She had intended, a little later, to walk out along the river road in
search of marguerites, but when Mary, more than usually restless after
her fainting spell of yesterday, had offered to go instead, she had not
demurred. It would be quite as pleasant to take a book and sit out under
the big elm. Esther was at that stage when everything seems to be for
the best in this "best of all possible worlds." She was living through
those suspended moments when life stands tiptoe, breathless with
expectancy, yet calm with an assurance of joy to come.
With the knowledge that Henry Callandar was not quite as other men, had
come an intense, delicious shyness; the aloofness of the maiden who
feels love near yet cannot, through her very nature, take one step
to meet it.
There was no hurry. She was surrounded with a roseate haze, lapped in
deep content; for, while the doctor had learned nothing from their last
meeting under the elm, Esther had learned everything. She had not seemed
to look at him as they parted, yet she had known, oh, she had known very
well, how he had looked at her! All she wanted, now, was to be alone
with that look; to hold it there in her memory, not to analyse or
question, but to glance at it shyly now and again, feeding with quick
glimpses the new strange joy at the heart.
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