"I suppose even he was young once," she said, "but I'm sure he doesn't
remember it."

He saw her go by, young and alert in the sunshine, and the May air
stirred the curtains. He looked vaguely about him, unlocked a drawer
in his writing-table, and took out a leather case. He gazed long at
the face within, a young bright face with long ringlets above the
formal bodice and sloping shoulders of the sixties.

"Well, well," he said, "well, well," locked it away, and went back to
_De Poenis Parvulorum_.

"I _will_ go out," said Betty, as she parted with the peas. "I don't
care!"

It was not worth while to change one's frock. Even when one was
properly dressed, at rare local garden-party or flower-show, one never
met anyone that mattered.

She fetched her sketching things. At eighteen one does so pathetically
try to feed the burgeoning life with the husks of polite
accomplishment. She insisted on withholding from the clutches of the
Parish the time to practise Beethoven and Sullivan for an hour daily.
Daily, for half an hour, she read an improving book. Just now it was
The French Revolution, and Betty thought it would last till she was
sixty. She tried to read French and German--Telemaque and Maria
Stuart. She fully intended to become all that a cultured young woman
should be. But self-improvement is a dull game when there is no one to
applaud your score.