But what we really want here now is an occasional breath of brutality,—the passage, infrequent and not too much prolonged, of a man. If he came to tea once in a way it would do. He would be a blast of fresh air. He would be like opening a window. We have minced about among solicitudes and delicacies so very long. I want to smell the rankness of a pipe, and see the cushions thrown anyhow. I want to see somebody who doesn't knit. I want to hear Mrs. Barnes being contradicted. Especially do I want to hear Mrs. Barnes being contradicted ... oh, I'm afraid I'm still not very good!
September 20th.
The grapes are ripe down in the vineyards along the edge of the valley, and this morning I proposed that we should start off early and spend the day among them doing a grape-cure.
Mrs. Barnes liked the idea very much, and sandwiches were ordered, for we were not to come back till evening; then at the last moment she thought it would be too hot in the valley, and that her head, which has been aching lately, might get worse. The sandwiches were ready on the hall table. Dolly and I were ready too, boots on and sticks in hand. To our great surprise Mrs. Barnes, contemplating the sandwiches, said that as they had been cut they mustn't be wasted, and therefore we had better go without her.
We were astonished. We were like children being given a holiday. She kissed us affectionately when we said goodbye, as though, to mark her trust in us,—in Dolly that she wouldn't tell me the dreadful truth about herself, in me that I wouldn't encourage her in undesirable points of view. How safe we were, how deserving of trust, Mrs. Barnes naturally didn't know. Nothing that either of us could say could possibly upset the other.
'If Mrs. Barnes knew the worst, knew I knew everything, wouldn't she be happier?' I asked Dolly as we went briskly down the mountain. 'Wouldn't at least part of her daily anxiety be got rid of, her daily fear lest I should get to know?'
'It would kill her,' said Dolly firmly.
'But surely—'
'You mustn't forget that she thinks what I did was a crime.'
'You mean the uncle.'