He spoke as though she would know the name. Indeed, it seemed to have for her some association; but it wavered like a dream; she could not fix it. She seemed to feel how long she had been away from America--out of touch--not knowing things, events, trendings. "Nine years," she said again, uncertainly; "so much happens in nine years." "Yes," he said. "Personal life changes rapidly to-day--with everything more flexible, with horizons growing wider--and the age follows and changes and changes--changes and mounts. We are in for a great century. I'm glad to be alive!" "Yes, I am, too." Presently she looked at her watch. It was luncheon-time. Would he not take it with her father and herself? No; he would not do that to-day; but leaving the great tree and the garden they walked together to the house. At the gate in the wall she said, "Come to see me here to-morrow morning, if you will. I should like you to come and go as you please." "Thank you," he said, then, with emphasis, "_friend_.... That is what, when I was nineteen and afterwards, I called you in my mind." "It's a good word--'friend.' Let us use it still." "With all the will in the world. You are wonderful to me--Hagar Ashendyne." "I am glad to have found you again, Denny Gayde." That night, suddenly, before she slept, she placed the name Rose Darragh.... A feminist--A Socialist agitator and leader--a writer of vigorous prose--sociology--economics.... She seemed to see her picture in some magazine of current life--a face rich, alert, and daring, rising on a strong throat from a blouse like a peasant's. CHAPTER XXV HAGAR AND DENNY The afternoon sun yet made a dazzle of the white road. Infrequent trees cast infrequent shadows. It was warm, but not too warm, with an endless low wind. The tide was going out; there spread an expanse of iridescent shallows, and beyond a line of water so blue that it was unearthly. There was a tonic smell of salt and marsh. The wheels of the surrey, the horse's hoofs, brought a pleasant, monotonous, rhythmic sense of sound and motion. "That is the shell house," said Hagar, breaking a long silence; "that small, small house with the boat behind. There you can buy throngs of things that come out of the sea--coral and sponges and purple sea-fans and wonderful shells." "I walked out here last week. There's a sick child I know--a little cripple. I am going to take her a great box of the prettiest shells. She'll lie there and play with them in her dingy corner of the dingy room where all the others work, and maybe they'll bring her a little of all this.... God knows!" The wheels went on. They passed the small house with a great lump of coral on one side of the door, and a tall purple sea-fan upon the other.