"Not half I want to!" Miles honestly professed.
"But it isn't so much that."
"What is it, then?"
"Well--I want to see more life."
"I see; I see." We had arrived within sight of the church and
of various persons, including several of the household of Bly,
on their way to it and clustered about the door to see us go in.
I quickened our step; I wanted to get there before the question
between us opened up much further; I reflected hungrily that,
for more than an hour, he would have to be silent; and I thought
with envy of the comparative dusk of the pew and of the almost
spiritual help of the hassock on which I might bend my knees.
I seemed literally to be running a race with some confusion
to which he was about to reduce me, but I felt that he had got
in first when, before we had even entered the churchyard,
he threw out--
"I want my own sort!"
It literally made me bound forward. "There are not many of your
own sort, Miles!" I laughed. "Unless perhaps dear little Flora!"
"You really compare me to a baby girl?"
This found me singularly weak. "Don't you, then, LOVE
our sweet Flora?"
"If I didn't--and you, too; if I didn't--!" he repeated as if
retreating for a jump, yet leaving his thought so unfinished that,
after we had come into the gate, another stop, which he imposed
on me by the pressure of his arm, had become inevitable.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120