He knew her at a glance; but he was a trifle disappointed. His first thought was, that like the mansion she had been holding herself down to the level of the Killsbury people.
“You surprise me,” he said. “You have changed so very, very little.”
“And you do not seem to have changed at all; and yet I am not surprised.”
“But you were at the changeable age and I was not.”
“And you have been changing places and peoples and views constantly. I should think you would be changed by reflection if nothing more.”
“There is something in that apparently,” laughed Bombs. “Then it must be because you have lived in the same place and with the same people that you look the same. If the theory is true you should move on in order to attain a full development. That would be in accordance with Goethe’s idea would it not?
‘Keep not standing fixed and rooted.
Briskly venture—briskly roam.’
“Perhaps I didn’t ‘foot it freely’ enough to receive a benefaction of bronze and muscle that the ladies admire.”
“From the Occident to the Orient even on wheels, there must be much to see and learn, Mr. Bombs.”
“Yes, Miss Adelaide, and much that is not worth learning. When I was in Turkey, I learned nothing of more interest than that the Sultan had finished his forty days fast at Ramazar and taken a new wife.”