“I love her so!” he thought.
Nearly all of that long summer night he walked there in the garden, profoundly stirred by the great thing that had overtaken him. Before him was always the vision of her lovely face, filling his heart with tenderness and a troubled delight.
“I’m not good enough for her,” he thought.
Without realizing it, he began to forget that he had smiled to himself at the dear, funny things she had said, to forget what a little young thing she was. What was in his mind now was a sort of goddess, beautifully kind, but austere and aloof—a woman to be worshiped. His humility was honest and fine and touching, but it was cruel, because there was no goddess girl like that. There was only little Emmy Richards, who was nineteen, and altogether human and liable to error.
He let himself into the house quietly, so that no one heard him. He did not want to talk to any one.
When he came downstairs the next morning, he was still anxious for silence, but his sister was not disposed to humor him.
“Where did you go last night?” she demanded.
How was he to answer that? He had gone into an enchanted world, and he had found his beloved!
“I took a walk along the beach,” he said, briefly.
“A walk!” she cried. “You come here to visit me, and I ask people in to meet you, and you go off, without a word, and take a walk! I never heard of anything so selfish and hateful!”