Sally Bishop : $b A romanceThurston, E. Temple (Ernest Temple)
General
Sally Bishop : $b A romance
Thurston, E. Temple (Ernest Temple)
Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
Sally snatched a swift glance at him. Was he conscious that he was
overruling her objections? She saw no sign of it. He looked up at
her questioningly, waiting for her answer.
"I don't mind at all," she replied. She felt too timid to say what
she would really like, too ashamed perhaps to say what she usually
had for her lunch. The best course was to let him choose. "I'll have
whatever you do," she said agreeably.
He gave the order, a meal for which she could never have afforded
to pay. Then he turned back with a humorous smile to her.
"The objection, the difficulty's overcome, then," he said.
Sally allowed herself to smile, eyes in a swift moment raised to his.
"I never said so."
"No, no; but surely this is tacit admission. However, the point is
not the saying of it." He saw the look of doubtfulness beginning to
show itself in her eyes. "What's the good of talking about it? We're
here for the purpose of eating, not discussing social conventions.
You know who I am, I shall know who you are in another two or three
minutes if you'll be kind enough to tell me. Why, good heavens! life's
short enough, without surrounding everything we want with social
restrictions. I'm a barrister, I told you that before. In some sort
of legal directory you'll find out exactly when I left Oxford and
was called to the bar. In _Who's Who?_ you'll find out exactly where
I live, though I can tell you that myself--" he mentioned the number
of his chambers in Regent Street. "They'll tell you in _Who's Who?_
that my sports are riding, fishing, and shooting--that describes a
man in England; it doesn't describe me. I don't ride; I don't fish
or shoot; I used to; that's another matter. I only ride an occasional
hobby now--fish for work on the papers, and shoot-- Lord knows what
I shoot! Nothing, I suppose. I belong to the National Liberal Club
for the Library, to the Savage where you pass along an editor as you
would a christening mug, and to the National Sporting, because
there's a beast in every man, thank God!"
He had won her. The rattle of that conversation had driven all
thoughts of doubt out of her mind. She would not have denied herself
of his company now for any foolish pretext of convention. In that
hurried summary of himself and his affairs, proving himself by it,
without any pride and conceit, to be a man of very different stamp
and interest to Mr. Arthur Montagu, he had marked her in her flight
for liberty. Nothing was binding her--no interest in life but to be
loved. Had there been any such bond--the prospect of an engagement
which was not distasteful to her--he would have found it no easy
matter to win her to interest then. But she was free, in the midst
of her flight, and he had marked her. She looked into his eyes as
the sighted bird blinks before the glittering barrel of the gun, and
she knew that he could win her if he chose.
"Well," he said, "I've got nothing more to tell you. How about you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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