"Supposing I meet the man I could have loved—supposing I do love him?"
The specious echo of words that might have been spoken by her father, by Miss Melody, by any of those who had stood for wisdom to her childhood, followed on the thought.
"Why meet trouble halfway?... How weak to torture oneself about something which may never happen ... crossing bridges before one comes to them...."
Something in the last phrase awoke a long-dormant memory.
They had said that to her, long ago—the new metaphor leaving a little picture on her plastic, childish mind—in the old days when she had been afraid, because the east wind would give Vonnie earache.
They had said that it was naughty and ungrateful to run and meet trouble halfway. Of course Vonnie wouldn't get earache. And Vonnie had gone out into the east wind, and had got earache. The agony of those nights of silent strain was upon Lily once more as she remembered.
Illumination came to her.
They had bluffed her into accepting those old catchwords then, but was she of her own free-will to be bound by them now?
"Don't put things into words—don't let imagination run away with you. Beware of imagination. It's morbid to dwell upon what may never happen."
Shove it all out of sight! Bury it without looking at it! Embark upon adventure by the line of least resistance!