The Judgment of Eve | Page 5

her from
town. He hadn't brought it with him, because he wished to multiply
pretexts for calling; besides, as he said, he didn't know whether she
would really care--
Aggie cared very much, indeed, and proved it by blushing as she said
so. She had no need now to ask Susie anything. She knew.
And yet, in spite of the Browning and the Virgil, it was surprising how
cool and unexcited she felt in the face of her knowledge, now she had it.
She felt--she wouldn't have owned it--but she felt something

remarkably like indifference. She wondered whether she had seemed
indifferent to him (the thought gave her a pang that she had not
experienced when John Hurst laid his heart out to be trampled on). She
wondered whether she were indifferent, really. How could you tell
when you really loved a man? She had looked for great joy and glory
and uplifting. And they hadn't come. It was as if she had held her heart
in her hand and looked at it, and, because she felt no fluttering, had
argued that love had never touched it; for she did not yet know that
love's deepest dwelling-place is in the quiet heart. Aggie had never
loved before, and she thought that she was in the sanctuary on Saturday,
when she was only standing on the threshold, waiting for her hour.
It came, all of a sudden, on the Sunday.
Aggie's memory retained every detail of that blessed day--a day of
spring sunshine, warm with the breath of wall-flowers and violets.
Arthur, walking in the garden with her, was so mixed up with those
delicious scents that Aggie could never smell them afterwards without
thinking of him. A day that was not only all wall-flowers and violets,
but all Arthur. For Arthur called first thing before breakfast to bring her
the Browning, and first thing after breakfast to go with her to church,
and first thing after dinner to take her for a walk.
They went into the low-lying Queningford fields beside the river. They
took the Browning with them; Arthur carried it under his arm. In his
loose, gray overcoat and soft hat he looked like a poet himself, or a
Socialist, or Something. He always looked like Something. As for
Aggie, she had never looked prettier than she looked that day. He had
never known before how big and blue her eyes were, nor that her
fawn-colored hair had soft webs of gold all over it. She, in her clean
new clothes, was like a young Spring herself, all blue and white and
green, dawn-rose and radiant gold. The heart of the young man was
quick with love of her.
They found a sheltered place for Aggie to sit in, while Arthur lay at her
feet and read aloud to her. He read "Abt Vogler," "Prospice," selections
from "The Death in the Desert" (the day being Sunday); and then, with
a pause and a shy turning of the leaves, and a great break in his voice,

"Oh, Lyric Love, Half Angel and Half Bird," through to the end.
Their hearts beat very fast in the silence afterwards.
He turned to the fly-leaf where he had inscribed her name.
"I should like to have written something more. May I?"
"Oh yes. Please write anything you like."
And now the awful question for young Arthur was: Whatever should he
write? "With warmest regards" was too warm; "kind regards" were too
cold; "good wishes" sounded like Christmas or a birthday;
"remembrances" implied that things were at an end instead of a
beginning. All these shades, the warmth, the reticence, the inspired
audacity, might be indicated under the veil of verse. If he dared--
"I wish," said Aggie, "you'd write me something of your own." (She
knew he did it.)
What more could he want than that she should divine him thus?
For twenty minutes (he thought they were only seconds), young Arthur
lay flat on his stomach and brooded over the Browning. Aggie sat quiet
as a mouse, lest the rustle of her gown should break the divine
enchantment. At last it came.
"Dear, since you loved this book, it is your own--" That was how it
began. Long afterwards Arthur would turn pale when he thought of
how it went on; for it was wonderful how bad it was, especially the
lines that had to rhyme.
He did not know it when he gave her back the book.
She read it over and over again, seeing how bad it was, and not caring.
For her the beginning, middle, and end of that delicate lyric were in the
one word "Dear."
"Do you mind?" He had risen and was standing over her as she read.

"Mind?"
"What I've called you?"
She looked up suddenly. His