Not merely Damaris', just now, rather tragic beauty moved and impressed
him; but some quality inherent in her upon which he felt disposed to
confer the title of genius. That was going far.--Mentally he pulled
himself up short.--For wasn't it going altogether too far--absurdly so?
What the dickens did this excessive admiration portend? Could he have
received the _coup de foudre_?--He had to-day a fancy for French tags, in
reaction from the family's over-powering Englishness.--That wouldn't suit
his book in the very least. For in the matters of the affections he held
it thriftless, to the confines of sheer lunacy, to put all your eggs into
one basket. He, therefore, politicly abstained from further observation
of Damaris; and, with engaging assiduity, reapplied himself to herding
the two native gentlemen through the remainder of the ceremony and, at
the conclusion of it, into the mildewed luxury of a Marychurch landau.
Deadham parish went home to its tea that evening damp, not to say
dripping, but well pleased with the figure it had cut in the public eye.
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