Then, too, the Gordon jaw was beginning to assert itself—­square in the angle and broad at the point of the chin, with a deep cleft to mark its center.  Ardea thought it would not be well, later on, for those who should find that jaw and chin opposing them.  There would certainly be stubborn and aggressive resistance—­and none too much mercy when the fight should end.

The improved manners were pleasantly apparent when the train reached South Tredegar.  There were twenty minutes for breakfast, and Tom bestirred himself manfully, and as if the awkward day at Crestcliffe Inn had never been; helping Ardea with her coat, steering her masterfully through the crowd, choosing the fortunate seats at the most convenient table, and commanding the readiest service in spite of the hurry and bustle.

Ardea marked it all with a little thrill of vicarious triumph, which was straightway followed by a little pang personal.  What had wrought the change in him?  Was it merely the natural chivalry of the coming man breaking through the crust of boyish indifference to the social conventions?  Or was it one of the effects of the late plunge into rebellious wickedness?

She hoped it was the chivalry, but she had a vague fear that it was the wickedness.  There was a young woman among the seniors in Carroll College who was old in a certain brilliant hardness of mind—­a young woman with a cynical outlook on life, and who was not always regardful of her seed-sowing in fresher hearts.  Ardea remembered a saying of hers, flung out one evening in the college parlors when the talk of her group had turned on the goodness of good boys:  “Why can’t you be sincere with yourselves?  Not one of you has any use for the truly good boy until after he has learned how to respect you by being a bad boy.  You haven’t been saying it in so many words, perhaps, but that is the crude fact.”  Was this the secret of Tom’s new acceptability?  Ardea hoped it was not—­and feared lest it might be.

When they were once more in the train, and the mile-long labyrinth of the factory chimneys had been threaded and left behind, Thomas Jefferson gave proof of another and still more gratifying change.

“Say, Ardea,” he began, “you said last night that you’d stand by me in what I’ve got to face this morning.  That’s all right; and I reckon I’ll never live long enough to even it up with you.  But, of course, you know I’m not going to let you do it.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because I’m not mean enough, or coward enough.  After a while, if you get a chance to sort of make it easier for mother—­”

“I’ll do that, if I can,” she promised quickly.  “But I hope you are not going to break her heart, Tom.”

“You can be mighty sure I’m not; if anything I can do now will help it.  But—­but, say, Ardea, I can’t go back and begin all over again.  I should be the meanest, low-down thing in all this world—­and that’s a hypocrite.”