7: A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness
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The old captain's prevailing indifference to his granddaughter's movements left her free as a bird to follow her own courses; but it so happened that he did take upon himself the next morning to ask her why she had walked out so late.
"Only in search of events, Grandfather," she said, looking out of the window with that drowsy latency of manner which discovered so much force behind it whenever the trigger was pressed.
"Search of events—one would think you were one of the bucks I knew at one-and-twenty."
"It is lonely here."
"So much the better. If I were living in a town my whole time would be taken up in looking after you. I fully expected you would have been home when I returned from the Woman."
"I won't conceal what I did. I want
