"Don't TELL any one," she whispered eagerly shaking his arm to
emphasize her words. "Don't tell any one--not yet. Not for a few
days. . . ."
She pushed him from her quickly as the shadowy form of Betty
appeared in a little path between the artichokes and raspberry
canes.
"Listening to the nightingales?" cried Betty.
"Yes, aren't they?" said Amanda inconsecutively.
"That's our very own nightingale!" cried Betty advancing. "Do you
hear it, Mr. Benham? No, not that one. That is a quite inferior
bird that performs in the vicarage trees. . . ."
11
When a man has found and won his mate then the best traditions
demand a lyrical interlude. It should be possible to tell, in that
ecstatic manner which melts words into moonshine, makes prose almost
uncomfortably rhythmic, and brings all the freshness of every spring
that ever was across the page, of the joyous exaltation of the happy
lover. This at any rate was what White had always done in his
novels hitherto, and what he would certainly have done at this point
had he had the telling of Benham's story uncontrolledly in his
hands.
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