“But there’s Teresa. That’s one friend, at least, Teresa—” Too late Lewis knew himself a traitor to Petra’s confidences, and broke off, embarrassed and sorry. But to his great relief, Clare seemed not to have even heard. She was repeating, but almost as if for her own ears, and very softly, “I don’t understand. Petra took you to the guest house to show you the river view. That is all the time you two were together. And in that short while Petra conveyed to you that she was unhappy here and wanted to get away. Why, it’s unbelievable! How could even Petra be quite so—so outrageous as that!”
“But mightn’t Petra think it a little outrageous of us, of you and me, to be discussing her here now, as we are doing?” Lewis inquired reasonably. “Why shouldn’t she be wounded—and angry? I don’t see any difference, really....”
Shock dried the tears, just gathered, from the widened eyes which were turned on him. If Clare had taken anything for granted, as certain to result from to-day’s anticipated contact with this supposedly brilliant psychiatrist, it was that he would be deeply impressed by her beautiful disinterested kindness toward this girl who had no natural claim on her whatever. But from the very first minute, so Clare began to think now, Doctor Pryne had missed everything of what should have been obvious to him. He had no subtlety then! But if this were true, why was everybody so mad about him and how could he be a successful doctor of souls! That was what Lowell called him, and he was even talking of putting him into his next novel,—disguised, of course. And then the miracles he worked! You simply had to have penetration of some sort, understanding of some sort, to do for personalities what he had done for Julia Dickerman, Cornie and all the rest! But even without any extraordinary amount of penetration you would expect him to see that it was both disloyal and cheap for Petra to have confided in him as she must have done this afternoon, the very minute they were alone together.
Suddenly Clare gave up the idea of being hurt by Petra’s astounding disloyalty. She would be too generous, too big to think of herself in the situation at all. But she understood now that she would have to say to this man whatever it was she wanted him to know. No use trusting to his discerning anything! That was what Petra had done, apparently. Said things. Simply because Petra had said things, Doctor Pryne had believed them—and that in spite of all that he should have seen and all that Clare had meant him to see for himself! Well, she—Clare—would have to descend to Petra’s crude methods. She would explain herself to this exasperating person in words and expound her relations with Petra. But she would leave the malice to Petra. The very contrast between her generosity and Petra’s smallness ought to speak for itself. He simply could not be so obtuse as to miss that much—or could he?
She refrained from touching him, although her impulse had again been to put her fingers on his arm. Instinctively she had a minute ago come to feel that physical contact made this particular man uncomfortable. But the urgency of Clare’s fingers’ pressure was transferred to her voice when she said:
“I am afraid that you have begun by misunderstanding almost everything, Doctor Pryne. But it doesn’t matter. I mean, it doesn’t matter that you consider Petra justified in her attitude toward me and what I am trying to do for her, as you seem to. What does matter—all that I care about at all—is Petra’s good. It is for her own sake I want her to become adjusted and happy, an integrated personality. It is not for my sake. Not even for her father’s. And if you are right and I ought to give her up, let her go away,—why, then I hope I am unselfish enough to let her try it. But why business school—of all things, for a daughter of Lowell Farwell’s? It will be interesting to know.”
But she gave Lewis no chance to answer that. She hurried on:
“First you must tell me everything she said to you. I don’t mean what she may have said about Green Doors, her home here, or me. No, I am afraid hearing that would hurt too much. But what she wanted different. Let us just concentrate on the positive side of things and let the negative go.... You see, even if you won’t take her as a patient, in the way I hoped you would take her, I still need your advice, your wisdom, Doctor. For in those brief moments you were alone with my stepdaughter, you seem to have come nearer to understanding her than I have in the years of our close association. You made her articulate for once. That in itself is something. Petra, articulate!”
She paused there, but only to draw Lewis’ glance to her face. “You see, my husband can’t help me with Petra.” Her eyes probed in the shallows of Lewis’ cold, sleepy gaze. “He is out of it, even if she is his own daughter. There is almost nothing of sympathy between them. That is what I have been working for, ever since my marriage, to help them to a more happy relationship. I have dreamed that Lowell might come to love the daughter of his youth as he loves our little Sophia. He adores the baby. But that, I am afraid, is merely because she is mine, and her very existence makes me more his. That is the way it is in happy marriages, of course. Father-love is all bound up in the father’s love for the mother. But Lowell, you see, loved Petra’s mother (if you can call it love)—well, differently—and that is why Petra herself—I have figured it out—means so little to him....”
Again Clare kept her fingers from Lewis’ coat sleeve but she actually clutched her hands on her lap to accomplish it. And she swayed toward him, her eyes insisting on holding his cold gaze. Her whole vivid, quicksilver face was alive with her intention to make Lewis her ally, to win from him something at last, of what she had intended to win when she invited him back to-night.