never saw anything like the devotion of these two creatures. Look! if
Mr. Falkner hasn't got his arm round Mr. Lee's waist, and Lee, with his
own arm over Falkner's neck, is looking up in his eyes. I declare, Kate,
it almost seems an indiscretion to look at them."
Kate, however, to Mrs. Hale's indignation, threw her pretty head back
and sniffed the air contemptuously. "I really don't see anything but
some absurd sentimentalism of their own, or some mannish wickedness
they're concocting by themselves. I am by no means certain, Josephine,
that Lee's influence over that young man is the best thing for him."
"On the contrary! Lee's influence seems the only thing that checks
his waywardness," said Mrs. Hale quickly. "I'm sure, if anyone makes
sacrifices, it is Lee; I shouldn't wonder that even now he is making
some concession to Falkner, and all those caressing ways of your friend
are for a purpose. They're not much different from us, dear."
"Well, I wouldn't stand there and let them see me looking at them as if
I couldn't bear them out of my sight for a moment," said Kate, whisking
herself out of the room. "They're conceited enough, Heaven knows,
already."
That evening, at dinner, however, the two men exhibited no trace of the
restraint or uneasiness of the previous day. If they were less impulsive
and exuberant, they were still frank and interested, and if the term
could be used in connection with men apparently trained to neither
self-control nor repose, there was a certain gentle dignity in their
manner which for the time had the effect of lifting them a little
above the social level of their entertainers. For even with all their
predisposition to the strangers, Kate and Mrs. Hale had always retained
a conscious attitude of gentle condescension and superiority towards
them--an attitude not inconsistent with a stronger feeling, nor
altogether unprovocative of it; yet this evening they found themselves
impressed with something more than an equality in the men who had amused
and interested them, and they were perhaps a little more critical
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