Mary flashed at her a surprised and grateful glance. "Grace," she said, solemnly, "you're the first person who has seemed to understand."
"And I understand," said Grace, "because to me life is a Great Adventure. Everything that happens is a hazard on the highway—as yet I haven't found a man who will travel the road with me; they all want to open a gate and shut me in and say, 'Stay here.'"
Mary's eyes were shining. "I feel that, too."
Grace kissed her. "You'd laugh, Mary, if I told the dream which is at the end of my journey."
"I sha'n't laugh—tell me."
There was a rich color in Grace's cheeks. In her modish frock of the black which she affected, and which was this morning of fine serge set on by a line of fur at hem and wrist, and topped by a little hat of black velvet which framed the vividness of her glorious hair, she looked the woman of the world, so that her words gained strength by force of contrast.
"Nobody would believe it," she prefaced, "but, Mary Ballard, some day when I'm tired of dancing through life, when I am weary of the adventures on the road, I'm going to build a home for little children, and spend my days with them."
So the two girls dreamed dreams and saw visions of the future. They sang and soared, they kissed and confided.
"Whatever comes, life shall never be commonplace," Mary declared, and as the bell rang and she went to the table, she felt that now nothing could daunt her—the hard things would be merely a part of a glorious pilgrimage.
Susan's hot rolls were pronounced perfect, and Susan, serenely conscious of it, banished the second maid to the kitchen and waited on the table herself.