Almost! Because it only needed two things to make him toe the line of sensual infatuation; the first being the graciousness of every line of her beautiful person when she met him by chance; and the second, the ungraciousness of her distinctly unpleasant manner upon the same occasion, over both of which he promised himself as he inwardly raged at her frequent, prolonged and unexplained absences, he would shortly have full control.
The month had slipped by so quickly, the month in which she had indifferently left to her aunt and fiance the choosing of her trousseau, and the arrangement of the ceremony; also the honeymoon, that subsequent insight into purgatory which she was to endure as best she could in an isolated, thatched cottage t'other side of Hartland Point.
A month during which she had walked, and talked, and walked again with Jan Cuxson, who caused her heart to thud heavily even though he did not touch her hand in greeting, or parting, or at any other time.
They had gathered laver—that most delectable vegetable-seaweed—at the base of the Woolacombe rocks; dug and scratched for the elusive cowrie shell in the sands of Barricane Beach; devoured Mrs. Parker's teas of bread and butter and cream, jam and cake, laid on snow-white cloth upon trestle table; and watched their flat-pebbled ducks and drakes skip more or less successfully across the waters.
They had tramped to Croyde, George Ham, Saunton, and all the other lovely spots, and whistled over the lighthouse wall at Bull Point to be regaled by tea on a tray, handed over by one of the perfectly charming family of Howgego, which comprises the lighthouse keeper, his wife, and his bonny daughter.
All this had been done by stealth.
Creeping about the cottage in stockinged feet at dawn, polishing the high boots before retiring to bed until they shone again; packing the haversack, creeping out of the cottage, vaulting the wall to the left to evade the gate which either jammed or creaked, and away up the steep incline, also to the left, and to wherever love listed.
Upbraidings at night are quite bearable when the heart is aglow, and the future dimmed by present happiness; but upbraidings in the early morning are quite intolerable when the outlook into the future shows a black abyss through the medium of an empty stomach.
She had seized upon every passing moment, wringing the uttermost out of it that she might have something put by with which to fill in the blanks of the drear future, the vacuum where should have been a tumultuously throbbing heart of love, and a pulse of life and passion.
Also did she glean and garner, so as to be tucked in stray corners, memories of a flower in a hedgerow, a boat on the wing, a look in a dog's eyes, and the indescribable smell of a mixture of tobacco, sea air, and leather; and all the other little genuine antique, and ever new odds-and-ends of the collection labelled Love in the heart museum.