He kept trying to realize that this lady of wonder was Ariel Tabor, but he could not; he could not connect the shabby Ariel, whom he had treated as one boy treats another, with this young woman of the world.He had always been embarrassed, himself, and ashamed of her, when anything she did made him remember that, after all, she was a girl;as, on the day he ran away, when she kissed a lock of his hair escaping from the bandage.With that recollection, even his ears grew red: it did not seem probable that it would ever happen again! The next instant he heard himself calling her "Miss Tabor."At this she seemed amused."You ought to have called me that, years ago," she said, "for all you knew me!""I did know her--YOU, I mean!" he answered.
"I used to know nearly everything you were going to say before you said it.It seems strange now--""Yes," she interrupted."It does seem strange now!""Somehow," he went on, "I doubt if now I'd know.""Somehow," she echoed, with fine gravity, "Idoubt it, too."Although he had so dim a perception of the staring and whispering which greeted and followed them, Ariel, of course, was thoroughly aware of it, though the only sign she gave was the slight blush, which very soon disappeared.That people turned to look at her may have been not altogether a novelty:
a girl who had learned to appear unconscious of the Continental stare, the following gaze of the boulevards, the frank glasses of the Costanza in Rome, was not ill equipped to face Main Street, Canaan, even as it was to-day.