"How I should like to have seen you together," Rowena said with her happy laugh.
"Now we'll dismiss the child," he said somewhat peremptorily. "Did you enjoy your boat the other day?"
"So much. And I enjoyed this all the better when I came back to it. Change is good for most folk, I suppose. I had a visit from the Frasers yesterday. They were horrified to think I should be meditating spending the winter here."
"They would be. But I wonder if you will do it."
"Yes, I will," Rowena said, a shadow seeming to fall across her bright eyes. "What a lot of thinking I shall do! I have done a good bit already."
He looked up quickly at her.
"Tell me some of your deductions."
"Oh, they are not very original. The mystery of life, and of sadness and gladness. I have begun to have a glimmer of light. There may be some good in our awful experience of the past four or five years. Somehow or other a character without any gravity in its composition has lost its attractiveness to me. The Fraser girls jarred upon me. They do resent and despise those who will not dance to their pleasure. Does it mean that this forced seclusion of mine is making me jump into the solid impassive state of old age?"
He did not answer. Then she asked him somewhat wistfully:
"Have you made any useful deductions during your convalescence?"