Yet her wonderful pliability, her joyful boyishness, had behind all a delicate anxiety which only showed in flashes now and then, fully understood by no one except Carnac's mother and old Denzil.
These two having suffered strangely in life had realized that the girl was always waiting for a curtain to rise which did not rise, for a voice to speak which gave no sound.
Yet since Carnac's coming back there had appeared a slight change in her, a bountiful, eager alertness, a sense of wonder and experiment, adding new interest to her personality.

Carnac was conscious of this increased vitality, was impressed and even provoked by it.

Somehow he felt--for he had the telepathic mind--that the girl admired and liked Tarboe.

He did not stop to question how or why she should like two people so different as Tarboe and himself.
The faint colour of the crimsoning maples was now in her cheek; the light of the autumn evening was in her eyes; the soft vitality of September was in her motions.

She was attractively alive.