eave Givre; but
that, again, may make it harder for Owen. At any rate, you can see,
can't you, how it makes me want to stand by him? You see, I couldn't
bear it if the least fraction of my happiness seemed to be stolen from
his--as if it were a little scrap of happiness that had to be pieced out
with other people's!" She clasped her hands on Darrow's arm. "I want
our life to be like a house with all the windows lit: I'd like to string
lanterns from the roof and chimneys!"

She ended with an inward tremor. All through her exposition and her
appeal she had told herself that the moment could hardly have been less
well chosen. In Darrow's place she would have felt, as he doubtless
did, that her carefully developed argument was only the disguise of an
habitual indecision. It was the hour of all others when she would have
liked to affirm herself by brushing aside every obstacle to his wishes;
yet it was only by opposing them that she could show the strength of
character she wanted him to feel in her.

But as she talked she began to see that Darrow's face gave back no
reflection of her words, that he continued to wear the abstracted look
of a man who is not listening to what is said to him. It caused her a
slight pang to discover that his thoughts could wander at such a moment;
then, with a flush of joy she perceived the reason.

In some undefinable way she had become aware, without turning her
head, that he was steeped in the sense of her nearness, absorbed in
contemplating the details of her face and dress; and the discovery
made the words throng to her lips. She felt herself speak with ease,
authority, conviction. She said to herself: "He doesn't care what I
say--it's enough that I say it--even if it's stupid he'll like me better
for it..." She knew that every inflexion of her voice, every gesture,
every characteristic of her person--its very defects, the fact that her
forehead was too high, that her eyes were not large enough, that her
hands, though slender, were not small, and that the fingers did not
taper--she knew that these deficiencies were so many channels through
which her influence streamed to him; that she pleased him in spite of
them, perhaps because of them; that he wanted her as she was, and not as
she would have liked to be; and for the first time she felt in her veins
the security and lightness of happy love.

They reached the court and walked under the limes toward the house. The
hall door stood wide, a