“How’d you like it up there, anyway?”
“Up where?”
“Up at Antelope. It was a sort of strange, new experience for you.”
“Oh, I liked it so much—I loved part of it. I liked the people much better than the people down here, Mrs. Perley, and Cora, and Perley, and Willoughby—did you ever know a nicer man than Willoughby?—and Judge Washburne. He was a real gentleman, not only in his manners but down in his heart. And even Perley’s boy, he was so natural and awkward and honest. I felt different from what I do here, more myself, less as if outside things were influencing me to do things I didn’t always like to do or mean to do. I felt as if I were doing just what I ought to do—it’s hard to express it—as if I were being true.”
“Oh,” said her father with a falling inflection which had a sound of significant comprehension.
“Do you know what I mean?” she asked.
“I can make a sort of guess at it.”
He puffed at his cigar for a moment, then took it from his mouth, eyed the lit end, and said,
“How’d you like Dominick Ryan? You haven’t said anything about him.”
Her voice, in answering, sounded low and careful. She spoke slowly, as if considering her words: