The blood surged into the girl’s face, and she looked up at him with open triumph in her eyes. It was her hour, and Sally, as it happened, was not afraid of anything.
“Oh!” she exclaimed; “you really want me?”
“Yes,” said Hawtrey quietly; “I think I have wanted you for ever so long, though I did not know it until lately.”
“Then,” she said, “I’ll do what I can, Gregory.”
“‘WOULD YOU BE AFRAID TO SEE WHAT YOU COULD MAKE OF THE PLACE AND ME?’” Page 242
Hawtrey bent his head and kissed her with a deference that he had not expected to feel, for there was something in the girl’s simplicity and the completeness of her surrender which, though the thing seemed astonishing, laid a restraint on him. As he sat down on the arm of her chair with a hand upon her shoulder, he was more astonished still, for she quietly made it clear that she expected a good deal from him. For one thing, he realized that she meant him to take and to keep a foremost place among his neighbors, and, though Sally had not the gift of clear and imaginative expression, it became apparent that this was less for her own sake than his. She was, with somewhat crude forcefulness, trying to arouse a sense of responsibility in the man, to incite him to resolute action and wholesome restraint, and, as he remembered what he had hitherto thought of her, a salutary sense of confusion crept upon him.
She seemed to recognize it, for at length she glanced up at him sharply.
“What is it, Gregory? Why do you look at me like that?” she asked.
Hawtrey smiled in a perplexed fashion. Hitherto she had made her appeal through his senses to one side of his nature only. There was no doubt on that point, but now it seemed there were in her qualities he had never suspected. She had desired him as a husband, but it was becoming clear that she would not be content with the mere possession of him. Sally, it seemed, had wider ideas in her mind, and, though the idea seemed almost ludicrous, she wanted to be proud of him.