desire to comprehend that which he understood to be worth trying hard
for.

"They enjoy these encounters keenly," said Mrs. Gray, beside Richard, as
a telling story by Mr. Robert Gray, in illustration of a point he had
made, came to a conclusion amid a burst of appreciative laughter. "They
relish them quite as much, we think, as if they often succeeded in
convincing each other, which they seldom do."

"Are they always in such form?" asked Richard, looking into the fresh,
attractive face of the lady who was the mistress of this home, and
continuing to watch her with eyes as deferential as they were admiring.
She, too, represented a type of woman and mother with which he was
unfamiliar. Grace and charm in women who presided at dinner-tables he
had often met, but he could not remember when before he had sat at the
right hand of a woman who had made him begin, for almost the first time
in his life, to wonder what his own mother had been like.

"Nearly always, at night, I think," said she, her eyes resting upon her
husband's face. Richard, observing, saw her smile, and guessed, without
looking, that there had been an exchange of glances. He knew, because he
had twice before noted the exchange, as if there existed a peculiarly
strong sympathy between husband and wife. This inference, too, possessed
a curious new interest for the young man--he had not been accustomed to
see anything of that sort between married people of long standing--not
in the world he knew so well. He seemed to be learning strange new
possibilities of existence at every step, since he had discovered the
Grays--he who at twenty-eight had not thought there was very much left
in human experience to be discovered.