But as we stood there, facing one another—before we began to stroll back to the house—as we stood facing one another, all alone, we allowed ourselves one little relapse into reality.
“Do you think of being off soon?” I asked, with a smile.
She gave me one sharp glance and a contemptuous smile. “Before your wedding—whenever that may be, Julius!”
CHAPTER XXVII
IN FIVE YEARS
WINTER had set in again when Lucinda and I came together to Cragsfoot. The picture of her on her first evening there stands out vivid in my memory.
Sir Paget had received her with affectionate, but perhaps somewhat ceremonious, courtesy; there was a touch of ratifying a treaty of peace in his manner. She was minded to come closer in intimacy; for in these recent days—before and just after our wedding—a happy confidence seemed to possess her. Self-defense and the hardness it has to carry with it were necessary to her no longer; she reached out more freely for love and friendship, and broke the bounds of that thoughtful isolation which had so often served to keep the woman herself apart from all about her. She was not on guard now; that was the meaning of the change which had come over her; not on guard and not fighting.