She said now to Lewis, “Aren’t they precious. Sweet! And everything before them! Petra seems to have had enough of young Neil, or he of her. Anyway, he seldom comes here now. But it was none of my doing. I was ready to stand back of him, in spite of my cherished hope that Dick might find his happiness in Petra. Dick told you of that hope, at Northeast. So you know how I have planned and dreamed for both those children, Petra and Dick. We—you and I, Doctor, between us,—seem to have succeeded in giving Petra her chance at life. Your job, anyway, has given her self-respect, self-confidence. And I—well, Doctor Pryne, you know because you are wise—pray Dick never knows—it has not been too easy for me to give her Dick. For one thing, honestly, I am not sure she is big enough for him. I tremble at my daring in taking her ultimate development so for granted.—Tell me—I need you to tell me, Doctor—say that in your judgment I have not been wrong. If I thought what I have done wasn’t to mean Dick’s happiness,—well, I should blame myself eternally. If in trying to mend his life I have complicated it—that is a terrible thought. For you know—he told you—how he feels about me. Through no fault of mine. I saw it happening and I warned him. But I thought if only he could begin to care for Petra a little, in the end—in the end—well—he might come to care for me less. He did tell you?”
Lewis sighed. Little he cared whether she heard the sigh. And she did hear it. He said, “If you were actually giving Dick to Petra so that he might get over his young, romantic infatuation for you, it would, of course, be calamitous, Mrs. Farwell. Calamitous for them both. Ghastly. But that won’t be the way of it. If they do marry, it will be because they have fallen healthily in love. You—and I—we are out of it. Clean out of it. Nothing to worry us.”
“You think Dick no longer cares for me, Doctor Pryne?” Her voice was sharper than she meant it to be.
Lewis did not reply. His hostess or not, she was abominable. He watched the dancers.
Clare said, after a minute, “I see what you think! If only you were right! How happy that would make me, Doctor! But life isn’t like that. Life makes us suffer. What I am so tortured by now is the fear that in my blundering I may not only have failed to help Dick, but I may have involved Petra in something amounting almost to tragedy for her. If she cares for him, as she seems to lately—if she has given up Neil for Dick, and Dick fails her—all our hearts may break in the end. But mine the most. For I am the cause of the muddle. I have wanted only the best for them both. For us all. And what have I really done! I begin to fear that Dick—no matter how hard he tries—will never be satisfied with Petra. Knowing Dick, I ought to have known that.—But I wanted his happiness so.”
She was crying. Unashamedly. But they were angry, baffled tears and Lewis knew it. The unkind part was that Clare knew he knew it. But she would show him. She would give him a demonstration of how he was wrong, how absolutely wrong he was. She would show him that Petra had no possible chance of being her, Clare Farwell’s, rival! After long weeks of fearing it, to-night Clare was faced with the fact that this Doctor Lewis Pryne was not to increase her roll of wonderful friendships. But one slight gratification she would yet wrest from the humiliating situation: the man might himself distrust, even dislike her; but he should see that Dick Wilder was still her slave.
She got up and went to the door: stood by it, one bare, rather thin arm reached up along the jamb, watching the dancers. Lewis stayed where he was and smoked his interminable cigarettes. He was glad his hostess had left him, but concerned for the direction her steps had taken.
This time, as Petra and Dick neared the arch of the drawing-room doorway, they could not fail to know that they were the object of some one’s attention. Dick wavered, let Petra go from his arms, seemed to wake from a fragile dream.
“Want to dance, Clare?” he said.
She shook her head.