Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/252

244 Already I felt relieved, seeing that she too was caught in the spell.

George came and bent over my shoulder. I could feel the heavy warmth of him.

“Good Lord!” he drawled, half amused. The children came crowding to see, and Emily closed the book.

“I shall be late—Hurry up, Dave!” and she went to wash her hands before going to school.

“Give it me, will you!” George asked, putting out his hand for the book. I gave it him, and he sat down to look at the drawings. When Mollie crept near to look, he angrily shouted to her to get away. She pulled a mouth, and got her hat over her wild brown curls. Emily came in ready for school.

“I’m going—good-bye,” she said, and she waited hesitatingly. I moved to get my cap. He looked up with a new expression in his eyes, and said:

“Are you going?—wait a bit—I’m coming.”

I waited.

“Oh, very well—good-bye,” said Emily bitterly, and she departed.

When he had looked long enough he got up and we went out. He kept his finger between the pages of the book as he carried it. We went towards the fallow land without speaking. There he sat down on a bank, leaning his back against a holly-tree, and saying, very calmly:

“There’s no need to be in any hurry now——” whereupon he proceeded to study the illustrations.

“You know,” he said at last, “I do want her.”

I started at the irrelevance of this remark, and said, “Who?”