When Irene and Kemp again became absorbed in each other Grace picked up the thread of her talk with Trenton.
“We stopped just where it was growing interesting,” she remarked. “Let’s go right on where we left off. You were saying you thought it better not to lose your head tonight. Was that on my account? Am I such a young innocent that you’ve got to take care of me?”
He laughed at the eagerness with which she flung these sentences at him. If she was affected by her restricted potations there was nothing in her manner or speech to indicate the fact. Her eyes were bright, but only from the excitement of her entrance upon a new field of adventure. Once a young student at the university had addressed some verses “To Her Questing Eyes” and published them in one of the college periodicals. The poem had been instantly recognized as a tribute to Grace Durland; questing was a fitting term for a certain look that came into her eyes at times when her habitual eager gaze became crossed oddly with a far-away look of revery. Trenton was doing full justice to her eyes and was mindful of their swift changes.
“On the whole I don’t really believe you need protecting,” he answered. “Oh, just a little, perhaps; but I think I’d trust you to take care of yourself.”
“But what if I don’t want to be taken care of! What if I want to jump into the water with a big splash!”
“Um! So that’s the idea? Well, I think you’d swim out; and yet again you mightn’t. There are those who don’t,” he ended gravely.
“I’m not afraid—I’m not afraid of anything!” she said with a defiant lifting of her head.
“Dear me!” He narrowed his eyes and looked at her sharply. “Broadly speaking, it’s better not to be afraid of life; life’s got to be lived.” He pecked at his salad for a moment, then put down his fork and went on. “We’ve got to meet situations; play the game with the cards as they’re dealt. We hear a good deal these days about our grand old grandfathers and what heroic stuff they were made of. They fought with savages who didn’t have the right ammunition to fight back with; but nowadays the savages are inside of us. The wild streak in man is showing itself. It’s in all of us.”
He touched his breast lightly and smiled to minimize the seriousness of what he was saying.
“Right around here, where the corn grows tall, you might think—and probably a lot of people back yonder in the city like to think—that everything’s safe and it’s easy to be good! We’re all being tested all the time. The man who was an angel fifty years ago would probably be a perfect devil these days if he had half a chance. The world is a different place every morning; but that’s only an old habit the world has. It keeps spinning a little faster all the time. Now we’ve got right here—” with a slight movement of the head he indicated Kemp and Irene—“we’ve got a situation that wouldn’t have been possible twenty years ago—at least not in a town like this. But we may be sure something of the kind was going on only it was better hidden. Nowadays with more people and more wealth and the general craving for excitement things happen differently. We may regret such things, you and I, but we are not helping matters by denying they exist. Everybody is restless; people are living as though they expected to die tomorrow and are afraid they’re going to miss something; but I don’t believe people are wickeder than they used to be. What we used to call wicked we call naughty now, and pretend it doesn’t matter!”