'I love my home and I don't
believe in matchmaking, I don't believe in marriage. It wouldn't do
her any good, but if you feel like that, why don't you exploit her
yourself?'
'Oh--exploit! Certainly not! And you know I couldn't leave you.'
'Then don't talk nonsense,' Caroline said, and the life at Nelson
Lodge went on as before.
Every day Rose rode out, sometimes early in the morning on the Downs
when nobody was about and she had them to herself, but oftener across
the bridge into the other county where the atmosphere and the look of
things were immediately different, softer, more subtle yet more
exhilarating. She went there now with no fear of meeting Francis
Sales. He had gone to Canada without another word, and his absence
made him interesting for the first time. If she had not been bored in
a delicate way of her own which left no mark but an expression of
impassivity she would not have thought of him at all; but the days
went by and summer passed into autumn and autumn was threatened by
winter, with so little change beyond the coming and going of flowers
and leaves and birds, that her mind began to fix itself on a man who
loved her to the point of disgust and departure; and to her love of
the country round about Sales Hall was added a tender half-ironic
sentiment.
Once or twice she rode up to the Hall itself and paid a visit to Mr.
Sales who, crippled by rheumatism and half suffocated by asthma,
was hardly recognizable as the man who had shown her the pigs long
ago.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42