Clarice felt this. And being with Quincy was a way of resenting it. She was a fresh, unspoiled sprout at seventeen. Her body was tall. But her head was little and rounded and her face was rather soft in contrast to the firm, narrow lines of the rest of her. Quincy called her “Buttercup.” For her hair was gold and her cheeks were tanned and her eyes were green in the sun rather than blue.
But the unfortunate thing was that, although Quincy enjoyed all this, he seemed to be learning very little about the ultimate qualities of woman. He caught himself up at times, in his enjoyment. He seemed of the opinion that if he enjoyed himself, he could not profit. In this treasurable thought, a stain of schooling had indeed fixed on his else impervious nature.
With the heavy heat of August, when the trees turn purple and a translucent flame waves over nature and sears her gentle freshness, Quincy learned that in his rigid purpose he had failed altogether. He learned also that his mother had been silently right—just as often she had been volubly wrong. Clarice was become a part of the fire and fumes. He could not help this. But he could keep from seeing her so often. He resented her attraction. And with set teeth and a stern eye, he put a censorship upon their walks.
A few days later than Rhoda—in the height of August—Clarice also was leaving for the mountains. Rhoda and her husband approved of the Lodges.
“He is a big lawyer,” said he.
“She was a Querelton,” said she. And always, she had smiled when Quincy’s attention to a Querelton’s daughter came up to her notice.
“See her as much as you can;” she advised him once. “When she makes her début next season, you’ll not be looked at—I assure you. You know,” Rhoda turned to her mother, “the Lodges are coming to live in town next winter, just so that Clarice has a chance.”
This speech rankled Quincy and amazed him. He pondered it for some time, after the Crams had gone. When his wild flower “had a chance” to become a wired thing of wax, she would, then, welcome it? and he who must stand in her spirit for the scent of the moist fern and the dancing of the brook would not be noticed?
There were a few days left of Clarice when these words, spoken at random, crystallized their effect on Quincy. It was well in the period of holding off from Clarice—and of resentment that she should have given him so little knowledge, yet occupied so fiery a part within him. At once, his ardor and his curiosity re-kindled. He sought her out for a last walk in the woods.
Clarice told him that she was very busy packing. But she would take an afternoon from her important duty.