She had forgot, indeed, that world which lay beyond men's world; but she remembered it now—the strange night, which formerly in the quiet of a child's room came gently, like a friendly stream, across her white counterpane, awaking troubled questionings, impossible, terrifying confrontations of the beyond and the hereafter. She had feared these strange whys and wherefores then; and now they laid upon her only a great peace—perhaps because she sought no answer.
She wanted to talk to him as one could talk in the hidden night, away from foolish conventions. What did it matter what they said or did here in this engulfing quiet? Why should human beings be constantly at war with one another, stopped by vanities? She had forgot her anguish, in an impulse toward the weakness in the man.
He stopped the car and turned toward her.
"What's wrong? What's the trouble?"
"Mine's nothing!" she said. "Let me talk about you."
But they did not at once begin—a little at a loss.
"How old are you?" she said at last.
"Twenty-eight ages!"
"Is it true, what they tell me?"
"That I'm riding hellbent to the devil? Correct!"