Lewis nodded, but absently. Cynthia, as Dick had done, refrained from commenting on the probable value of the gift. If Lewis realized the value, he would only be made uncomfortable by it.
“You want to know why Dick doesn’t fall in love with Petra Farwell? It’s too obvious. How could a person like Dick look twice at that gauche girl, with Clare all the while in the same picture? Besides, Dick, more than most moderns, is a romantic. It sticks out all over him. He’s an incorrigible idealist. But I’m not worried for Dick. He won’t get his heart broken. Clare is too big to let that happen. It’s really the most civilizing thing that could happen to him to be in love with a woman like Clare at precisely this stage in his development. Think of the color, the sheer beauty, the depth that knowing Clare so well—even thinking he is breaking his heart over her—is giving to Dick’s life! As for falling in love with a girl like Petra—why, he isn’t aware of her, except, perhaps, as one of Clare’s problems. Dick hasn’t said anything to us—Harry and me—of Petra’s being a problem at Green Doors. Clare herself is too selfless and big in every way ever to let on, of course. But anybody can see! Clare’s being so extraordinarily sweet and patient only makes it stand out all the more, how much a problem Petra is. Couldn’t you see it yourself, this afternoon, Lewis? Where’s your psychology?”
“Where is your own, Cynthia, my dear?” Lewis’ voice was oddly constrained, Cynthia thought, wondering at it. “Why don’t you look at Petra for yourself? It’s obvious you never have. You’ve supinely accepted Clare’s version of her, without using your own intelligence.”
“Clare’s version of Petra! But haven’t I just been saying that Clare is absolutely loyal to Petra? She defends her, every time. She even goes so far as to call her sullen silences ‘reticence.’ And her vanity—Petra’s obsessed over clothes, thinks of nothing else—Clare merely treats that as touchingly young and naïve. Or else she pretends that it’s evidence of artistic appreciation and taste. But if that’s what it is, why doesn’t it show itself in other directions, now and then? I’ve never seen it. Why, the other day I mentioned something in her father’s last novel, and Petra had to admit she hadn’t even read it! Imagine! No, whatever Clare pretends to herself and the rest of us about it, Petra is just plain dull.... One is sorry for Clare, of course....”
Lewis was keeping only a tenuous hold on his good temper. “How can you be so dull yourself?” he asked. “She—Petra—is as far from dull as any human being I’ve ever had the honor to know. I suppose you’ve seen her nowhere but against the general unreality of Green Doors. That’s the ‘background’ your Clare has given the child.... Petra’s truth, against her background’s untruth, has bewildered you. It hasn’t me....” He lighted a fresh cigarette.
Cynthia flapped her arms and burst into as good an imitation of a rooster crowing as is possible to the human species. It was an accomplishment retained from childhood. In those early days it had been, usually, the closing note in some argument between brother and sister, where Cynthia had been proven the winner; and now, if ever, she knew herself right.
“You lose! I win!” she laughed, dropping her wings. “What good does it do you to be a psychiatrist? And a famous one? Petra and truth! That girl would as soon tell an out-and-out lie as wink. Clare never knows where she is with her when it’s a question of fact.”
“Oh, so Clare has admitted that much—not excused it?”
“Not a bit of it. You haven’t caught me, darling, in a fib. Clare couldn’t excuse it or cover it up. It’s too obvious. Petra is always avoiding the truth.”
“Yes. I got a hint of that myself this afternoon. Couldn’t help it.”