He had always rather despised the pale and hollow-eyed
lovers of the old songs, and thought of them as he might think of
men indulging in a baneful drug which filched away all manful
prowess and vigour. It was like La Belle Dame sans merci after all,
the slender faring child, whose kiss in the dim grotto had left the
warrior 'alone and palely loitering,' burdened with sad thoughts in
the wintry land. And yet he could not withstand it. He could see
the reasonable and sensible course, a placid friendship, a long
life full of small duties and quiet labours;--and then the thought
of Maud would come across him, with her shining hair, her clear
eyes, holding a book, as he had seen her last in the Vicarage, in
her delicate hands, and looking out into the garden with that
troubled inscrutable look; and all the prudent considerations fell
and tumbled together like a house of cards, and he felt as though
he must go straight to her and fall before her, and ask her to give
him a gift the very nature of which he did not know, her girlish
self, her lightly-ranging mind, her tiny cares and anxieties, her
virginal heart--for what purpose? he did not know; just to be with
her, to clasp her close, to hear her voice, to look into her eyes,
to discourse with her some hidden secret of love. A faint sense of
some infinite beauty and nearness came over him which, if he could
win it, would put the whole of life into a different plane.
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