Page:Early Autumn (1926).pdf/32

 not a life which was safe and assured, running smoothly in a rigid groove fixed by tradition and circumstance. It was not marriage with a man who was like all the other men in his world. It went deeper than all that. She wanted somehow to get far down beneath the surface of that life all about her, deep down where there was a savor to all she did. It was a hunger which Olivia understood well enough.

The girl approached her mother and, slipping her arm about her waist, stood there, looking for all the world like Olivia's sister.

"Have you enjoyed it?" asked Olivia.

"Yes. . . . It's been fun."

Olivia smiled. "But not too much?"

"No, not too much." Sybil laughed abruptly, as if some humorous memory had suddenly come to life.

"Thérèse ran away," said her mother.

"I know . . . she told me she was going to."

"She didn't like it."

"No . . . she thought the boys stupid."

"They're very much like all boys of their age. It's not an interesting time."

Sybil frowned a little. "Thérèse doesn't think so. She says all they have to talk about is their clubs and drinking . . . neither subject is of very much interest."

"They might have been, if you'd lived here always . . . like the other girls. You and Thérèse see it from the outside." The girl didn't answer, and Olivia asked: "You don't think I was wrong in sending you to France to school?"

Quickly Sybil looked up. "Oh, no . . . no," she said, and then added with smoldering eagerness, "I wouldn't have changed it for anything in the world."

"I thought you might enjoy life more if you saw a little more than one corner of it. . . . I wanted you to be away from here for a little time." (She did not say what she