"Yes, I've changed in a way, of course," she admitted presently, "I feel grown up now, and I never felt so before. Life was all play to me until grandfather died."
"And it isn't now?"
"Not entirely—I'm still growing."
Her hand rested on the bars beside which she was standing, and the fragrant festoons of wild grape blooming beside the post, brushed softly against her bosom. There was a quietness, a suggestion of restraint in her attitude which he had never seen in the old Molly.
"The day you went away you told me you wanted to live," he said.
"I remember. I couldn't have done differently. I had to find out things for myself. Of course, life is all just the same everywhere, but then I didn't know it. I used to think that one had only to travel a certain distance and one would pass the boundary of the commonplace and come into the country of adventure. It was silly, of course, but you see I didn't know any better. It was the fret of youth, I suppose, though people never seem to think that women ever feel it—or, perhaps, as Mrs. Bottom used to say, it was only the Gay blood working off."
"I don't like to hear you talk of the Gay blood in you," he said quickly.
His voice betrayed him, and looking up, she asked quietly, "How is Judy,
Abel?"
"She's not well. It seems she suffers with her nerves."
"I'm coming to see her. Judy and I were always friends, you know."