"I used to hear it many times," he said slowly, "and each time I've heard it, it has meant more to me. There's something about it, deep down, covered up by all those big tones, that I never could understand—until now. I guess," he faltered, "I guess I've never realized how much a man has to suffer before he can do a big thing like that. Something about this,"—with a gesture of his one hand,—"this house and these hills, and what I've been through out here, and the way you play, helps me to understand what an accomplishment like that must have cost."
She looked at him out of the blue eyes that had become so grave, and said:
"I guess we all have to suffer to do big things; but did you ever think how much we have to suffer to appreciate big things?"
And she went on talking in this strain with a low, even voice, talking for hours, it seemed, while VB listened and wondered at her breadth of view, her sympathy and understanding.
She was no longer a little, sunny-haired girl, a bit of pretty down floating along through life. Before, he had looked on her as such; true, he had known her as sympathetic, balanced, with a keen appreciation of values. But her look, her tone, her insight into somber, grim truths came out with emphasis in the atmosphere created by that music, and to Young VB, Gail Thorpe had become a woman.
A silence came, and they sat through it with that ease which comes only to those who are in harmony. No constraint now, no flushed faces, no awkward meeting of eyes. The new understanding which had come made even silence eloquent and satisfying.
Then the talk commenced, slowly at first, gradually quickening. It was of many things—of her winter, of her days in the East, of her friends. And through it Gail took the lead, talking as few women had ever talked to him before; talking of personalities, yet deviating from them to deduce a principle here, apply a maxim there, and always showing her humanness by building the points about individuals and the circumstances which surround them.
"Don't you ever get lonely here?" he asked abruptly, thinking that she must have moments of discontent in these mountains and with these people.
"No. Why should I?"
"Well, you've been used to things of a different sort. It seems to be a little rough for a girl—like you."