“What I’ve called you?”
She looked up suddenly. His face met hers, and before she knew it Aggie’s initiation came.
“Ah,” said Arthur, rising solemn from the consecration of the primal kiss, and drawing himself up like a man for the first time aware of his full stature, “that makes that seem pretty poor stuff, doesn’t it?”
Young Arthur had just looked upon Love himself, and for that moment his vision was purged of vanity.
“Not Browning?” asked Aggie, a little anxiously.
“No—Not Browning. Me. Browning could write poetry. I can’t. I know that now.”
And she knew it, too; but that made no difference. It was not for his poetry she loved him.
“And so,” said her mother, after Arthur had stayed for tea and supper, and said his good-bye and gone—“so that’s the man you’ve been waiting for all this time?”
“Yes, that’s the man I’ve been waiting for,” said Aggie.
Three days later Queningford knew that Aggie was going to marry Arthur Gatty, and that John Hurst was going to marry Susie.