So at first he only glanced up at her occasionally. The picture flashed upon his mind was not at all that of a child, but of a young woman of his own age, yet infinitely more self-absorbed and independent than any he could recall. The chin, grasped firmly in her hand as she leaned forward, the strong, searching eyes and the coiling braid and the absence of legs had their effect gradually of making him forget that he was dealing with a merely precocious youngster; so, as he warmed up to the tale of Helmer and Doctor Rank and Nora, he shifted about and watched her animated brown face.
The sun and the wind and the rain had toned her in shades of brown. The hair was black-brown, the eyes sepia but lustrous and alive, the skin ruddy-brown like a young Indian. The fat, short-fingered hand that supported the chin was almost cedar.
The illusion of maturity was enhanced by a flashing interpolation or two.
“Women mustn’t imitate men,” she asserted. “That’s silly. Men have some fine things that don’t belong just to them; that’s all. Why shouldn’t I ride a bicycle? Why shouldn’t I play tennis and get tanned? Why shouldn’t I work hard, too, and get all there is out of the sport? I’m no jelly fish. Chinese women can walk; can’t they? Well, why shouldn’t they? I found that in Gardiner, but I thought of it myself, long before that.”
They discussed a possible Chinese woman who had revolted, and the consequences in community and family persecution. Then she hinted guardedly of some personal persecutions. The mother had misgivings. There was talk in the family of corralling and branding and fitting for market.
She had never been to school. She had fought against it; and they had given in. A nursery maid had taught her to read and figure, the rest had taken care of itself.
He admired her immensely then, she was so careful not to show a partisan spirit in a matter that so much concerned her happiness. The mother was quite right to wish her daughters to be alike, she admitted; but it is not given even loving mothers to understand all about their children. Sacrifice must be made by the children, she knew, for mothers must not suffer too much, even when they were unwisely restrictive or made laws just for the sake of making them. As she spoke thus soberly, the little lady seemed really older than the man before her.
Then the spell was shattered.
“I will never wear a boned waist!” she broke in frankly.
In Mount Airy, twenty-five years ago, one did not speak openly of invisible clothing. In school one was taught to say limb, and not leg; and no young lady ever admitted any public knowledge of petticoats or stockings.