Explore "The Mistress of Bonaventure" by Harold Bindloss on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Haldane could command any man's attention when he chose to exert himself, and, I fancied, made a special effort on my behalf during his homeward journey. As a result of this I almost forgot that I was a homeless and practically ruined man as I listened to his shrewd predictions concerning the future of that region, or occasionally ventured to point out improbabilities in some of them. The depression, however, returned with double force when we came into sight of Bonaventure soon after dusk, and with it a curious reluctance to face the young mistress of the homestead.
Lucille Haldane was my junior by several years. Indeed, on our first meeting I had considered her little more than a girl, but since then a respect for her opinions, and a desire to retain her approval, had been growing upon me. Perhaps it was because her opinions more or less coincided with my own, but this fact would not account for the undeniable thrill of pleasure which had followed her naive announcement that she believed in me. Hitherto, with one exception, I had figured before her as a successful man, and I positively shrank from appearing as one badly beaten and brought down by his own overconfident folly. I remembered how she once said: "You must not disappoint us."