Jean shrank a little, as if Mary had touched the glowing spot inside.
"Then—live every possibility up to the hilt and take the next."
"Logical and doubtless true. But I wish you wouldn't look so much as if your next was an ascent straight into Heaven. It makes me feel old—and a little lonely, Jean."
"Don't, Mary; please don't, I don't want you to feel like that."
"Oh, it's not as bad as all that. But, really, Jean, I never did think of the difference in our ages until lately. We always seemed to be walking along at the same gait, but these last few weeks you look as if you had been doing it out of politeness, and if you really wanted to you could pick up your skirts—and run forever."
"I do feel like that, Mary; exactly as if I had wings."
Dr. Mary looked up, but the joke on her lips did not come. There was a short pause and then Jean said:
"Mary, I'm going to tell you something that I believe I've wanted to tell you for a long time."
And she did, looking out over the Park while Dr. Mary sat silent.
Jean went back to the beginning, to the sense of a fuller world because Gregory was in it. Calm and unashamed, she spared nothing.