Roberta's arm
lay across her mother's knee, her head upon it. She turned her head
downward for an instant, burying her face in the angle of her arm. Mrs.
Gray regarded the mass of dark locks beneath her hand with a look amused
yet sympathetic.
"That sort of discomfort attacks us all, at times," she said. "Ideals
change and develop with our growth. One would not want the same ones to
serve her all her life."
"I know. But when it's not a new and better ideal which displaces the
old one, but only--an attraction--"
"An attraction not ideal?"
Roberta shook her head. "I'm afraid not. And I don't see why it should
be an attraction at all. It ought not to be, if my ideals have been what
they should have been. And they have. Why, you gave them to me, mother,
many of them--or at least helped me to work them out for myself. And
I--I had confidence in them!"
"And they're shaken?"
"Not the ideals--they're all the same. Only--they don't seem to be proof
against--assault. Oh, I'm talking in riddles, I know. I don't want to
put any of it into words, it makes it seem more real. And it's only a
shadowy sort of difficulty.
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