Gray youth: The story of a very modern courtship and a very modern marriageOnions, Oliver
General
Gray youth: The story of a very modern courtship and a very modern marriage
Onions, Oliver
Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Marriage -- Fiction; Women -- Social and moral questions -- Fiction
And now there was no expressing how much Cosimo wanted her. Alone and
of himself he could never have thought of these things, but with Amory
by his side!... He seemed to see that Shropshire estate as it might be
made. The bright parts of his vision seemed to gather as it were about
a Maypole; the Maypole was in the middle; Cosimo knew the very spot
for it. And the place really needed a Village Hall, on a contributory
basis. In wet weather they could have the Folk-Songs and the Morrice
Dancing there, and in fine weather on the green. There might be Vans
and Pamphlets too; they might even set up a Village Press. And with
these as a beginning the rest would come in time; but he could do
nothing without Amory. He must have her. He knew it would not be
easy, but he fancied--he was not sure, but he fancied--that there had
been suppressed emotion in the tone in which she had called him her
Shropshire Lad. Again he glanced at Jellies, whose face had disappeared
again. The huddle, as far as he could see in the gloom, was quite
motionless. Often and often with Amory he had laughed at this slow and
elementary and adhesive love-making of the lower orders; it had always
seemed so funny; and of course it was funny still with people of that
class; Cosimo was not running away from that. Still, Cosimo had once
taken a crossing-sweeper's broom and had swept for half an hour for
him, and Amory _was_ temptingly pretty as she sat by his side in the
dusk....
Between his dream of a Model Village, of which he was proud, and
something else for which he felt a little apologetic, Cosimo did not
quite know where he was; but he knew that he wanted Amory. A soft "Ow!"
came from the huddle on the other bench; it rather put Cosimo off for a
moment or two; but all was silent again, and he took heart. He altered
his position, and ran his arm along the back of the bench.
"Do you really think, Amory----" he began huskily.
"Eh?" said Amory. Apparently he had startled her. She had been quite
lost in abstraction.
"Do you think that's the choice--for me?"
"The choice?... Oh, I see! You mean what I was saying. Well, Cosimo,
what do you think yourself?"
Cosimo spoke spiritlessly.
"I don't know. Sometimes it doesn't seem worth while my thinking when
you're here. I want you to tell me."
"I don't think," Amory answered slowly, "that in cases like this one
person has really the right to settle things for another. As you know,
I hate the word Conscience; I prefer the expression Personal Will; but
that's what it seems to me to be."
"But in so many things my will's yours, Amory. You see deeper than I.
You're constructive. You're one of the world's Makers of Things. I
should be a very good lieutenant or something, but I'm quite without
the creative gift. Won't you help me to do all those beautiful things,
Amory?"
But evidently Amory didn't understand him. She replied, with quick
eagerness--
"Gladly--oh, so gladly! You know you have only to ask, Cosimo, now or
at any time."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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