“I have an idea from the way you speak that I shall rather like George.”
“I didn’t say anything to show I like him.”
“No, darling.” (René’s heart leaped at the word.) “No. I think you dislike him. You hate your father. He is impossible, but such a dear.”
René, sensitive in his ecstasy, for the tulips and the sky and she had brought him to nothing less, felt a malice in her that scratched at his heart. But, loving her, worshiping the new radiant intimacy that had sprung up between them, he loved even her malice.
They walked home slowly, laughing over the mischances, the absurdity of the tea-party, and when they reached her house she made him come in, played to him for an hour, and sent him home drunk with love. He called it love, for he suspected not that it could have any other name. She had promised to marry him as soon as he had his degree and a position, and he was to write to her mother and make a formal proposal, since Mrs. Brock was old-fashioned enough and German enough to desire that much of formal ceremony.
[IX
PATERFAMILIAS]
The foolish man thereat woxe wondrous blith
As if the word so spoken were half donne.