“And now—­you are grown,” he said.

“Something more than grown,” she smiled.  “I was thirty-one in May.  Tell me,” she asked, choosing another of the beans which he still absently held, “do you get them for these?” And she nodded toward the Dalton Street waifs.

“Yes,” he said, “they are children, too.”

“I can remember,” she said, after a pause, “I can remember my mother speaking of you to me the year she died.  I was almost grown, then.  It was after we had moved up to Park Street, and her health had already begun to fail.  That made an impression on me, but I have forgotten what she said—­it was apropos of some recollection.  No—­it was a photograph —­she was going over some old things.”  Alison ceased speaking abruptly, for the pain in Mr. Bentley’s remarkable grey eyes had not escaped her.  What was it about him?  Why could she not recall?  Long-forgotten, shadowy episodes of the past tormented her, flitted provokingly through her mind—­ungrasped:  words dropped in her presence which had made their impression, but the gist of which was gone.  Why had Mr. Bentley ceased coming to the house?  So strongly did she feel his presence now that the thought occurred to her,—­perhaps her mother had not wished her to forget him!

“I did not suspect,” she heard him saying, “that you would go out into the world and create the beautiful gardens of which I have heard.  But you had no lack of spirit in those days, too.”

“I was a most disagreeable child, perverse,—­cantankerous—­I can hear my mother saying it!  As for the gardens—­they have given me something to do, they have kept me out of mischief.  I suppose I ought to be thankful, but I still have the rebellious streak when I see what others have done, what others are doing, and I sometimes wonder what right I ever had to think that I might create something worth while.”

He glanced at her quickly as she sat with bent head.

“Others put a higher value on what you have done.”

“Oh, they don’t know—­” she exclaimed.

If something were revealed to him by her tone, he did not betray it, but went on cheerfully.

“You have been away a long time, Alison.  It must interest you to come back, and see the changes in our Western civilization.  We are moving very rapidly—­in certain directions,” he corrected himself.

She appraised his qualification.

“In certain directions,—­yes.  But they are little better in the East.  I have scarcely been back,” she added, “since I went to Paris to study.  I have often thought I should like to return and stay awhile, only —­I never seemed to get time.  Now I am going over a garden for my father which was one of my first efforts, and which has always reproached me.”

“And you do not mind the heat?” he asked.  “Those who go East to live return to find our summers oppressive.”

“Oh, I’m a salamander, I think,” Alison laughed.