either restless or embarrassed; but her adaptability, her
appropriateness, would not have been nature but "tact." The
oddness of the situation would have made sleep impossible,
or, if weariness had overcome her for a moment, she would
have waked with a start, wondering where she was, and how
she had come there, and if her hair were tidy; and nothing
short of hairpins and a glass would have restored her self-
possession...

The reflection set him wondering whether the "sheltered"
girl's bringing-up might not unfit her for all subsequent
contact with life. How much nearer to it had Mrs. Leath
been brought by marriage and motherhood, and the passage of
fourteen years? What were all her reticences and evasions
but the result of the deadening process of forming a "lady"?
The freshness he had marvelled at was like the unnatural
whiteness of flowers forced in the dark.

As he looked back at their few days together he saw that
their intercourse had been marked, on her part, by the same
hesitations and reserves which had chilled their earlier
intimacy. Once more they had had their hour together and
she had wasted it. As in her girlhood, her eyes had made
promises which her lips were afraid to keep. She was still
afraid of life, of its ruthlessness, its danger and mystery.
She was still the petted little girl who cannot be left
alone in the dark...His memory flew back to their youthful
story, and long-forgotten details took shape before him.
How frail and faint the picture was! They seemed, he and
she, like the ghostly lovers of the Grecian Urn, forever