ONE:She did not move while the song continued, her hand still rested unconsciously on his sleeve, her eyes looked straight at him, demanding his companionship in that young joy of life that thrilled her no less than the bird. It was that in the main that possessed her, and yet, for that delicate intimate moment, she had instinctively (so instinctively that she was unaware of her choice) chosen him as her companion. She wanted to listen to the lark with him (or his coat) on her finger-tips. Her whole soul was steeped in the joyful hour, and it was with him she shared it: it was theirs, not hers alone.For one brief moment a certain clear-sightedness penetrated her infatuation, a certain business-like unidealising vision, inherited probably from her father, came to her aid, giving her a warning both peremptory and final. For that one moment she saw this adored priest as he was, more or less, to whom this baby-talk and this squeezing of hands and this lighting of matches were not symbols of anything that lay behind them, but only expressive of an amorous an?mia. Had he been in earnest with a hundredth part of her intention, he would have caught at it, made plain his want, and even if marriage was not within the scope of his desire, reached a hand to the love she brought him, and claimed the comradeship of it, even if he could do no more. But, in this moment of clear vision, she saw and she knew that he did not even do that. He but sat on the hearth-rug and wagged his tail and barked for biscuits.... Then the clouds of her own foolishness, derived perhaps from her mothers side, and strangely swollen by her individual temperament obscured that brief ray of common sense, and she yielded herself up to the{204} entrancement of having Mr Silverdale sitting on the floor at her feet and lighting his cigarette from her match.
