His eyes had rested on the grey huddle on the bench twenty yards away. The huddle had moved, and a dim face had appeared. It was the face of Mrs. ’Ill’s daughter, Jellies, and Amory had seen it too. It seemed to brighten her. She gave a gay little laugh.
“There you are,” she said; “when you say you’d marry a dairymaid, do you mean—that?” She made a little movement of her head. “If you do, Cosimo, by all means marry one. When things come to that pitch I don’t see that anything matters very much. Marry a dairymaid, by all means, if that’s what you mean by marriage. But”—her laughter suddenly ceased—“don’t forget, Cosimo, that there is another side to it. You’d perhaps get all that some men seem to require, and perhaps you are that kind of man, but I shouldn’t have thought it. I should have planned something very different for you.... And think what you’d forego. No Societies for the study of those lovely Folk-Songs. No revival of Morrice Dancing. No bringing back the peasantry to those beautiful and rational old smock costumes. No bringing up of the standard of rustic morals to the level of that of the chaste animals. No education of the people up to an enlightened system of Land Tenure. No jolly Socialist Vans, no Pamphlets, nothing fine. Only the extortions of Landlordism and the old hateful Three—Rent, Interest, and Profits.... I’m not saying that to do all this is your work, Cosimo. I’m only pointing out that it’s somebody’s work. I don’t know Shropshire; perhaps Shropshire isn’t ripe for it; but it’s being done elsewhere. It attracts me. But of course that is no reason why it should attract you. I only mean that I should have said it was worth examining.”
Cosimo sat in the falling dusk, thrilled. What a daring and constructive brain!... And still some fools said women had no capacity for affairs! What (he wondered) would they have said could they have heard Amory as she was now—not argumentative, urging nothing, pleading nothing, with nothing to gain, quite detached and disinterested, merely anxious that, as she saw her own work before her, so others should see theirs? He rather thought they would have been silenced!...
And now there was no expressing how much Cosimo wanted her. Alone and of himself he could never have thought of these things, but with Amory by his side!... He seemed to see that Shropshire estate as it might be made. The bright parts of his vision seemed to gather as it were about a Maypole; the Maypole was in the middle; Cosimo knew the very spot for it. And the place really needed a Village Hall, on a contributory basis. In wet weather they could have the Folk-Songs and the Morrice Dancing there, and in fine weather on the green. There might be Vans and Pamphlets too; they might even set up a Village Press. And with these as a beginning the rest would come in time; but he could do nothing without Amory. He must have her. He knew it would not be easy, but he fancied—he was not sure, but he fancied—that there had been suppressed emotion in the tone in which she had called him her Shropshire Lad. Again he glanced at Jellies, whose face had disappeared again. The huddle, as far as he could see in the gloom, was quite motionless. Often and often with Amory he had laughed at this slow and elementary and adhesive love-making of the lower orders; it had always seemed so funny; and of course it was funny still with people of that class; Cosimo was not running away from that. Still, Cosimo had once taken a crossing-sweeper’s broom and had swept for half an hour for him, and Amory was temptingly pretty as she sat by his side in the dusk....
Between his dream of a Model Village, of which he was proud, and something else for which he felt a little apologetic, Cosimo did not quite know where he was; but he knew that he wanted Amory. A soft “Ow!” came from the huddle on the other bench; it rather put Cosimo off for a moment or two; but all was silent again, and he took heart. He altered his position, and ran his arm along the back of the bench.
“Do you really think, Amory——” he began huskily.
“Eh?” said Amory. Apparently he had startled her. She had been quite lost in abstraction.
“Do you think that’s the choice—for me?”
“The choice?... Oh, I see! You mean what I was saying. Well, Cosimo, what do you think yourself?”