“That girl,” said Clive, “wouldn’t be particularly interested in the summer boarders. But she would be interested in the writers and artists out on the edge of the ravines. She would hear the gossip about their ‘queer doin’s’”—he smiled, and looked at Rose-Ann—“about how they run around in the snow without a stitch of clothes on! for instance....”
“Goodness!” said Rose-Ann, “who could have seen me?”
“Us village folks hears about everything that’s goin’ on!” said Clive. “Well—this girl would hear about these crazy artists, and their crazy talk, and their crazy parties—and she would feel that she understood these people, that she belonged among them. But she would never have talked to a living soul about the things that interested her. She would be inarticulate. And if any of these artists or writers had talked to her for a passing moment, they would never have guessed that she was anything but what she seemed—a village girl.
“She might see a good deal of these people, first and last. She might be the girl who drove them home from the station in her father’s car, who came for them after midnight at the end of one of their crazy parties. And none of them would ever guess—why should he?—that the girl who honked the horn impatiently for them out in the road, would go home and read ‘Man and Superman’ in bed, and then cry herself to sleep.
“Unless, perhaps, one of the ravine-folk happened to be a man of a very curious and inquiring disposition, who never took anything at its face-value—who doubted everything—even the villageness of village girls.... He might ask her one day—and wouldn’t it be absurd? can you imagine anything more ridiculous to ask a village girl, out of a clear sky—‘Did you ever read Bernard Shaw?’ And she might reply very quietly, ‘Yes, every play I could get hold of.’”
“Well!” said Rose-Ann.
“You can see what might happen.... Those people would want to see more of each other. And you can imagine some of the difficulties. Why, they might as well have belonged to the Montagues and the Capulets! You can imagine the talk—about two people who only wanted a chance for a little literary conversation!”
“Only, Clive?” asked Rose-Ann.
“At first, anyway. But with that atmosphere of intrigue and suspicion, their meetings would assume a romantic colouring—inevitably.... To such a man, that girl with her need for ideas, for talk, for companionship, might be very appealing. And to her, in her isolation and ignorance, he might appear as a very superior, a very wonderful person indeed.... He would lend her books, and talk with her, and urge her to go to Chicago and get some kind of a job. He would talk to her about love—”
“In short,” said Felix, “he would fall in love with her!”