Oh, yes! Mrs. Farwell would exploit it for all it was worth at dinners, luncheons, teas and in the arms of dancing partners for weeks to come, while all the time the inflections in her voice demanded, “What do you think of me, what do you think of me, what do you think of me now?”
Only, of course she would not—because she could not. Fortunately she had come to the wrong counter. Lewis had nothing to sell her—but, on second thoughts, something, possibly, that he would give her for nothing; for it had suddenly occurred to him that if he failed her entirely to-night, she might try elsewhere. There were psychoanalysts quite the sort she imagined him to be, of course. Would Petra, with Mrs. Farwell setting her heart on it, have the hardihood to stand out against going through the fashionable paces of being psychoanalyzed? He must do what he could to avoid such a possible calamity.
“This question of finding one’s self,” he murmured,—“it’s living one’s life, isn’t it, that accomplishes that, in the end? Petra is too young to have found herself in that sense, of course. But she is old enough, on the other hand, to want to. That may be the conflict, the cause of all her ‘indifference’ to you and her life here. She said something to me this afternoon about wanting to go to business school and be independent. Wouldn’t her father send her? That would be cheaper, anyway, and infinitely more sensible than having her psychoanalyzed. She could get quite away from Green Doors. Live in the Girls’ Studio Club—or perhaps even set up an apartment with some girl friend....” He was, of course, thinking of Teresa.
It had the effect, anyway, of removing Mrs. Farwell’s hand from his arm. She was back in her corner, looking at him with surprise and even doubt.
“Petra didn’t tell you that she wanted to get away from Green Doors and all I am doing for her here? Did she? Petra didn’t actually say—this afternoon, the minute you were alone with her—that she was unhappy? Did she? I simply don’t understand, Doctor Pryne!”
“But why are you surprised?” Lewis evaded. “I gathered from young Wilder when he came to my office on Thursday that that was how things were with Petra. You felt she was abnormally indifferent to you, he said, and to all the nice things you were trying to do for her and to give her. But, do you know, now I’ve seen Petra, that indifference seems perfectly healthy to me? She is, after all, not a child. She’s a woman. Let her learn a profession and be independent! Why not?”
Mrs. Farwell was growing wider and wider eyed. Then suddenly Lewis knew what he should have guessed: Clare had never really believed that Petra was antagonistic to her. She had thought her indifference and reticence merely temperamental idiosyncrasies. In fact, she had in all sincerity thought Petra what she had made Cynthia think her, a girl deficient in sensibility. So she was only tampering with Petra’s temperament, or rather, asking Lewis to tamper with it, for the sake of drawing him—Doctor Lewis Pryne—into the Farwells’ “interesting” circle. Modern morbid psychology was much in the air these days. Being psychoanalyzed by “well-known” doctors had become a fashionable pastime. Having one’s stepdaughter, to whom one was in every way so marvelously generous, psychoanalyzed, and then oneself discussing the case in the wings, as it were, with the famous psychiatrist ad infinitum, would be a new way to play the game.
A strained laugh from Clare interrupted Lewis’ bitter train of thought. “I am afraid Petra has been deceiving you, rather,” she exclaimed. “What I can’t understand is how she managed it, and in so short a time, with you, who are so—so wise. She must have deliberately set out to engage your sympathies the minute I left her alone with you. But why? And as for a girl like Petra living at the Studio Club—after Green Doors—can you imagine it, really? Don’t tell me she suggested that!”
“Perhaps not,” Lewis answered. “As a matter of fact, she would be more restricted in her freedom there than here, I suppose. But with a friend, then—in an apartment—”
Again the laugh. “You don’t know Petra, Doctor Pryne! She hasn’t an intimate friend to her name. I invite girls here, of course, all the time. They come, enjoy themselves with each other and the boys, and invite Petra to their homes in return. But as for friends, she simply doesn’t make them. She hasn’t the gift of friendship. It’s one of my worries about her,—one of the things I thought your analysis of her might cure!”