Somehow, as he pondered and watched her, it seemed as if he sat in church
at home listening to the choir-boys chanting. She reminded him of those
boys, or their voices, rather. The same sexless quality was there. In
the body of her she was woman; in the mind of her she had not grown up.
She had not been exposed to ripening influences of that sort. She had
had no mother. Von, her father, native servants, and rough island life
had constituted her training. Horses and rifles had been her toys, camp
and trail her nursery. From what she had told him, her seminary days had
been an exile, devoted to study and to ceaseless longing for the wild
riding and swimming of Hawaii. A boy's training, and a boy's point of
view! That explained her chafe at petticoats, her revolt at what was
only decently conventional. Some day she would grow up, but as yet she
was only in the process.
Well, there was only one thing for him to do. He must meet her on her
own basis of boyhood, and not make the mistake of treating her as a
woman. He wondered if he could love the woman she would be when her
nature awoke; and he wondered if he could love her just as she was and
himself wake her up. After all, whatever it was, she had come to fill
quite a large place in his life, as he had discovered that afternoon
while scanning the sea between the squalls.
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