Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/208

 said, "Go it old fellow!" He kept her hand and led her to the seat.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "How nice of you to bring me those sweet apples! No other tree produces quite the same flavour."

"I did not know that that particular tree had any special virtue," said Edmund, wondering where the devil the apples had come from, "but I'm glad they are your favourites. Won't you have one now?"

"Thank you. It is rather soon after breakfast. I shall put them carefully in my work-bag and carry them home, and devour them all greedily in my own room."

She opened a flowered chintz bag and dropped the apples one by one into it. The movements of her gentle, yet firm, hands thrilled the young man even more than the sweetness of her lowered face.

"I wish," he said, "that I could give you a pleasure more lasting."

She raised her eyes to his face. "Oh, it is a lasting pleasure to have you so thoughtful for me—so kind—in every way."

"But I don't want to be thoughtful," he broke out. "I don't want to be kind. I want to love you—to make you love me. I can't offer myself as an ideal husband. I'm self-willed—I'm thoughtless—but I love you. I haven't looked at another woman since I met you last Christmas."

"Please wait—" she interrupted—"let me speak."

"No. Not till you've heard me out. Oh, don't refuse me, Grace. I may not have it in me to make you placidly happy, but who wants to be placid! I think we could have a joyous, exciting life together. Old Halifax isn't bad. And you'd have the sea to make up for this lake you love."

She clutched the flowered bag and returned his brilliant dark gaze with a look of almost motherly solicitude.