stage-driving days, of the younger years. Her manner
flattered his sex vanity. They progressed
famously.

"You don't like the children any better than you
did?"

"They get more like rats every year."

"I thought about you, held against your will."

"Don't tell lies; I went right out of your mind."

"Not as quick as I went out of yours. I did
think about you, though--" he stopped, but she insisted
upon his finishing the remark. "Well, I
remembered what you said about your shoulders,
and I saw you that night at your window..."

"Men, somehow, are always curious about me,"
she remarked indifferently; "they have bothered me
ever since I was a girl. I make them mad. I never
worry about such things myself -- from the way
women talk, and men go on, there must be something
left out of me... it just seems silly to get all red
in the face--"

He almost constructed her words into a challenge.
Five years ago, he continued, or only two, he would
have changed her conception of living, he would
have broken down her indifference, but now -- His
mental deliberations ended abruptly, for, even in his
mind, he avoided all reference to Lettice; they studiously
omitted her name in their conversation.

"Are you going to the camp meeting on South

[[179]]

p178 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p179w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p180

v?