Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, Irish
And all by herself she had blushed terribly and felt in a wild panic.
"He will see it," she said; "he will know." But then she said, "No, he
will not; I won't let him." And a song had come into her heart. A
great pride and wonder filled her. She felt she should be dressed in
soft scarlet robes, in some symbolic vestment of wonder and joy. But
she came down to dinner in a demure white frock, her hair done very
demurely, her eyes demure. And all the time her heart was bubbling
with sweet, low laughter, and saying, "Do you know, Margery, this man
's in love with you, and he does n't know you know it. And you 're in
love with him, and he does n't know that either. And we won't tell
him, Margery, will we? We 'll let him find out for himself."
All through dinner and after, she got him to talk of where he had
been--Brazil and China--and of New York, where he was born and which he
loved. She watched him over the sullen saffron candlelight, and she
thought, "He 's got a noble head," and again irrelevently, "You could
n't muss that hair of his, no matter how much you tried. Those short
red curls would spring back. I 'd like to try." And again she
wondered, "Will he try to kiss me when he says good night? And what
shall I do? Shall I kiss him back, or give him a piece of my mind?
And if I give him a piece of my mind he may never come again. And if I
kiss him he 'll think very little of me. It's awfully hard." And
again, "Ah, he won't try," she said. "He would n't in my own house.
And, besides, he 's really in love. I know it."
And he had only shaken hands with her, and said he was going soon, and
might he come to see her before he went? And her heart sank, and she
said, yes, she 'd be very sorry if he did n't. And he said, When? And
she pondered over a possible engagement that did n't matter at all, and
said, Tuesday, then, and her heart murmured disconsolately. Two long
days.
Through dinner and after she thought she had only been thinking of his
strong, eager face, but now he was gone, all he had said she
remembered. And she thought of hot China, and the sun-baked South, and
the yellow rivers. And of Brazil with all its forests, and the
speckled snakes, and the whistling monkeys, and the egrets standing by
the fountains, and the little armadillo lumbering across the roads.
And of New York, the vital city, with its houses challenging the
thunder of summer skies, its explosion of light when evening came, its
hurrying myriads, keen-eyed, alert. Against all these backgrounds she
could see his clean-cut, gray-eyed face, and she could see herself
small and slight, looking up at him in wonder and pride.
"I could go with him anywhere," she whispered.
And then something seemed to call: "Margery!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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