The warmth but not the earnestness had gone out of his tones when he made the next remark: "I wish I could make it possible for you to stop teaching, Linda."
"Marry Grace off and get back Talbot's Angles for me, and I will stop," she replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Then would you go down there to live?"
"No, I'd still let Phillips have the place, but I would go down there often, and it would bring me enough to live on. I could persuade Miss Ri to spend part of the year there, maybe, and—oh, wouldn't it be lovely?"
Berkley did not reply, but spoke to his horse, "Go on there, Jerry." They had been driving so slowly that the other buggy had passed them though Berkley's was the fleeter horse. But now they sped along over the hard wet road, silence between them. Linda's imagination was busy picturing the delights of having the old homestead for her very own, and was fancying days spent there with Miss Ri and Mammy, for of course Mammy would go.
She was roused by hearing Berkley say in a hard dispassionate voice, "Then your dearest wish on earth is to possess Talbot's Angles."
"I really think it is. I don't suppose it is very nice of me to feel so about what belongs to another, but I confess to you, Berk, that I can't help counting a little on Grace's marrying again."
"That is perfectly natural, and it isn't half so bad as wishing her dead, though some might think so," he added. Then after a moment's silence: "Linda, I was selfish to carry you off this way without giving you any choice in the matter. Perhaps you would rather have gone with Jeffreys. It isn't too late to change now, if you say so. We can easily overtake his buggy."
"At the eleventh hour? No, I thank you, not after I am comfortably settled and safe from the rain. You have tucked me in so well, Berk. I don't believe Mr. Jeffreys could have done it half so well, but probably he has not had the experience you have. I might enjoy variety of companionship, but my bodily comfort is worth more to me." Linda was very skilful in giving non-committal replies it seemed.
Berkley drew a little sigh; whether of relief or disappointment Linda could not determine.