Every day for eight whole weeks I have been out, riding or walking in the Hickley woods, sometimes with father, many times alone with Michael.
I love this man I'm going to marry very deeply, but I wouldn't let him know it. He dislikes 'the truest form of kindness' even more than all my other male things do!
Sometimes after a day of delight together he says as he goes home,—
'I've hardly seen you, darling.'
'Why, I've let you stay all day,' I say reproachfully.
'Yes, but I haven't really had you; you've eluded me. You drive me mad, Meg, with your little air of cool aloofness.'
But what would he? Is a woman to be done out of her wooing because a man chose once to be a caveman and talked of things belonging to him, before he'd even got them? So naturally I tilt my chin a little when he talks like that, and hold out my hand to say good-night, and watch out of the tail of my eye to see how he is liking it! But sometimes it's——'
'No, I won't stand any more of it to-night.' and then follows that mastering kiss which makes me really his for just that moment, and sends my thoughts and feelings whirling so that I try the harder to elude him afterwards!
One day this week I felt unusually romantic, so I read the Sonnets from the Portuguese.
'Oh, beautiful, Elizabeth,' I said, 'but simple, when you come to think of it. I'm sure that I could write one just as good, and I love my man every bit as much as you did Robert.'