At length they drew breath, let the
argument fly away into the limbo of other good arguments, and, leaning
over a gate, opened their eyes for the first time and looked about
them. Their feet tingled with warm blood and their breath rose in
steam around them. The bodily exercise made them both feel more direct
and less self-conscious than usual, and Mary, indeed, was overcome by
a sort of light-headedness which made it seem to her that it mattered
very little what happened next. It mattered so little, indeed, that
she felt herself on the point of saying to Ralph:
"I love you; I shall never love anybody else. Marry me or leave me;
think what you like of me--I don't care a straw." At the moment,
however, speech or silence seemed immaterial, and she merely clapped
her hands together, and looked at the distant woods with the rust-like
bloom on their brown, and the green and blue landscape through the
steam of her own breath. It seemed a mere toss-up whether she said, "I
love you," or whether she said, "I love the beech-trees," or only "I
love--I love."
"Do you know, Mary," Ralph suddenly interrupted her, "I've made up my
mind."
Her indifference must have been superficial, for it disappeared at
once.
Pages:
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341