"Perhaps that is true. Yes, I suppose it is."
"I suppose--I think because--because it has brought to me a great deal of pain. And what we hide from others we sometimes seem almost to be destroying by that very act, though of course we are not."
"No. But I think I should like to encourage my imagination."
"Do you encourage it?" the mother asked, looking at her closely.
Again, as Vere had been on the edge of telling her mother all she knew about Peppina, she was on the edge of telling her about the poems of the sea. And again, moved by some sudden, obstinate reluctance, come she knew not why, she withheld the words that were almost on her lips.
And each time the mother was aware of something avoided, of an impulse stifled, and therefore of a secret deliberately kept. The first time Hermione had not allowed her knowledge to appear. But on this second occasion for a moment she lost control of herself, and when, after a perceptible pause, Vere said, "I know I love it," and was silent, she exclaimed:
"Keep your secrets, Vere. Every one has a right to their freedom."
"But, Madre--" Vere began, startled by her mother's abrupt vehemence.
"No, Vere, no! My child, my dearest one, never tell me anything but of your own accord, out of your own heart and desire. Such a confidence is beautiful. But anything else--anything else, I could not bear from you."
And she got up and left the room, walking with a strange slowness, as if she put upon herself an embargo not to hasten.
The words and--specially that--the way in which they were spoken made Vere suddenly and completely aware of something that perhaps she had already latently known--that the relation between her mother and herself had, of late, not been quite what once it was. At moments she had felt almost shy of her mother, only at moments. Formerly she had always told her mother everything, and had spoken--as her mother had just said--out of her own heart and desire, with eagerness, inevitably. Now--well, now she could not always do that. Was it because she was growing older? Children are immensely frank. She had been a child. But now--she thought of the Marchesino, of Peppina, of her conversation with Monsieur Emile in the Grotto of Virgilio, and realized the blooming of her girlhood, was aware that she was changing. And she felt half frightened, then eager, ardently eager. An impulse filled her, the impulse towards a fulness of life that, till now, she had not known. And for a moment she loved those little, innocent secrets that she kept.