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n a vague way he recalled a certain mysterious change in Anne Tresslyn's face. It was not age that had wrought the change in her, nor could it be age that had done the same for him. The solution came to him suddenly, as he stepped out into the open air and saw the faces of other men. It was strength, not weakness, that had put its stamp upon his countenance, and upon Anne's; the strength that survives the constructive years, the years of development. He saw this set, firm strength in the faces of other men for the first time. They too no doubt had awakened abruptly from the dream of ambition to find themselves dominated by a purpose. That purpose was in their faces. Ambition was back of that purpose perhaps, deep in the soul of the man, but purpose had become the necessity. Every man comes to that strange spot in the dash through life where he stops to divest himself of an ideal. He lays it down beside the road and, without noticing, picks up a resolve in its place and strides onward, scarcely conscious of the substitution. It requires strength to carry a resolve. An ideal carries itself and is no burden. So each of these men in the street,--truckman, motorman, merchant, clerk, what you will,--sets forth each day with the same old resolution at his heels; and in their set faces is the strength that comes with the transition from wonder to earnestness. Its mark was stamped upon the countenances of young and old alike. Even the beggar at the street corner below was without his ideal. Even he had a definite, determined purpose. Then there was that subtle change in Anne. He thought of it now, most unwillingly. He did not want to think of her. He was certain that he had put her out of his thoughts. Now he realised that she had merely lain dormant in his mind while it was filled with the intensities of the past few days. She had not been crowded out, after all. The sharp recollection of the impression he had had on seeing her immediately after his arrival was proof that she was still to be reckoned with in his thoughts. The strange, elusive maturity that had come into her young, smooth face,--that was it. Maturity without the passing of Youth; definiteness, understanding, discovery,--a grip on the realities of life, just as it was with him and all the others who were awake. A year in the life of a young thing like Anne could not have created the difference that he felt rather than saw. Something more significant tha
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