Selma, I love
you--I adore you."
Selma listened with greedy ears, which she could scarcely believe. It
seemed to her that she was in dream-land, so unexpected, yet entrancing,
was his avowal. She had been vaguely aware that he admired her more than
he had allowed himself to disclose, and conscious, too, that his
presence was agreeable to her; but in an instant now she recognized that
this was love--the love she had sought, the love she had yearned to
inspire and to feel. Compared with it, Babcock's clumsy ecstasy and her
own sufferance of it had been a sham and a delusion. Of so much she was
conscious in a twinkling, and yet what she deemed proper self-respect
restrained her from casting herself into his arms. It was, indeed, soon,
and she had been happy in her liberty. At least, she had supposed
herself so; and she owed it to her own plans and hopes not to act
hastily, though she knew what she intended to do. She had been lonely,
yes starving, for lack of true companionship, and here was the soul
which would be a true mate to hers.
They were sitting on a grassy bank. He was bending toward her with
clasped hands, a picture of fervor. She could see him out of the corner
of her glance, though she looked into space with her gaze of seraphic
worry.
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