He pulled himself up vigorously and walked very fast.

But the heat did not quite die down and other thoughts surged up in spite of his desire to keep his head and be reasonably calm.

There _had_ been a certain narrowness in the tragic separation of two happy children if the only reason for it had been that the mother of one was a pretty, frivolous, much gossiped about woman belonging to a rather too rapid set.

And if it had been a reason then, how would it present itself now?
What would happen to an untouched dream if argument and disapproval crashed into it?
If his first intensely passionate impulse had been his desire to save it even from the mere touch of ordinary talk and smiling glances because he had felt that they would spoil the perfect joy of it, what would not open displeasure and opposition make of the down on the butterfly's wing--the bloom on the peach?
It was not so he phrased in his thoughts the things which tormented him, but the figures would have expressed his feeling.

What if his mother were angry--though he had never seen her angry in his life and could only approach the idea because he had just found out that she had once been cruel--yes, it had been cruel! What if Coombe actually chose to interfere.