antagonistic.

"_Knowing_ more of the world," she said, quietly. "We're not the ignorant
babes our grandmothers were at our age. That's why we can protect
ourselves."

And again he was aware of something sharp or bitter in her--some note of
disillusionment--that jarred with the soft, rather broad face and dreamy
eyes. It stirred him, and they presently found themselves plunged in a
free and exciting discussion of the new place and opportunities of women
in the world, the man from the more conservative, the women from the more
revolutionary point of view. Secretly, he was a good deal repelled by
some of his companion's opinions, and her expression of them. She quoted
Wells and Shaw, and he hated both. He was an idealist and a romantic,
with a volume of poems in his pocket. She, it seemed, was still on a
rising wave of rebellion, moral and social, like so many women; while his
wave had passed, and he was drifting in the trough of it. He supposed she
had dropped religion, like everything else. Well, the type didn't attract
him. He believed the world was coming back to the old things. The war had
done it--made people think. No doubt this girl had rushed through a lot
of things already, and thought she knew everything. But she didn't.

Then, as their talk went on, this first opinion dropped in confusion. For
instead of presenting him with a consistent revolutionist, his companion
was, it appeared, full of the most unexpected veins and pockets of
something much softer and more appealing. She had astonishing returns
upon herself; and after some sentiment that had seemed to him silly or
even outrageous, a hurried "Oh, I dare say that's all nonsense!" would
suddenly bewilder or appease a marked trenchancy of judgment in himself
which was not accustomed to be so tripped up.

The upshot of it was that both Rachel and her new acquaintance enjoyed
an agreeable, an adventurous half hour. They got rapidly beyond
conventionalities. One moment she thought him rude, the next delightful;
just as she alternately appeared to him feminist and feminine. Above them
the doomed beech trees, still green in the late August afternoon, spread
their canopy of leaf, and through their close stems ran dark aisles of
shadow. Below them was the tree-strewn hill-side. In the hollow Rachel
could see Janet Leighton and Mrs. Fergusson among the measuring girls;
the horses moving to and fro; the Canadian lumber-men catching at and
guiding the logs; the tro