At
the end of an hour he felt, I will not say almost marriageable, but
almost married. Images of leisure played before him, leisure in which he
saw himself covering foolscap paper with his views on several subjects,
and with favourable illustrations of Southern eloquence. It became
tolerably vivid to him that if editors wouldn't print one's
lucubrations, it would be a comfort to feel that one was able to publish
them at one's own expense.
He had a moment of almost complete illusion. Mrs. Luna had taken up her
bit of crochet; she was sitting opposite to him, on the other side of
the fire. Her white hands moved with little jerks as she took her
stitches, and her rings flashed and twinkled in the light of the hearth.
Her head fell a little to one side, exhibiting the plumpness of her chin
and neck, and her dropped eyes (it gave her a little modest air) rested
quietly on her work. A silence of a few moments had fallen upon their
talk, and Adeline--who decidedly _had_ improved--appeared also to feel
the charm of it, not to wish to break it. Basil Ransom was conscious of
all this, and at the same time he was vaguely engaged in a speculation.
If it gave one time, if it gave one leisure, was not that in itself a
high motive? Thorough study of the question he cared for most--was not
the chance for _that_ an infinitely desirable good? He seemed to see
himself, to feel himself, in that very chair, in the evenings of the
future, reading some indispensable book in the still lamp-light--Mrs.
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