving to those around her, like herself, thwarted, each in a different way perhaps, still thwarted all the same.
She found more than once that she was learning to measure people by a standard different from her former one; not by what they had _done_ or _been_, but by what they had _suffered_.

But such a change as this does not come suddenly, though, in a place like Petershof, it comes quickly, almost unconsciously.
She became immensely interested in some of the guests; and there were curious types in the Kurhaus.

The foreigners attracted her chiefly; a little Parisian danseuse, none too quiet in her manner, won Bernardine's fancy.
"I so want to get better, _cherie_," she said to Bernardine.

"Life is so bright.