He raised his
hat ceremoniously to both groups. His pained eyes went past Lydia
Sessions as though she had been but the painted representation of a
woman, to fasten themselves on Johnnie where she stood, her tall,
deep-bosomed figure relieved against the shining water, the
flaxen-haired child on her breast, the little ones huddled about her.
That Johnnie Consadine should have fallen away all at once from that
higher course she had so eagerly chosen and so resolutely maintained,
had been to Gray a disappointment whose depth and bitterness somewhat
surprised him. In vain he recalled the fact that all his theories of
life were against forcing a culture where none was desired; he went back
to it with grief--he had been so sure that Johnnie did love the real
things, that hers was a nature which not only wished, but must have,
spiritual and mental food. Her attitude toward himself upon their few
meetings of late had confirmed a certain distrust of her, if one may use
so strong a word. She seemed afraid, almost ashamed to face him. What
was it she was doing, he wondered, that she knew so perfectly he would
disapprove? And then, with the return of the books, the dropping of
Johnnie's education, came the abrupt end of those informal letters. Not
till they ceased, did he realize how large a figure they had come to cut
in his life.
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