THE SENSE OF THE PAST
"Yes indeed, they would have wanted to smooth down any awkwardness," Ralph gaily returned; while the mere saying it made him within the moment see much beyond that supposititious truth, see everything exactly as it had happened. So very much thus emerged to distinctness, so much more than he could have gone into just then even hadn't she, in her way, apparently wished to produce a signal fact before he might, as he would perhaps have said, get in. He got in none the less now with another assured hit. "The notion of our coming together in this way was the best of what they had left behind them when they went off again: that was the real beginning, as you say, of your and my happiness that's to be."
She made less and less scruple of showing him how he charmed and amused. "The only thing is that they could scarce have plotted that out before either of us was born. I don't exaggerate my youth," said Molly, "since I've waited for you till now. But I'm not so old as that they could have told by the sight of me that you were going to grow up so certain to like me."
"I think I could have told it, my dear, even at the hour of my birth. At any rate," Ralph laughed, "it was a fancy I took to as soon as it was ever mentioned to me———!"
"Which it can't have been," she broke in, "before a little more was known about your
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