"Did you learn to say such things in France?"
"Haven't I always said them?"
"Not in quite the same way. You've grown up, Randy. You seem years older."
"Do you like me—older?"
"Of course." There was warmth in her voice but no coquetry. "What a silly thing to ask, Randy."
Calvin, having served the lunch, ate his own particular feast of chicken backs and necks under the
surrey from a pasteboard box cover. Having thus separated himself as it were from those he served, he was at his ease. He knew his place and was happy in it.
Mary Flippin also knew her place. But she was not happy. She sat higher up on the hill with her child asleep in her arms, and looked down on the Judge's party. Except for an accident of birth, she might be sitting now among them. Would she ever sit among them? Would her little daughter, Fidelity?
III
"We are the only one of the old families who are eating lunch out of a basket," said Caroline Paine; "next year we shall have to go to the Country Club with the rest of them."