“Shall I go and see if I can find them?” said Philip.
It was a relief to talk about practical things.
“Well, it wouldn’t be a bad idea, I must say…. There’s mother coming.”
Then, as he got up, she looked at him without embarrassment.
“Shall I come for a walk with you tonight when I’ve put the children to bed?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you wait for me down by the stile, and I’ll come when I’m ready.”
He waited under the stars, sitting on the stile, and the hedges with their ripening blackberries were high on each side of him. From the earth rose rich scents of the night, and the air was soft and still. His heart was beating madly. He could not understand anything of what happened to him. He associated passion with cries and tears and vehemence, and there was nothing of this in Sally; but he did not know what else but passion could have caused her to give herself. But passion for him? He would not have been surprised if she had fallen to her cousin, Peter Gann, tall, spare, and straight, with his sunburned face and long, easy stride. Philip wondered what she saw in him. He did not know if she loved him as he reckoned love. And yet? He was convinced of her purity. He had a vague inkling that many things had combined, things that she felt though was unconscious of, the intoxication of the air and the hops and the night, the healthy instincts of the natural woman, a tenderness that overflowed, and an affection that had in it something maternal and something sisterly; and she gave all she had to give because her heart was full of charity.
He heard a step on the road, and a figure came out of the darkness.
“Sally,” he murmured.