And yet....
He remembered that in one of his leather bags there was a magnifying
glass, and he assured himself that he was merely curious--most casually
curious--as he hunted it out from among his belongings and scanned the
almost illegible writing on the back of the cardboard mount. He made out
the date quite easily now, impressed in the cardboard by the point of a
pencil. It was only a little more than a year old. It was unaccountable
why this discovery should affect him as it did. He made no effort to
measure or sound the satisfaction it gave him--this knowledge that the
girl had stood so recently on that rock beside the pool. He was
beginning to personalize her unconsciously, beginning to think of her
mentally as the Girl. She was a bit friendly. With her looking at him
like that he did not feel quite so alone with himself. And there could
not be much of a change in her since that yesterday of a year ago, when
some one had startled her there.
It was Father Roland's voice that made him wrap up the picture again,
this time not in its old covering, but in a silk handkerchief which he
had pawed out of his bag, and which he dropped back again, and locked
in. Thoreau was telling the Missioner about David's early rising when
the latter reappeared.
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