[The Half-Hearted by John Buchan]@TWC D-Link bookThe Half-Hearted CHAPTER VI 19/29
She felt that at any moment he might call her by some one or other of the endearing expressions used between men.
He, for his part, was fast drifting from friendship to another feeling, but as yet he gave no sign of it, and kept up the brusque, kindly manners of his common life. As she looked east and north to the heart of the hill-land, her eyes brightened, and she rose up and strained on tiptoe to scan the farthest horizon.
Eagerly she asked the name of this giant and that, of this glint of water--was it loch or burn? Lewis answered without hesitation, as one to whom the country was as well known as his own name. By and by her curiosity was satisfied and she slipped back into her old posture, and with chin on hand gazed into the remote distances.
"And most of that is yours? Do you know, if I had a land like this I should never leave it again.
You, in your ingratitude, will go wandering away in a year or two, as if any place on earth could be better than this. You are simply 'sinning away your mercies,' as my grandfather used to say." "But what would become of the heroic virtues that you adore ?" asked the cynical Lewis.
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