The hills seemed small and stunted and the air over-dusty and hot. The old drive along the river was stupid, she decided, as she took it and was prepared to be drifted back into enchanted girlhood. Her accompanist, who was with her, agreed when Thurley remarked that one never remembered childhood joys with accuracy. The accompanist was thinking of her own home town where the hills were green and gorgeous and the river sparkling—but the accompanist had not been home in some time either!
The summer yawned before Thurley like a dark cavern. She longed for fall and work—glimpses of Hobart with snubs and sarcasm from him if nothing else. She wanted Ernestine; she felt she could become as cynical as Ernestine with no trouble at all and she would agree with Caleb that “kiss-baby” copy was perfectly proper if people were fools enough to pay for it; she resolved to play cards for money the next winter, as Lissa urged, and really to bully Polly into accepting decent clothes and being some one respectable. She wanted Collin to paint her portrait in a certain cream satin frock, because she wanted to know what Hobart would say of it, and as for Mark—there was a dangerous expression in Thurley’s eyes as she thought of what she might or might not do concerning him ... besides, there were many others who would pay her attention, rich, powerful, foolish creatures who follow such butterflies as religiously as the hounds do the hares. Every one must decide early in the game if he is to run with the hounds or with the hares! Thurley had not yet decided. She knew that as she came home from the disappointing river drive the last resolve to be natural and her wild-rose self vanished—it was the final straw which turned her in the way Lissa’s white fingers had pointed.
Vows or no vows, Thurley would live! And if she loved some one who chose to live a hermit’s life—— And did he live a hermit’s life despite this chatter of a Maine hermitage? There was room for reasonable doubt. Thurley would live as she pleased, time enough to take the consequences!
She began cheering the accompanist by promises of a house party and her own drooping spirits by the promise of thoroughly shocking the narrow, well-meaning town.
When they drove into the stableyard and Ali Baba came out as was his custom, Thurley sent the accompanist into the house and wandered back with Ali Baba.
“Seems mighty fine to have you back,” he said.
“Good to be back, Ali Baba. Well, have I changed so much?” she asked, waiting curiously for the old man’s opinion.
He shook his head. “If your mother was to have kissed you good-by, I’m gosh hanged whether or not she’d know you now! You’re a great lady.”
“Nonsense, it’s just the clothes. Let’s talk about every one else but me. I want to get Hopeful and Betsey fur coats next winter and you’ll have to find out the sort they like.”
“I guess singin’ pays,” he ventured.