However, her long-checked growth in the arts of womanhood had already recommenced. She had been growing fast, feverishly, and was just now passing that period where the desire for masculine admiration innocently rules all else, but where the discovery of it chills and constrains.
She passed it at that moment. The next time their glances met she smiled a little. A new epoch in her life had begun.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked. "Are we not going to dance?"
"I thought we might sit out a dance or two in the conservatory—one or two——"
"One," she said decidedly. "Here are some palms. Why not sit here?"
There were a number of people about; she saw them, too, noted his hesitation, understood it.
"We'll sit here," she said, and stood smilingly regarding him while he lugged up two chair
