She had merely allowed his devotion to amuse her idleness.
But now, thanks to the tedium which made any mental distraction
welcome, the complexion of her thoughts concerning the young man
suffered a gradual change. Having no other resource, she gave her
fancy _carte blanche_ to amuse her, and what materials could
fancy find so effective as the exciting experiences of the last
Autumn? Sitting before the great open fireplace in the evenings, while
her mother dozed in the chimney corner, and the silence was only
broken by the purring of the cat, the crackling of the fire, the
ticking of the clock, and the low noise heard through the partition,
of men talking over their cups with her father in the back room of the
store, she fell into reveries from which she would be roused by the
thick, hot beating of her heart, or wake with cheeks dyed in blushes
at the voice of her mother. And then the long, dreamful nights. Almost
two-thirds of each twenty-four hours in this dark season belonged to
the domain of dreams. What wonder that discretion should find itself
all unable to hold its own against fancy in such a world of shadows.
What wonder that when, after meeting on Sundays she met Perez as she
was stepping into her father's sleigh at the meeting-house door, she
should feel too confused fairly to look him in the face, much as she
had thought all through the week before of that opportunity of meeting
him.
Pages:
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378