"It seems to me," her mother said, "you only care for him when he isn't
there."
He had come again, twice, in July, in August. Each time her mother had
said, "Are you sure you want him to come again? You know you weren't very
happy the last time." And she had answered, "I know I'm going to be this
time."
"You see," she said, "when he _isn't_ there you remember, and when he
_is_ there he makes you forget."
"Forget what?"
"What it used to feel like."
Mamma had smiled a funny, contented smile. Mamma was different. Her face
had left off being reproachful and disapproving. It had got back the
tender, adorable look it used to have when you were little. She hated
Maurice Jourdain, yet you felt that in some queer way she loved you
because of him. You loved her more because of Maurice Jourdain.
The engagement happened suddenly at the end of August. You knew it would
happen some day; but you thought of it as happening to-morrow or the day
after rather than to-day. At three o'clock you started for a walk, never
knowing how you might come back, and at five you found yourself sitting
at tea in the orchard, safe. He would slouch along beside you, for miles,
morosely. You thought of his mind swinging off by itself, shining where
you couldn't see it. You broke loose from him to run tearing along the
road, to jump water-courses, to climb trees and grin down at him through
the branches. Then he would wake up from his sulking. Sometimes he would
be pleased and sometimes he wouldn't. The engagement happened just after
he had not been pleased at all.
She could still hear his voice saying "What do you _do_ it for?" and her
own answering.
"You must do _something_."
"You needn't dance jigs on the parapets of bridges."
They slid through the gap into the fields. In the narrow path he stopped
suddenly and turned.
"How can a child like _you_ care for a man like _me_?" Mocking her
sing-song.
He stooped and kissed her. She shut her eyes so as not to see the
puffiness.
"Will you marry me, Mary?"