It
was just Miss Percival all over--as "keen as mustard." Perhaps it was as
much under Glyde's fostering as any other nurture that she came, during
that year alone, to love the earth so well that she could appraise the
worth of human love. I don't know. It was a critical year for her.
As she was anything but a fool, there's no doubt that she came, before the
end of that year, to know what was the matter with Glyde. She had had
experience--of herself and another--and he was utterly incapable of
concealing his feelings. Of course she knew what was the matter with him,
and was tenderly and quietly amused. She approached him gradually, let
herself play elder sister, and let him play what he chose, within severe
limits, never overstepped by him, never unwatched by herself. He was a
passionate, sensitive, inarticulate creature, narrow-faced, sharp-eyed,
scowling and thin. He always looked cold, mostly angry, and never seemed
contented, even when his plants flowered themselves to death to please
him.
A woman, any woman, knowing that a man covets her possession, stores her
knowledge, exults in it in secret. It is a fund, a store against lean
years or wry ones. You can see it throned sedately in her eyes, when she
is with him, however much she may feel his absurdity or presumption.
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