“Yes,” said he moodily, “I know.”
They swung down into a valley, over a bridge, up the farther slope, through a notch and out along a little plateau with a stream winding across it.
Peter found himself in some danger of forgetting his earnest purpose. He could fairly taste the fresh spring air. He could not resist occasionally glancing sidelong at his companion and thinking—“She is great in that sweater!” A new soft magic was stealing in everywhere among what he had regarded as his real thoughts and ideas. Once her elbow brushed his; and little flames rose in his spirit.... She walked like a boy. She talked like a boy. She actually seemed to think like a boy. The Worm's remark came to him, with an odd stabbing effect... “We haven't got around to 'the complete life' yet!”
She quite bewildered him. For she distinctly was not a boy. She was a young woman. She couldn't possibly be so free from thoughts of self and the drama of life, of man and the all-conquering urge of nature! As a dramatist, as a student of women, he knew better. No, she couldn't—no more than “friend Betty” back there, philandering along with Hy, The Worm had guaranteed her innocence... but the Worm notoriously didn't understand women. No, it couldn't be true. For she had broken away from her folks. She did live with the regular bunch in the Village. She did undoubtedly know her Strindberg and Freud. She had taken up public dancing and acting. She did smoke her cigarettes—had smoked one not half an hour back, publicly, on the veranda of a road house! ... He felt again the irritation she had on other occasions stirred in him.
He slowed down, tense with this bewilderment. He drew his hand across his forehead.
Sue went on a little ahead; then stopped, turned and regarded him with friendly concern!
“Anything the matter?”
“No—oh, no!”
“Perhaps we started too soon after lunch.”
She was babying him!