With Mrs. Hamon and Bernel he was on the most friendly footing, his
undisguised sentiments in the matter of Tom commending him to them
decisively.
But with Nance he made no headway whatever.
It was an absolutely new sensation to him, and a satisfaction the
meaning of which he had not yet fully gauged, to be living under the
same roof with a girl such as this. He found himself listening for her
voice outside and the sound of her feet, and learned almost at once to
distinguish between the clatter of her wooden pattens and any one else's
when she was busy in the yard or barns.
Even though she held him at coolest arm's length, and repelled any
slightest attempt at abridgment of the distance, he still rejoiced in
the sight of her and found the world good because of her presence in it.
He did not understand her feeling about him in the least. He did not
know that she had had to give up her room for him--that she detested the
mines and everything tainted by them, and himself as head and forefront
of the offence--that she regarded him as an outsider and a foreigner and
therefore quite out of place in Sark.
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