Although the three young people had left the veranda together, when they reached the old garden Clarence and Susy found themselves considerably in advance of Mary Rogers, who had become suddenly and deeply interested in the beauty of a passion vine near the gate.

At the first discovery of their isolation their voluble exchange of information about themselves and their occupations since their last meeting stopped simultaneously.
Clarence, who had forgotten his momentary irritation, and had recovered his old happiness in her presence, was nevertheless conscious of some other change in her than that suggested by the lengthened skirt and the later and more delicate accentuation of her prettiness.

It was not her affectation of superiority and older social experience, for that was only the outcome of what he had found charming in her as a child, and which he still good-humoredly accepted; nor was it her characteristic exaggeration of speech, which he still pleasantly recognized.

It was something else, vague and indefinite,--something that had been unnoticed while Mary was with them, but had now come between them like some unknown presence which had taken the confidante's place.

He remained silent, looking at her half-brightening cheek and conscious profile.
Then he spoke with awkward directness.
"You are changed, Susy, more than in looks." "Hush," said the girl in a tragic whisper, with a warning gesture towards the blandly unconscious Mary.
"But," returned Clarence wonderingly, "she's your--our friend, you know." "I DON'T know," said Susy, in a still deeper tone, "that is--oh, don't ask me! But when you're always surrounded by spies, when you can't say your soul is your own, you doubt everybody!" There was such a pretty distress in her violet eyes and curving eyebrows, that Clarence, albeit vague as to its origin and particulars, nevertheless possessed himself of the little hand that was gesticulating dangerously near his own, and pressed it sympathetically.