I'd like to answer you
as you wish, I mean reply to--to your request. But the other, the child,
dragged about; there was such a distrust, a wariness, in her face."
"There is no good in thinking of that alone," he stated, with a return
of his customary decision. "No one can walk backwards into the future.
Try to consider only the immediate question, what I have asked you--will
you marry me?"
"Is that all you have to explain?" she asked. "Is there, now, no one
else that counts?" The edge of a cold dread entered his hopes. "If you
refer to the child's mother," he said stiffly, "she is amply well taken
care of, you need waste no sentimental thoughts on her."
"Ah!" Susan exclaimed, shrinking. Her hands closed tightly on the wide
silk of her skirt. The fear deepened within him; it would be impossible
to explain Essie to the woman before him. Essie, falsely draped in
conventional attributes, defied him to utter the simple truth. He raged
silently at his impotence, the inhibition that prevented the expression
of what might be said for himself. Essie Scofield had, like every one
else, lived in the terms of her being, attracting to herself what
essentially she was; it was neither bad nor good, but inevitable. His
contact with her had been the result of mutual qualities, qualities that
were no longer valid.
Pages:
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234