“That’s the way with forceful men, who do things in the world.”
“Well, I confess I like to have my own way sometimes. I wonder if you are like that?”
“I ’ll be frank with you. Somehow I never could be anything else if I tried. I don’t think a man of strong character will yield to every whim of a woman, whether wife or daughter.”
“I heard of a man the other day who whipped his wife,” she said in a far away tone of voice. “Come, my horse is ready, go with me for another ride to-day. I am going to take you across the river and show you a pretty drive over there.”
They were soon lost in the deep shadows of the stately pine forest that lay beyond the Catawba. The road was a cross-country narrow way that wound in and out around the big trees.
They jogged slowly along while he bathed his soul in the joy of her presence. Oh, to be alone and near her! There seemed to him a magic power in the touch of her dress as she sat in the little buggy so close by his side. For hours, again he lay at her feet and drank the wine of her beauty until his heart was drunk with love.
Once he opened his lips to tell her, and a great fear awed him into silence. He longed to pour out to her his passion, but feared her answer. He Had studied her every word and tone and look and hand-pressure since he had known her. He was sure she loved him. And yet he was not sure. She was so skilled in the science of self defence, so subtle a mistress of all the arts of polite society in which the soul’s deepest secrets are hid from the world, he was paralysed now as the moment drew near. He put it off another day and gave himself up to the pure delight of her face and form and voice and presence.
That evening when she entered the home her mother caught her hand and softly whispered, “Did he court you to-day, Sallie?”
She shook her head smilingly. “No, but I think he will to-morrow.”
St. Clare was sitting on his veranda awaiting Gaston’s return.