With David it was different. Here, too, she felt her mastery, but the
slave was of another fiber. He acknowledged her rule, but he was
neither clumsy nor dumb before her. She respected his intelligence and
felt a secret jealousy of it, as of a part of him which must always be
beyond her influence. His devotion was a very dear and gracious thing
and she was proud that he should care for her. Love had not awakened
in her, but sometimes when she was with him, her admiration softened to
a warm, invading gentleness, a sense of weakness glad of itself, happy
to acknowledge his greater strength. Had David's intuitions been as
true as hers he would have known when these moments came and spoken the
words. But on such matters he had no intuitions, was a mere,
unenlightened male trying to win a woman by standing at a distance and
kneeling in timid worship.
Now sitting, sewing on the log, Susan heard a step on the gravel, and
without looking up gave it a moment's attention and knew it was Leff's.
She began to sing softly, with an air of abstraction. The steps drew
near her, she noted that they lagged as they approached, finally
stopped.
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