She loved the sailor man very well indeed by now, and knew he loved
her; and his calm manner and honest opinions, reposeful sort of nature and
unconscious strength won her all the way. For his part he'd never met a
girl like her in his travels, and being now twenty-six and wishful to wed,
felt that he'd be a very fortunate man to have such a wife as she promised
to make. He'd got his eye on a nice little house at St. Helier's, where
his relations dwelt, and he'd learned from Christie that she'd be well
pleased to dwell there, or anywhere, out of sight and sound of her uncle
and aunt Fox. So, when he put the question, she answered it in a way to
bring his arms round her and his lips on hers. And though autumn was in
the air, spring was in their hearts, no doubt, and they talked the usual
hopeful talk, and dreamed the usual cheerful dreams, and knew themselves
to be the happiest man and woman walking earth at that particular moment.
Nothing would do, but that Master Ted went off that instant to tell Jimmy
Fox the news, and though Christie warned him that her uncle had very
different ideas for her, he said, truly enough, that in these cases it was
the woman's view of a husband and not her uncle's that ought to count.
But Jimmy very soon showed he wasn't going to take Ted, and had no manner
of use for him. In fact, he let go pretty hot, and told Edmund Masters
that the likes of him--a sea-faring man with a wife in every port, no
doubt--wasn't going to have Christie.
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