Page:The Tattooed Countess (1924).pdf/105

 her poverty and a real lack of initiative, perhaps, also by a lack of sufficient ability, she was circumscribed by the four walls of Maple Valley, invisible walls, but just as enclosing and excluding as the walls of China. Here, then, was a mere boy, a student in her classes, with a mind sufficiently mature, an appreciation sufficiently keen, a point of view sufficiently sophisticated, so that she could seriously discuss books and plays and music with him. Gareth had given Lennie Colman something she had long ago relinquished hope of finding, and which, assuredly, she could never hope to find again in this provincial community where so many people were old because the young went away as soon as possible to carve out their lives elsewhere. Every year she had watched the best ones depart a few months after they had graduated from High School.

In the past, Lennie realized, she must have meant a good deal to Gareth, too. He must have been grateful for this opportunity for sympathetic intercourse, a benevolent affiliation that no one else in Maple Valley could offer him. But now that she had probed into the hidden chambers of her soul, now that she realized and even admitted proudly to herself that she loved the boy, she could not fail to see that whatever feeling he had for her must be of an entirely different nature. To him she had only been a good friend, some one with whom he might discuss books and kindred impersonal subjects. Now, with the new horizon opened to him