As long as his enthusiasm had lasted he had talked fluently and naturally, swept away from his self-consciousness; but with the return of the formal amenities he became as ill at ease and shy as a boy.

"There ain't anything more except that we're building a railroad out there, and I'm going back to finish it next spring if I'm alive." The September breeze entered from the dim stretch of yard, under the waving elm boughs, and in an instant the room was filled with the fragrance of mignonette.
"But you won't be if you never get your dinner," she retorted, as she smiled brilliantly.

Then, turning quickly, she crossed the threshold, and went down the hall to the staircase.
She was tremendously excited, and while she mounted the stairs she felt that she had not been so alive, so filled with energy since her girlhood in Richmond.

It was as if a closed door into the world had been suddenly flung open, and she knew that she had passed beyond the narrow paths of convention into the sunny roads and broad fields of vision.

In a moment of enlightenment she saw deeper and farther than she had ever dreamed of seeing before.