Here, in this monotonous country, there was nothing for him but to brood over each trivial detail until her figure stood out in his imagination edged by the artificial light he had created around it.
Her beauty, which would have been noticeable even in a crowd, became goddess-like against the low horizon in the midst of the November colours.
"If you only knew how I suffer from you, darling," he said, "I haven't slept for nights because you refused to kiss me." "I--I haven't slept either," she faltered.
"Because of me, Blossom ?" "I begin to think and it makes me so unhappy." "Oh, damn it! Do you love me, Blossom ?" "What difference does it make whether I do or not ?" "It makes all the difference under Heaven! Would you like to love me, Blossom ?" "I oughtn't to let myself think of it, and I don't when I can help it." "But can you help it?
Tell me, can you help it ?" Turning away from him, she cast a startled glance under the willows in the direction of the house.
"I must be going back.

They will miss me." "Don't you think I shall miss you, Beauty ?" "I don't know.

I haven't thought." "If you knew how miserable I'll be after you have left me, you'd kiss me once before you go." "Don't ask me, I can't--I really can't, Mr.Jonathan." "Hang Mr.Jonathan and all that appertains to him! What's to become of me, condemned to this solitude, if you refuse to become kind to me?
By Jove, if it wasn't for my mother, I'd ask you to marry me!" "I don't want to marry you," she responded haughtily, and completed her triumph.

Something stronger than passion--that _something_ compounded partly of moral fibre, partly of a phlegmatic temperament, guided her at the critical moment.

His words had been casual, but her reception of them charged them with seriousness almost before he was aware.