Wolf watched her with narrowing eyelids. He recalled that first walk with her up the slope of Babylon Hill, and his pursuit of her among the earthworks of Poll’s Camp. Why did all girls introduce into life an element of the conventional⁠—into that life of which they themselves were the most mysterious expression? He became suddenly aware of the existence, in the beautiful head opposite him, of a whole region of interests and values that had nothing to do with lovemaking and nothing to do with romance. Was love itself, then, and all its mysteries, only a kind of magic gate leading into a land full of alien growths and unfamiliar soils?

“Gerda, my sweet Gerda!” he cried reproachfully. “How absurd! What does it matter? It’s only my mother. She must take us as she finds us.”

The girl pouted and smiled scornfully.

“That’s all you know!” she retorted. “Your mother’s a woman, isn’t she?”