"It can't be helped," she said. "We"--she dwelt upon the word ever so
slightly--"we can perhaps do a little good with it."

Then suddenly he blurted out all his wishes on this point--his quixotic
aims, the foolish imaginings of a too chivalrous soul. She listened,
prettily eager, sweetly compassionate of the sorrows of the peasantry
whom he made the object of his simple pity. Her gray eyes contracted
with horror when he told her of the misery with which he was too
familiar. Her pretty lips quivered when he told her of little children
born only to starve because their mothers were starving. She laid her
gloved fingers gently on his when he recounted tales of strong men--good
fathers in their simple, barbarous way--who were well content that the
children should die rather than be saved to pass a miserable existence,
without joy, without hope.

She lifted her eyes with admiration to his face when he told her what he
hoped to do, what he dreamed of accomplishing. She even made a few
eager, heartfelt suggestions, fitly coming from a woman--touched with a
woman's tenderness, lightened by a woman's sympathy and knowledge.

It was in its way a tragedy, the picture we are called to look
upon--these newly made lovers, not talking of themselves, as is the
time-honored habit of such. Surrounded by every luxury, both high-born,
refined, and wealthy; both educated, both intelligent. He,
simple-minded, earnest, quite absorbed in his happiness, because that
happiness seemed to fall in so easily with the busier, and, as some
might say, the nobler side of his ambition. She, failing to understand
his aspirations, thinking only of his wealth.