"Ah, I must not say. In any case you would not agree with me. Wasn't it you who once scoffed at my idyll in the wilderness?"
"I do not think that I believe in idylls, nowadays," she answered. "One risks so many disappointments when one believes in anything."
He raised his eyebrows.
"You did not talk like this at Blakely," he remarked.
"I am nearly a year older," she answered, "and a year wiser."
"You pain me," he answered, with a little sigh. "You are a person of intelligence, and you talk of growing wiser with the years. Don't you know that the only supreme wisdom is the wisdom of the child? Our inherent ignorance is fed and nourished by experience."
"You are hiding yourself," she remarked, "behind a fence of words—words that mean less than nothing! I don't suppose that even you would hesitate to admit that you have come into a larger world. You may have to pay for it. We all do. But at any rate it is an atmosphere which breeds men."
"And changes women," he murmured, under his breath.
She did not speak to him for several moments. Then the alteration in her tone and manner was almost marked.
"You mentioned Blakely a few minutes ago," she said. "I wonder whether you remember our discussion there upon precisely what has come to pass."