Mrs. Denton took a different view.
"Nothing better could have happened," she was of opinion. "It means that
their hearts are in it."
The stone hall was still vibrating to the voices of the last departed
guests. Joan was seated on a footstool before the fire in front of Mrs.
Denton's chair.
"It's the thing that gives me greatest hope," she continued. "The
childishness of men and women. It means that the world is still young,
still teachable."
"But they're so slow at their lessons," grumbled Joan. "One repeats it
and repeats it; and then, when one feels that surely now at least one has
drummed it into their heads, one finds they have forgotten all that one
has ever said."
"Not always forgotten," answered Mrs. Denton; "mislaid, it may be, for
the moment. An Indian student, the son of an old Rajah, called on me a
little while ago. He was going back to organize a system of education
among his people. 'My father heard you speak when you were over in
India,' he told me. 'He has always been thinking about it.' Thirty
years ago it must have been, that I undertook that mission to India.
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