“Good?—what is good? I am the result of my surroundings—a little better than some, a little worse than others. So was Cousin Harriet. So is La Rosita. I’m not cynical. I merely see life—my section of it—exactly as it is. If you become a newspaper woman you’ll probably receive a succession of shocks. As nearly as I can make out they’re about like us—half and half. I became quite chummy with a newspaper woman, once, crossing the Atlantic. She was awfully pretty, and, as nearly as one woman can judge of another, perfectly proper. She related some wild and weird experiences she had had with men. Yours would probably be wilder and weirder, as you appear to be possessed of an unholy fascination; and in a year or two you’ll be a beauty. All you want is a little more figure and style—or rather clothes.”
“Well, if I’m to have wild and weird experiences I prefer to have them with men of brains, not with a lot of empty-headed society men.”
“Don’t generalise too freely, my dear. There are newspaper men and newspaper men,—according to this girl I’ve just told you of. Some are brainy, some are merely bright; some are gentlemen, most are common beyond words. And, as she said—after you’ve worked with man in his shirt sleeves, you don’t have many illusions about the animal left.”
“I have not one, and I lost them in an hour. Your brother is supposed to be a gentleman with a long array of ancestors, and he acted like a wild Indian.”
“My dear, he merely lost his head. That was a compliment to you, and you should not be too hard on a man in those circumstances. He won’t do it again, I’m sure of that. He has some control. I warned him before he came not to pun, and he says he didn’t, not once. Now, tell me one thing—Don’t you like him just a little?”
“No,” said Patience; but she flushed to her hair, and Hal, with her uncanny wisdom, said no more.
XXII
The next day Patience went to the woods for the first time since Beverly Peele’s onslaught. A natural reaction had lifted her spirits out of the slough, and she turned to nature, as ever. She could never be the same again, she thought with a sigh; and once more she must readjust herself. She wondered if any girl had ever done so much readjusting in an equal number of years.
The woods were no longer a scene of enchantment. The ice had melted. The trees were grey and naked again. The ground was slush, and nasty to walk upon.
“But the spring must come in time,” she thought; “and then perhaps I’ll feel new too—but not the same, for like the spring I shall have other seasons behind me.