“Suppose I’d refused you?”
“I didn’t think you would, in the long-run.”
“Oh!”
“I don’t mean exactly that,” Bernard hastily added, feeling that he had not put the case quite prettily. “I mean that I had a kind of idea all along that you liked me, just as I liked you, directly we met.”
Under the leaves and the soft summer stars they paced the path together. It was so dark that Angela bent her head to avoid an empty shadow, and walked straight into the brush of soft leaves which an elm-tree drooped across the way. She stood still while Bernard freed her hair: expeditiously he did it, with no tender dallyings, and she was truly thankful. Angela was beginning to see what life would be to Bernard Fane’s wife. Stable as the English soil beneath their feet, temperate as this English summer night, with no tropic storms and no yawning earthquakes, so would his love be; the cupboards in his house held no skeletons. All Angela’s adventurous thoughts of freedom were coming home to shelter under a man’s protecting care. It was true that Bernard had developed a talent for saying what should not be said; but that Angela resentfully ascribed to Dolly’s interference. She saw herself darning her stalwart protector’s socks by the fireside. The picture was touching and beautiful. Yet—
“I hope you’ll like Fanes,” Bernard said, tucking her hand comfortably under his arm. “It’s all right now, but it’s a bit lonely in winter.”
“We might spend the winter in London.”
“There’s no one but me to see to things; I couldn’t get away.”
“Couldn’t you have a manager?”
“Managers aren’t to be trusted. If you want a thing well done, I guess you must do it yourself.”