The winter, full of hard things for them both, had gone now, and spring,
as is spring's way, held promise. In the laboratory they no longer
treated Ernestine with mere courteous interest. That day in December when
she went down to Dr. Parkman's operation had marked a change. Since then
there had been a light ahead, a light which shed its rays down the path
she must go.
What did it matter if she were a little stupid about this or that, if Mr.
Beason was unconsciously rude or Mr. Willard consciously polite? For she
_knew_ now--and did anything matter save the final things? With her own
feeling of its not mattering their attitude had seemed to change; she
became more as one with them--she was quick to get that difference.
"You're arriving on the high speed," Dr. Parkman had assured her when he
visited the laboratory a few days before.
So she knew why she was happy, for added to all that was it not a
glorious and propitious thing that Karl felt like taking a walk? Did it
not argue a new interest in life--a new determination not to be shut off
from it? And Karl--why did he too seem to feel that the spring held new
and better things? Was it just the call of spring, or did Karl sense the
good things ahead? Could it be that her soul, unable to contain itself
longer, had whispered to his that new days were coming?
"Why, even a fellow on his way to the penitentiary for life would have to
get some enjoyment out of this morning," he said, after they had stood
still for a minute to listen to the song of a bird, and had caught the
sweetness of a flowering tree.
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