“I was going to ask you to marry me,” he said.
“I thought p’raps you might, but I shouldn’t have liked to stand in your way.”
“You wouldn’t have done that.”
“How about your travels, Spain and all that?”
“How d’you know I want to travel?”
“I ought to know something about it. I’ve heard you and Dad talk about it till you were blue in the face.”
“I don’t care a damn about all that.” He paused for an instant and then spoke in a low, hoarse whisper. “I don’t want to leave you! I can’t leave you.”
She did not answer. He could not tell what she thought.
“I wonder if you’ll marry me, Sally.”
She did not move and there was no flicker of emotion on her face, but she did not look at him when she answered.
“If you like.”
“Don’t you want to?”
“Oh, of course I’d like to have a house of my own, and it’s about time I was settling down.”
He smiled a little. He knew her pretty well by now, and her manner did not surprise him.
“But don’t you want to marry me?”
“There’s no one else I would marry.”
“Then that settles it.”
“Mother and Dad will be surprised, won’t they?”
“I’m so happy.”
“I want my lunch,” she said.
“Dear!”
He smiled and took her hand and pressed it. They got up and walked out of the gallery. They stood for a moment at the balustrade and looked at Trafalgar Square. Cabs and omnibuses hurried to and fro, and crowds passed, hastening in every direction, and the sun was shining.
Colophon
Of Human Bondage
was published in 1915 by
W. Somerset Maugham.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Alex Cabal and Alina Pyzowski,
and is based on a transcription produced in 1995 for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at
Google Books.
The cover page is adapted from
Portrait of Fyodor Shalyapin,
a painting completed in 1939 by
Konstantin Korovin.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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Uncopyright
May you do good and not evil.
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