He made for the moor, and from an
ash tree in the hedge a magpie flew out to herald him.
Of man--at any age from five years on--who can say he has never been
in love? Ashurst had loved his partners at his dancing class; loved his
nursery governess; girls in school-holidays; perhaps never been quite
out of love, cherishing always some more or less remote admiration. But
this was different, not remote at all. Quite a new sensation; terribly
delightful, bringing a sense of completed manhood. To be holding in his
fingers such a wild flower, to be able to put it to his lips, and
feel it tremble with delight against them! What intoxication,
and--embarrassment! What to do with it--how meet her next time? His
first caress had been cool, pitiful; but the next could not be, now
that, by her burning little kiss on his hand, by her pressure of it to
her heart, he knew that she loved him. Some natures are coarsened by
love bestowed on them; others, like Ashurst's, are swayed and drawn,
warmed and softened, almost exalted, by what they feel to be a sort of
miracle.
And up there among the tors he was racked between the passionate desire
to revel in this new sensation of spring fulfilled within him, and
a vague but very real uneasiness.
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