For Graydon’s personality she had only the virginal interest which is reassured by a pleasant manner, a pleasing voice, and the trim, neat inconspicuousness of face, figure, and apparel which invites neither criticism nor particular admiration,—nor alarm.
But for his education, his knowledge, his wisdom, his fluency,—above all for his evident sympathy and ability to understand her desire,—she had an excited and passionate need.
As he talked, he looked her over, carefully, cautiously—preoccupied with odd and curious ideas even while conversing about other things.
That evening, when taking leave, he pressed her slender fingers together, gently, not alarming her—scarcely even awaking self-consciousness. He was always the artist, first of all.
After a month, even Elmer understood that Graydon was “sparking” Eris.
And, from the time that Eris first was made to understand that fact she lived in a continuous, confused dream, through the unreality of which sometimes she was aware of her own heart beating with excitement.
He had said to her, one evening, after the family had gone to bed, that the stage was her vocation and that God himself must have ordained that she should, one day, triumph there.
She listened as in a blessed trance. All around her the night air grew heavy with the scent of honeysuckle. A moon was shining. The whippoorwill’s breathless cry came from the snake-fence hedge.