Unleavened Bread by Robert Grant
page 92 of 402 (22%)
page 92 of 402 (22%)
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"Oh, no; not that. Only--" "Only what? Surely you are not one of the men who grudge women the chance to prove what is in them--who would treat us like china dolls and circumscribe us by conventions? I know you are not, because I have heard you inveigh against that very sort of narrow mindedness. Only what?" "I can't make up my mind to it. And I suppose the reason is that it means so much to me--that you mean so much to me. What is the use of my dodging the truth, Selma--seeking to conceal it because such a short time has elapsed since you ceased to be a wife? Forgive me if I hurt you, if it seem indelicate to speak of love at the very moment when you are happy in your liberty. I can't help it; it's my nature to speak openly. And there's no bar now. The fact that you are free makes clear to me what I have not dared to countenance before, that you are the one woman in the world for me--the woman I have dreamed of--and longed to meet--the woman whose influence has blessed me already, and without whom I shall lack the greatest happiness which life can give. Selma, I love you--I adore you." Selma listened with greedy ears, which she could scarcely believe. It seemed to her that she was in dream-land, so unexpected, yet entrancing, was his avowal. She had been vaguely aware that he admired her more than he had allowed himself to disclose, and conscious, too, that his presence was agreeable to her; but in an instant now she recognized that this was love--the love she had sought, the love she had yearned to inspire and to feel. Compared with it, Babcock's clumsy ecstasy and her own sufferance of it had been a sham and a delusion. Of so much she was conscious in a twinkling, and yet what she deemed proper self-respect |
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