This manner set the girl pondering, and she said to the widow one day:
"Mrs. Grant, I think living all alone in that house, where his wife was once, is bad for Mr. Grey."
"There is no doubt of it, my child. It will kill him, I am sure. He ought to marry again soon."
"Marry again soon!" cried the girl in surprise. The idea that he might marry again had never suggested itself to her mind, and it seemed very wonderful.
"Yes, my dear. He's a young man. A much younger man than many men of thirty."
"I know he is very amusing, but I had never before thought of Mr. Grey marrying again."
To Maud the idea was not only novel, but a little shocking at first. She had been in the habit of classing him with her father. Now for the first time she had come to think of him as a man who was not only not nearly so old as her father, but relatively young.
All at once the recent change in his manner towards her struck her, and, little as had been her experience of the world, or her knowledge of its ways, she could not but see a desire on Mr. Grey's part to be particularly agreeable to her. This, coupled with the fact that she could no longer regard him as a man the events of whose life were merely awaiting the final audit to be posted into the eternal ledger, made her feel an awakened interest in him. He was a new man, an individuality hitherto unexplored.
Another thing struck her at the same time.
Her cousin, whom she had taken as a grave, serious-minded, chivalric soul, turned out to have two sides to his character. When not with her, he could be light, trivial, profane.