"She's a dancer, isn't she?" He had a vague and ashamed wish to see her feet and petticoats, and he thrust the photograph aside. Frowning, he walked to the door. He felt himself unclean, and he bathed his eyes in the coolness of mountain stream and wood. Then he looked at Theresa. She came like another breath of wind. Grace was a girl to him, but Theresa was a child, and her eager look would never have a sensuous appeal: it was of the open air, of water and of wind. Her lips were closed as on a sudden determination, her eyes were light and shining, she seemed to speak the tongue of all creatures in love with the war of life; but he thought of her at once as of a little leaf blown from a birch-tree, but a leaf that leapt in the wind because it chose to do so, and with a firm intention of being blown only where it wished to go.
"I like her," he said aloud.
"She isn't pretty."
"No." He felt there was something indecent in prettiness. "Let's put Theresa on the mantelpiece."
"Grace shall go in the parlour. She is an ornament."
"I've got that scholarship," he said abruptly. "I heard at school. There'll be a letter here to-morrow." She stood silent for an instant, and he saw a deeper colour creep over her cheeks.
"I knew you'd get it." She kissed him. "Bless you, my son! I knew you'd get it."
"Oh, Mother!"
"I did, or why did I buy all that flannel for your shirts? I've made three of them already. Your father's in the garden. Go and tell him."
"You can."