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The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeannette Duncan
page 40 of 258 (15%)
as, with my elbows on the table, I tore into strips the lemon-leaf
that floated in my finger-bowl--would he continue, through life, to
shelter her from his other clever friends as now he attempted to
shelter her from her mother? In that case he would have to domicile
her, poor dear, behind the curtain, like the native ladies--a good
price to pay for a protection of which, bless her heart! she would
be all unaware. I had quite stopped bemoaning the affair; perhaps
the comments of my husband, who treated it with broad approval and
satisfaction, did something to soothe my sensibilities. At all
events, I had gradually come to occupy a high fatalistic ground
towards the pair. If it was written upon their foreheads that they
should marry, the inscription was none of mine; and, of course, it
was true, as John had indignantly stated, that Dacres might do very
much worse. One's interest in Dacres Tottenham's problematical
future had in no way diminished; but the young man was so positive,
so full of intention, so disinclined to discussion--he had not
reopened the subject since that morning in the saloon of the
Caledonia--that one's feeling about it rather took the attenuated
form of a shrug. I am afraid, too, that the pleasurable excitement
of such an impending event had a little supervened; even at forty
there is no disallowing the natural interests of one's sex. As I
sat there pulling my lemon-leaf to pieces, I should not have been
surprised or in the least put about if the two had returned radiant
from the lawn to demand my blessing. As to the test of quality that
I had obligingly invented for Dacres on the spur of the moment
without his knowledge or connivance, it had some time ago faded into
what he apprehended it to be--a mere idyllic opportunity, a charming
background, a frame for his project, of prettier sentiment than the
funnels and the hand-rails of a ship.

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