Shaken from her usual reticence, she also told him of her feeling of aloneness since her father had died and the positive fear that was growing in her—fear of the world and its ways.
“Perhaps,” she suggested, “the unpleasant things which have happened to me are partly my own fault.”
“Your fault? You feel you have faults?” A glint lighted the agate gaze as he questioned her.
“I lack,” she confessed, “religion. It was left out of my life. My father was, I think, embittered against it. He was very good to me, but he didn’t send me to Sunday school any more than to public school. Perhaps if he had, I’d have grown up more like other girls—more self-reliant, less afraid.”
“And less yourself,” he objected. “You have, I think, remarkable self-control.”
“You don’t know how glad I am to hear you say so, Dr. Willard. That has been my only religion—self-control. It is very strange that a person to whom I never spoke—whom I never saw but once—gave me the ambition to learn it.”
At his show of interest, Dolores recited the incident. “I was quite a small girl, eight or nine, I guess. My father had left me to wait in a railway station one day. I was worried because often he—because I was afraid we’d miss our train. There was a lady sitting near me, also waiting. I took to watching her.
“She was attractive and wore nice clothes. I became fascinated by the way she breathed, not out and in, as I had supposed all people did, but up and down. The lace jabot on her breast would move up and down, up and down. Of course, as I grew older, I realized that she breathed that way from tight lacing. But at the time it seemed to me more refined than the common way. And then I saw that she was going to sneeze. I’ve always hated to see people sneeze—they make such a fuss. But this lady prepared. She was quite calm. The jabot lifted high with the breath she took. At the vital moment she was ready.”
“And did she sneeze, my poor child?”
“Oh, yes, doctor, but so neatly. She just leaned out and did it without any fuss at all. Afterward, she didn’t sniff or even wipe her eyes. She was very wonderful. I often think of her.”