Twice I stormed the maiden fortress in George Road, and ran the gauntlet of the Miss Maugers with less discomfiture than on the first occasion, through Miss Maddy's sympathy and my added weight of years and experience.

And once Carette was making holiday with Aunt Jeanne, and Beaumanoir saw more of me than did Belfontaine.
And my very vivid recollection of all those times is this--that Carette grew more beautiful each time I saw her, both in mind and body; that my feeling for her grew in me beyond all other growth, though the years were building me solidly; and that a fear sprang up in me at last that she was perhaps going to grow out of my reach, as she certainly was growing out of my understanding.
Each time we met her greeting was of the warmest, and had in it the recollection of those earlier days.

That, I said to myself, was the real Carette.
And then there would gradually come upon us that thin veil of distance, as though the years and the growth and the experiences of life were setting us a little apart.

And that, I said, was the Miss Maugers.
For my part I would have had Carette as satisfied with my sole companionship as in the days when we romped bare-legged among the pools and rocks, and woke the basking gulls and cormorants with our shouts, and dared the twisting currents with unfettered limbs and no thought of wrong.

These things in all their fulness of delight were, of course, no longer possible to us.