“It’s not quite the same thing,” said Lucy; “at least, not for a man.”After that she was allowed to escape into the grounds with her lover, and was made happy with half an hour of unalloyed bliss. To be alone with the girl to whom he is not engaged is a man’s delight; to be alone with the man to whom she is engaged is the woman’s. When the thing is settled there is always present to the man something of a feeling of clipped wings; whereas the woman is conscious of cheap oakleys a new power of expanding her pinions. The certainty of the thing is to him repressive. He has done his work, and gained his victory, and by conquering has become a slave. To her the certainty of the thing is the removal of a restraint which has hitherto always been on her. She can tell him everything, and be told everything, whereas her previous confidences, made with those of her own sex, have been tame and by comparison valueless. He has no new confidence to make, unless when he comes to tell her he likes his meat well done, and wants his breakfast to be punctual. Lucy now not only promised herself, but did actually realise, a great joy. He seemed to be to her all that her heart desired. He was a man whose manner was naturally caressing and demonstrative, and she was to him, of all women, the sweetest, the dearest, the most perfect, and all his own. “But, Frank”— she had already been taught to call him Frank when they were alone together —“what will come of all this about Lizzie Eustace?”“They will be married, of course.”“Do you think so? I am sure Lady Fawn doesn’t think so.”“What Lady Fawn thinks on such a matter cannot be helped. When a man asks a woman to marry him, and she accepts, the natural consequence is that they will be married. Don’t you cheap oakley sunglasses think so?”“I hope so, sometimes,” said Lucy, with her two hands joined upon his arm, and hanging to it with all her little weight.“You really do hope it?” he said.“Oh, I do; you know I do. Hope it! I should die if I didn’t hope it.”“Then why shouldn’t she?” He oakley sunglasses asked his question with a quick, sharp voice, and then turned upon her for an answer.“I don’t know,” she said, very softly, and still clinging to him. “I sometimes think there is a difference in people.”“There is a difference; but, still, we hardly judge of people sufficiently by our own feelings. As she accepted him, you may be sure that she wishes to marry him. She has more to give than he has.”“And I have nothing to give,” she said.“If I thought so, I’d go back even now,” he answered. “It is because you have so much to give — so much more than most others — that I have thought of you, dreamed of you as my wife, almost ever since I first knew you.” |