'I would commit my fortunes and life . . . !' He checked his tongue, ejaculating: 'Omens!'
She had veered straight away from her romantic aspirations to the blunt extreme of thinking that a widow should be wooed in unornamented matter- of-fact, as she is wedded, with a 'wilt thou,' and 'I will,' and no decorative illusions. Downright, for the unpoetic creature, if you please! So she rejected the accompaniment of the silver Goddess and high seas for an introduction of the crisis.
'This would be a thunderer on our coasts. I had a trial of my sailing powers in the Mediterranean.'
As she said it, her musings on him then, with the contract of her position toward him now, fierily brushed her cheeks; and she wished him the man to make one snatch at her poor lost small butterfly bit of freedom, so that she might suddenly feel in haven, at peace with her expectant Emma. He could have seen the inviting consciousness, but he was absurdly watchful lest the flying sprays of border trees should strike her. He mentioned his fear, and it became an excuse for her seeking protection of her veil. 'It is our natural guardian,' she said.
'Not much against timber,' said he.
The worthy creature's anxiety was of the pattern of cavaliers escorting dames—an exaggeration of honest zeal; a present example of clownish goodness, it might seem; until entering the larch and firwood along the beaten heights, there was a rocking and straining of the shallow-rooted trees in a tremendous gust that quite pardoned him for curving his arm in a hoop about her and holding a shoulder in front. The veil did her positive service.
He was honourably scrupulous not to presume. A right good unimpulsive gentleman: the same that she had always taken him for and liked.
'These firs are not taproots,' he observed, by way of apology.
Her dress volumed and her ribands rattled and chirruped on the verge of the slope. 'I will take your arm here,' she said.
Redworth received the little hand, saying: 'Lean to me.'