He knew that she loved it all
from the way she looked at it and, almost indignantly, as though against
some foolish threat, he felt himself asseverating, "It _is_ her home--she
knows it--the place she loves like that." And when they had made their wide
round, down the lane, up a grassy dell, into his park, where he had to show
her some trees that must come down; when they had skirted the park, along
its mossy, fern-grown wall, and under its overhanging branches, until, once
more, they were on the common and the white of Valerie's cottage glimmered
before them, he voiced this protest, saying to her, as he watched her eyes,
dwell on the dear little place, "You could never bear to leave all this for
good--even if, even if we let you; you know you couldn't."
Valerie looked round at him, and in his face, against its high background
of milk-streaked blue, she saw the embodiment of his words; it was that,
not the hyacinthine hills, not the beech-woods, not the heathery common,
not even the dear cottage, that she could not bear to leave for good. But
since this couldn't be said, she consented to the symbol of it that he put
before her, that "all this," and answered, as he had hoped, "No, indeed; I
couldn't think of leaving it all, for good."
IV
It was an icy, sunny day, and Imogen Upton and Jack Pennington were walking
up and down the gaunt wharf, not caring to take refuge from the cold in the
stifling waiting-rooms.
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