She thought, “Oh, dear, I wish when men want to be comforted they would not make a girl spend so much time and energy getting them to say that they do want it.” Aloud she said:
“You must tell me what’s the matter.”
“It’s a long story.”
“We have all afternoon.”
“That’s it—we haven’t all eternity.”
“Oh, eternity,” said Crystal, dismissing it with the Cord wave of the hand. “Who wants eternity? ‘Since we must die how bright the starry track,’ you know.”
“No; what is that?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Oh.”
After this meeting of minds they drove for some time in silence. Ben was seeing a new aspect of Newport—bare, rugged country, sandy roads, a sudden high rock jutting out toward the sea, a rock on which tradition asserts that Bishop Berkeley once sat and considered the illusion of matter. They stopped at length at the edge of a sandy beach. Crystal parked her car neatly with a sharp turn of the wheel, and got out.