"Was there ever such a materialist?" he chuckled. "It all rose from a box of New York candy, and I thought it was sentiment. Twenty-one years old and the same baby, only not quite so fat."
"Well, it was the truth," she said defensively. "I suppose if I'd left the candy out it would have sounded better."
"Don't leave the candy out. It was the candy and the truth that made it all Susan's."
She picked up a stone and threw it in the river, then as she watched its splash: "Doesn't it seem long ago when we were in Rochester?"
"We left there in April and this is June."
"Yes, a short time in weeks, but some way or other it seems like ages. When I think of it I feel as if it was at the other side of the world, and I'd grown years and years older since we left. If I go on this way I'll be fully fifty-three when we get to California."
"What's made you feel so old?"
"I don't exactly know. I don't think it's because we've gone over so much space, but that has something to do with it. It seems as if the change was more in me."
"How have you changed?"
She gathered up the loose stones near her and dropped them from palm to palm, frowning a little in an effort to find words to clothe her vague thought.