But only, if he is happy--if the fire in him is fed.

Consider! Is it not a patriotic duty to feed it ?" And grasping her hand, he looked at her with a gentle mockery that passed immediately into that sudden seriousness--that unconscious air of command--of which the man of interior life holds the secret.

In his jests even, he is still, by natural gift, the confessor, the director, since he sees everything as the mystic sees it, _sub specie aeternitatis_.
Elizabeth's soft colour came and went.

But she made no reply--except it were through an imperceptible pressure of the hand holding her own.
At that moment the ex-Viceroy, resplendent in his ribbon of the Garter, who was passing through the hall, perceived her, pounced upon her, and insisted on seeing her to her carriage.

Mariette, as he mounted the staircase, watched the two figures disappear--smiling to himself.
But on the way home the cloud of sisterly grief descended on Elizabeth.