"
"Oh, do I?" She opened her eyes still wider.
David longed to tell how he loved her, but dared not. He looked
wistfully at her face. It was quite calm and had suddenly became a
little reserved. He felt he was on new and dangerous ground; he sighed
and was silent. He turned away his face. When this involuntary sigh
broke from him she turned her head a little and looked at him. He felt
her eye dwell on him, and his cheeks burned under it.
The next moment they were at Font Hill, and Lucy seemed to David to
hesitate whether to give him her hand at parting or not.
She did give him her hand, though not so freely, David thought, as she
had done on his own little lawn three hours before, and this dashed
his spirits. It seemed to him a step lost, and he had hoped to gain a
step somehow by walking home with her. He felt like one who has
undertaken to catch some skittish timorous thing, that, if you stand
still, will come within a certain small but safe distance, but you
must not move a step toward it, or, whir, away it is. He went slowly
home, his heart warm and cold by turns; warm when he remembered the
sweet hours he had just spent, and her sweet looks and heavenly tones,
every one of which he saw and heard again; cold when he thought of the
social distance that separated them, and the hundred chances to one
against his love. Then he said to himself: "Time was I thought I could
never bring a yard down from the foretop to the deck, but I mastered
that.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133