"Body, soul and spirit——"
Words, somewhere read, floated across her mind, implying something of union scarcely apprehended, to the very existence of which she had no clue, save only that most deep-rooted instinct which she had been taught to ignore and to distrust. Like a clarion call across the faint stirrings of an all but extinguished breath of life, came the rousing echo of Miss Melody's teaching, impressed by many repetitions:
"No day-dreams, childie! Beware of that imagination of yours—don't let yourself get morbid...."
Morbid! That was the word—the terrible, degrading word, that was never analyzed, which was applied to private thought and the construction of private ideals. They were morbid.
Lily regarded it as a sign of grace that this timely recollection caused her to feel ashamed. She rallied to the call of Miss Melody's wisdom.
"I shan't decide anything in a hurry. I ought to make sure, and so I'll ask him to let me give him an answer in a little while. And perhaps I'll go and stay at Bridgecrap and see Miss Melody and talk to her—it will help me to get my thoughts thoroughly clear, if I put them into words. There's nothing to be at all frightened of—I needn't do anything I don't like—I'm a free agent. I mustn't be morbid."
Lily felt braced and relieved, when she had thus discovered that a line of least resistance still existed, and that the facing of a direct issue might still be postponed, and perhaps almost altogether avoided, by shifting the onus of decision on to Miss Melody's advice.
She trembled very much when Nicholas, late in the afternoon, came and joined her, standing over the great armchair into which she had sunk back.
It seemed to her, that he, too, was nervous as she looked up at him speechlessly.
"I've had a—a very nice talk with your father," he said at last. "I've been talking to him about something which is more important to me than anything else in the world, just now."