Launce, when she was very happy betrayed her French descent by
the delightful way that she rolled her r's.
"Not a soul anywhere near--we can bathe all day."
Clare would love to come so strangely enough would Peter--"The 5.30 train
then--Saturday...." Dear Mrs. Launce in her bonnet and blue silk! Clare had
never thought her so entirely delightful!
Peter, of course, plainly understood the things that dear Mrs. Launce
intended. His confidence in her had been, in no way, misplaced--she loved a
wedding and was the only person in the world who could bring to its making
so fine a compound of sentiment and common sense. She frankly loved it
all and though, at the moment, occupied with the work of at least a dozen
women, and with a family that needed her most earnest care, she hastened to
assist the Idyll.
Peter's own feelings were curiously confused. He was going to propose to
Clare; and now he seemed to face, suddenly, the change that this must mean
to him. Those earlier months, when it had been pursuit with no certainty of
capture had only shown him one thing desirable--Clare. But now that he was
face to face with it he was frightened--what did he know of women?...
On the morning they were to go down, he sat in his room, this terrible
question confronting him. No, he knew nothing about women! He had left his
heroine very much alone in "Reuben Hallard" and those occasions when he had
been obliged to bring her on the stage had not been too successful.
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