The Road to Understanding

by Eleanor H. Porter

Not that the encountering of admiring feminine eyes bent full upon him was a new experience to Mr. Donald Estey; but that these eyes were different. There was something strangely fascinating and compelling in their earnest gaze. It was on the day that he first missed them that he suddenly decided to cultivate their owner.

He began by asking casual questions of his fellow guests, but he could find out very little concerning the lady. She was a Mrs. Darling, a friend of their hostess (which he knew already). She was a widow, they believed, though they had never heard her husband mentioned. She was pleasant enough—but so shy and retiring! Charming face she had, though, and beautiful eyes. But did he not think she was—well, a little peculiar?

Mr. Donald Estey did not answer this, directly. He became, indeed, always very evasive when his fellow guests turned about and began to question him. Very soon, too, he ceased his own questioning. But that he had not lost his interest in Mrs. Darling was most unmistakably shown at once, for openly and systematically he began to seek her society—to the varying opinions (but unvarying interest) of the rest of the house party.

If Mr. Donald Estey had expected Mrs. Darling to be shy and coy at his advances, he found himself entirely mistaken. She welcomed him with a frank delight that was most flattering, at the same time most puzzling, owing to a certain elusive quality that he could not name.

Mr. Donald Estey thought that he knew women well. It pleased his fancy to think that he had his feminine friends nicely pigeonholed and labeled, and that he had but to pass an hour or two of intimate talk with any woman to be able at once to ticket her accurately. His first hour of intimate talk with Mrs. Darling, however, left him confused and baffled—but mightily interested: in the course of that one hour he had shelved her in almost every one of his pigeonholes, only to find at the end of it that she was still free and uncatalogued.

She was a flirt; she was not a flirt. She was sincere; she was hypocritical. She was brilliantly subtle; she was incredibly stupid. She was charming; she was commonplace. She was as clear as crystal; she was as inscrutable as a sphinx—and she was all these things in that one short first hour. At the end of it, Mr. Donald Estey, with a long breath and a frown, but with a quickened pulse, decided that he would have another hour with her as soon as possible.

He had no difficulty in obtaining it. Mrs. Darling, indeed, seemed quite as desirous of his society as he was of hers; yet there was still the elusive something in her manner that robbed it of all offensive eagerness. Again to-day, after the hour's intimate talk, Estey found himself confused and baffled, with the lady still outside his pigeonholes. Nor did he find the situation changed the next day, or the next. Then suddenly he awoke to a new element in the case—the extraordinary deference that was being paid his lightest wish or preference on the part of Mrs. Darling.

At first, doubting the accuracy of his suspicions, he systematically put her to the test, choosing purposely the most obvious and unmistakable.

Blue was his favorite color, he said: she appeared in blue the next day. Browning was his best-loved poet, he declared: in less than an hour he found her poring over "Pippa Passes" in the library. A woman who could talk, and talk well, on current events won his sincere admiration every time, he told her: he wondered the next morning how late she must have sat up the night before, studying the merits and demerits of the four presidential candidates.

Mr. Donald Estey was flattered, amused, and curiously interested. Not that what looked to be a determined assault upon his heart was exactly a new experience for him; but that the circumstances in this case were so out of the ordinary, and that he was still trying to "place" this young woman. He was not sure even, always, that she was trying to make a bid for his affections. He was not sure, either, of his own mind regarding her. In spite of his interest, he was conscious, sometimes, of a distinct feeling of aversion toward her. She was not always, to his mind, quite—the lady, though she was improving in that respect. (Even in his thoughts the word gave him a shock: he could hardly imagine a candidate for the position of Mrs. Donald Estey in need of—improvement!) But she was beautiful, and there was something wonderfully alluring in her eager way of listening to his every word. She was, indeed, not a little refreshing after the languid conservatism of some of the sophisticated young women one usually found at these country houses. Besides, was she, after all, really in love with him? Very likely she was not. At all events, it could do no harm—this mild flirtation—if flirtation it were! He would not worry about it. Plenty of time yet to—to withdraw. He had but to receive (apparently) a summoning message, and he could go at once. That would, of course, end the affair. Meanwhile— But just exactly what type of woman was she, anyway?