How slight it is, how
invisible it has been, how suddenly it appears! And the sunshine of
the warm April afternoon, heightened it may be by her determined
unmercenary pose, betrayed too the faintest hint of shabbiness in
her dress. He had never noticed these shadows upon her or her
setting before and their effect was to fill him with a strange
regretful tenderness. . . .
Perhaps men only begin to love when they cease to be dazzled and
admire. He had thought she might reproach him, he had felt and
feared she might set herself to stir his senses, and both these
expectations had been unjust to her he saw, now that he saw her
beside him, a brave, rather ill-advised and unlucky little
struggler, stung and shamed. He forgot the particulars of that
first lunch of theirs together and he remembered his mother's second
contemptuous "STUFF!"
Indeed he knew now it had not been unexpected. Why hadn't he left
this little sensitive soul and this little sensitive body alone?
And since he hadn't done so, what right had he now to back out of
their common adventure? He felt a sudden wild impulse to marry Mrs.
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