“How contented you must be!” he said musingly.
“Yes, I am content,” she answered.
“I am, too,” Philip told her, “for I have passed my romantic period, when I thought youthful sorrows could be everlasting. You know, Miss Le Breton, the young always think sorrow eternal. I have grown old in a few months, and have passed from one stage of experience to another at express speed. It is a curious feeling to look back over a few months, and to feel them to be years.”
He paused, and she regarded him with strange intentness.
“I understand that too,” she said at last.
Dan, who had been growing impatient to have a chance to speak with his beautiful Madonna, deliberately interrupted Philip and Eweretta at this point.
“You like Hastings, I hope, Miss Le Breton? Your mother and I have been lauding it so well that I think the town ought to give us a testimonial.”
“It is lovely,” said Eweretta. “There is so fine a sea and such wonderful country too. I think the view from the West Hill quite wonderful. It reminds me a little of Quebec. Were you ever in Canada, Mr. Webster?”
“No, to my loss,” acknowledged Dan. “But I mean to see it one day. I mean to go everywhere. A nice statement for an impecunious painter to make, you will say! But I am an optimistic beggar, and I have wonderful castles in Spain.”
Mattie brought out tea at this point and conversation became general.