Petra was working at shorthand now, her typewriter covered up until Monday. One hand was in her curls, ruffling them, and she appeared to be eating the rubber end of her pencil. She looked at Lewis dazedly. She was white with the heat in the stuffy little room. The doors should all have been opened—or else she shouldn’t have stayed. It was not quite so warm as yesterday, but it was bad enough.
“There’s a breeze in my office,” Lewis said. “A baby one, but rather nice. Put away the lessons, do, and come along in. I’m going to lay off too—till four.”
The violet of her frock was cool against the dark leather of the patients’ chair. Why did she wear a yellow belt? Her thin stockings were yellow, gold-yellow. Yellow and violet, with her gentian eyes, and vital gold-brown curls brushed on her neck, back from her ears, made Petra too lovely to look at with a level gaze. Why shouldn’t Petra care hugely about clothes and spend all the dollars a year on them she could lay her hands on—if clothes did this! The yellow belt was magic—a narrow yellow magic made of nothing in the world but a silly, twisted bit of silk cord.
Hundreds of women had sat in that chair facing Lewis, for years past, and at no other time could he recall noticing what one of them had worn. But he could no more help noticing this violet, cool frock of Petra’s with the yellow belt than he could help noticing the texture of flowers near at hand. The loveliness of Petra’s frocks was as inescapable as the loveliness of flowers.
He offered her a cigarette. She took one but only, he felt, because she did not see what they were going to talk about and this was something to relieve the awkwardness.... This time, when he held the match for her, their eyes did not meet....
Lewis put his arm along his desk. First of all, he had a duty to perform. He should have done it yesterday had he not taken it for granted it was unnecessary. But in the middle of the night he had been bothered by that taking for granted. Now was the time to get it off his mind,—and pray heaven it was not too late.
“You’re not to mind what I’m going to say, Petra. Probably it’s totally unnecessary. But you will give me your promise now, won’t you, quite solemnly, never so long as you live, to tell any one—any one at all—anything that you learned about my patient McCloud yesterday. You haven’t mentioned any of it to a soul, have you?”
Petra looked at him. No faltering now. Truth was on the way. She said almost before he had finished, “No, of course I haven’t told a soul and of course I promise. I do understand and you can trust me.” But even as she finished, panic came. She put her hand to her mouth. She had remembered something. Lewis saw her remember.
His heart sank. This was too bad—too terribly too bad. He exclaimed, “You have told some one, Petra. Who? In God’s name!”
“No,—no, I haven’t—” But she stopped the lie. She couldn’t lie to this man. In the first place, he could spot it. In the second place, she did not want to, somehow. She said, miserably, “I told Teresa. I told her every word. I’d forgotten. But that doesn’t count as telling. It’s like telling one’s self. She is so safe.... I told her that McCloud was Edyth’s husband. She had known her in Cambridge. And all about the flying accident. I told her that. And his mother’s dying. I told her, too, how McCloud had only seen his baby at the hospital. Less than two weeks. That seemed so unjust—so cruel! Oh, yes, I guess I told Teresa everything. You see—You see, I thought she might help.”