She knelt by the edge of the water, face and throat shining and wet, her
head bending back, her lips parted and smiling. It thrilled him as if
she were singing a silent song which made the brightness of the morning
and the colour beyond the peaks. He almost waited to see her throat
quiver--hear the high, sweet tone.
But a scent of telltale sharpness drew him a thousand leagues down and
made him whirl with a cry of dismay: "The bacon, Sally!"
It was hopelessly burned; some of it was even charred on the bottom of
the pan. Sally, returning on the run, took charge of the cookery and
went about it with a speed and ability that kept him silent; which being
the ideal mood for a spectator, he watched and found himself learning
much.
Whatever that scene of the night before meant in the small and definite,
in the large and vague it meant that he had a claim of some sort on
Sally Fortune and it is only when a man feels that he has this claim,
this proprietorship, as it were, that he begins to see a woman clearly.
Before this his observance has been half blind through prejudice either
for or against; he either sees her magnified with adulation, or else the
large end of the glass is placed against his eye and she is merely a
speck in the distance.
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