“That does not matter at all.” Mrs Phillips spoke with unyielding decision. “Samson has a very high ideal of wifehood. He naturally will not require you to love him before you are married.”
“Oh!” gasped Deb.... The point of view was disconcerting; but Mrs Phillips’ apparent certainty of the wedding was worse than disconcerting—it was terrifying! “I, Deborah, take thee, Samson——” it sounded like two Bible legends badly mixed up.... She rallied her forces for another thrust at the Phillips’ illusion; it was perfectly awful to know that it was still there; that she had done nothing as yet that counted towards damaging it. “Mrs Phillips—please—I—I did mean to say ‘no.’ I’m not worthy of your Samson, indeed I’m not.”
The imperturbable dark-skinned surface of Mrs Phillips’ face broke into a gleaming smile.
“Now I wonder who’s the best judge of that, you or he?” Then more solemnly: “I assure you, my dear little girl, all that matters is that you should make him happy.”
Deb’s rebellion shot up to hollyhock height as she reflected: “They take it for granted that he’ll make me happy.... Oh, but he would, if I were the Suitable Sort. All the hatefulness of refusing him over again....”
“Do you mind, Deborah, if I make a remark on the way you do your hair? It is, forgive me if I am rude—so very unbecoming. A young girl should always strive to make the best of herself, you know. Beatrice”—as her daughter came in with an enquiring air of is-it-all-right-now—“I was just telling Deborah how we all wish she would change her style of hairdressing.”
Mrs Phillips’ inflexion of the word “all” crushed Deb back again on to the pouffe, whence she had deprecatingly risen. All ... she heard the entire Phillips family owning her, re-modelling her, chanting as in chorus: “How we wish Deb would change her style of hairdressing!”
“Let me try how she looks with it done like mine,” exclaimed Beatrice brightly. “May I, Deb—just for fun? I’m supposed to have a way with hair”—she began to pull out the hairpins. “Oh, what masses—look, mother. I think it’s delightfully quaint the way you tuck it under like a boy, but it seems rather a shame that nobody should guess what a quantity you have, doesn’t it? Hardy says a woman’s crown of glory is her hair.”
“No, Samson said that,” Deb corrected dreamily. She knew that Hardy Redbury spoke rarely, but with a certain caustic originality.
“I believe it was Samson!” Beatrice and her mother exchanged meaning glances of delight. So Deb recognized the utterances of the beloved!