The Judgment of Eve | Page 4

was the last week in April, and Mr. Gatty's Easter holiday was near its end. On the Monday, very early in the morning, the young clerk would leave Queningford for town.
By Friday his manner had become, as Susie Purcell expressed it, "so marked" that the most inexperienced young lady could have suffered no doubt as to the nature of his affections. But no sooner had Aggie heard that he was going than she had begun to doubt, and had kept on doubting (horribly) up to Saturday morning. All Friday she had been bothering Susie. Did Susie think there was any one in town whom he was in a hurry to get back to? Did Susie think such a man as Mr. Gatty could think twice about a girl like her? Did Susie think he only thought her a forward little minx? Or did she think he really was beginning to care? And Susie said: "You goose! How do I know, if you don't? He hasn't said anything to me."
And on Saturday morning Aggie all but knew. For that day he asked permission to take her for a drive, having borrowed a trap for the purpose.
They drove up to a northern slope of the Cotswolds, by a road that took them past High Farm; and there they found John Hurst superintending his sheep-shearing. Aggie, regardless of his feelings, insisted on getting out of the trap and looking on. John talked all the time to the shepherd, while Arthur talked to Aggie, and Aggie, cruel little Aggie, made remarks about the hard-heartedness of shearers.
Arthur ("that bald-faced young Cockney snob," as John called him) was depressed by the dominating presence of his rival and his visible efficiency. He looked long and thoughtfully at the sheep-shearing.
"Boni pastoris est," he observed, "tondere oves, non deglubere."
Aggie shook her pretty head, as much as to say Latin was beyond her; and he was kind enough to translate. "It is the part of a good shepherd to shear, not flay, the sheep."
"Is that from Virgil?" she asked, looking up into his face with a smile of unstained intellectual innocence.
A terrific struggle arose in young Arthur's breast. If he said it was from Virgil (it was a thousand to one against her knowing), he might leap into her love at one high bound. If he said he didn't know where it came from before it got into his Latin exercise, he would be exactly where he was before, which, he reflected, dismally, was nowhere. Whereas, that fellow Hurst was forever on the spot.
On the other hand, where would he be if--if--supposing that she ever found him out?
A thousand to one against it. He who aims high must take high risks. He took them.
"Yes," he said, "it's Virgil." And he added, to clinch the matter, "From the 'Georgics.'"
The light in her believing eyes told him how inspired he had been.
The more he thought of it the more likely it seemed. A flash of reminiscence from his school-days visited him; he remembered that Virgil did write some things called "Georgics," and that Georgics were a kind of pastoral, and that pastorals always had sheep in them, and shepherds. It was a good risk, anyhow, and he could see that it was justified by success. When his conscience reproached him for pretending he knew more Latin than he did, he told it that he would soon know heaps. If all by himself, in cold blood, and for no particular reason, he could keep slogging away at a difficult language evening after evening, what couldn't he do with Aggie's love as an incentive? Why, he could learn enough Latin to read Virgil in two months, and to teach Aggie, too. And if any one had asked him what good that would do either of them, he would have replied, contemptuously, that some things were ends in themselves.
Still, he longed to prove his quality in some more honorable way. He called at the Laurels again that evening after supper. And, while Mrs. Purcell affected to doze, and Susie, as confidante, held Kate and Eliza well in play, he found another moment. With a solemnity impaired by extreme nervousness, he asked Miss Purcell if she would accept a copy of Browning's Poems, which he had ventured to order for 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