"Well, it is true that I somehow feel like that," she declared, "though why I should, I am sure I cannot imagine." Yet dimly she knew, dimly in these later days had felt closing about her the purpose of her training, and when Percival spoke of the two years--the "frightfully long time"--for which old Rollo was gone, knew it half unknowingly for the period of her holiday. Another, more freely schooled than she, had known it clearly, had questioned, revolved, examined the sudden lightness that was hers, had realised it came of freedom from constant reminder of an end that seemed to wait her, and had inquired of herself, Why then glad?--Is that end unwelcome? It was not hers so to examine; or examining, so to realise; or realising, so to ask; nor asking, and being answered "Yes, unwelcome," to think to make resistance and crush the end before it came. Not hers whose schooling in her mother's hands had made for and had won the stifling of such processes of thought; not hers who was caparisoned and trained for certain purpose; not hers who had responded in faultless beauty and in cloistered mind. Hers, if she stretched her hands and on a sudden found that purpose walled about her, only to follow on between the walls, not to break through them; to glance at them or run them with her fingers and see them silk and proper to her life, not beat against them, find them steel behind the silk, cry "Trapped! Trapped!" and wildly beat for outlet. Hers, if she raised her eyes and saw her purposed end far down the narrow way, only to accept and move towards it, not to halt, doubt, fear; hers to glance, and know, and think it meet and proper to her life, not start and shrink, cry "No! No! No!" and seek escape while yet escape might be. So she was circumstanced; yet there remains, be restraint never so firmly chilled into the bones, the purely primeval instinct of delight in freedom; so she was trained, but scarcely yet had recognised purpose, walls, or end. She only, as she told Percival, "somehow felt" that she had holiday, and holiday her mood in the months that went. Why she felt so, she was sure, as she said, she could not imagine; but as the butterfly, content to live among the flowers of a hothouse and never know itself prisoner, will airily toss aloft through the open door yet scarcely think itself escaped, so, content to have remained, but gaily floating free, blithe and new her mood when now they met. Less frequent their meetings, the common excuse of Rollo being denied, but ah, more fond! Fewer their secret exchanges, but ah, more dear! Holiday her mood, and fluttering she came to him, and was swinging in his ardour from her prison to his heart; from his heart to her prison, swinging in his ardour, and had no more than glimpses--transient tremors--of her prison's walls. III