The last time he had sat with her in his sister's studio he had gone away with a feeling of panic. He was used to women. Invariably he disliked them. They seemed to him variants of his wife. They reminded him of Henrietta and he was able to say to himself, "They look attractive and mysterious. But underneath, they're all alike."
He meant they were all like Henrietta. In this way his distaste for his wife had kept him faithful to her because his imagination balked at the idea of embracing another Henrietta.
But Ruth Davis after he had met her a few times, always in his sister's presence, had impressed him differently. Perhaps it was because he had always seen her with his sister. In many ways she reminded him of Doris. She was dark like Doris and had many of her mannerisms.
He had not thought of her as a variant of Henrietta. Rather as a variant of Doris. He had never tested his immunity to her by imagining an embrace. When he talked to her he grew eager to impress her. He wanted her to understand him, not quite as Doris understood him. She was cynical but not in the way Doris was. Her mind was kindlier.
Because he felt frightened now at her approach and a desire to run away without speaking to her, he held himself to the spot. He would get the better of this thing, he told himself quickly, by facing whatever it was and fighting it down. He would overcome the curious effect she had on him by confronting her. In this way, a very high-minded way, he persuaded himself to wait for her and to talk to her. Which was what he wanted to do above everything else.
She was pleased. They shook hands. The confusion left him. He was quite master of himself. Her dark eyes were not dangerous like his sister's. She was a bright, pretty girl.
"I'm sorry I can't visit with you and Doris," he said. "But I have an engagement."
"Oh." She seemed disappointed. Her eyes betrayed almost a hurt. This made him even more master of himself. He had been foolishly worried about the girl. Just a bright, pretty girl and a friend of his sister.
"By the way," he said, "you were saying the other day that you'd like a job in the state attorney's office. My secretary's quit. Would you like that?"
"Oh, Mr. Basine. That's awfully kind of you. But I ... I don't know shorthand and I suppose that...."