This she did hear and looked up at Lewis. She seemed, strangely, almost herself, he thought,—almost natural now and calm. And she bore it out by saying in her normal, ingenuous, even winged voice, “You are talking about Neil? But I do know that about him, Doctor Pryne. Of course Neil won’t marry as long as Edyth lives. He can’t. I understand perfectly. It breaks my heart.”
It was rather ironic, perhaps, that those four definite, simple, unenigmatic words spoken in that winged voice were what now finished the business of Lewis’ own heart’s breaking.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “I know it does. But Petra, that isn’t the point. The point is not to break Neil’s heart, and little children’s hearts and—and Teresa’s. You must tell everything to Teresa, I think. She, of all people, can help you.... But now you must get home and rest. We’ll go in my car. No, I forgot. We can’t. There’s that appointment at three you made with the Philadelphia people. You must go in a taxi then. But look here, Petra. What about Clare? The maid—Elise?—will have told her all about your coming in this morning. That you didn’t sleep at Green Doors! You’d better, after all, wait till I’m free. That’s something we’ll have to fix up. And these people are due now, almost. My dear, I hadn’t realized what a mess I may have made for you this morning until this minute. Had you?”
Petra was looking at him with the strangest, faint smile. Her eyes had come blue. They must have been not blue but dark with pain and fear all this time, or now they would not be coming blue like this as he looked into them! There was a little color in her face too.
“You’re sweet to care about such little things—concerning me!” she was saying. “But I’d rather go right along on the train now. I’ll just make it. I haven’t a dollar to spend on a taxi. Clare has already questioned me. She called up the first thing we got in this morning. But it’s all right. I told her I slept in the guest house under one of the steamer blankets. I said my room seemed airless and my head ached. She and Father have gone to the Cape, anyway, for over night. That’s why she called up instead of waiting till I came home. She won’t be there, you see.”
Petra put her own construction on the strange gravity that grew in Doctor Pryne’s eyes as she made these explanations, and added quickly, “Yes, I know. A lie. But I have had to lie to Clare. She lies to me with action. If I was to live with her at all, I had to protect myself, hadn’t I! But now it will end. After I am away from her, I hope I shall never tell another lie as long as I live. I am going to try terribly hard. It is Neil who has made me ashamed of my lies. Teresa never knew about them, of course. That’s why Neil stopped coming to Green Doors with me. He wouldn’t lie, and simply hated having me.”
Lewis was suddenly aware of sounds out in the reception room. Somebody coughed—to get his attention, he imagined. It would be the Philadelphia people, with their son. He said in a low voice to Petra, and hurriedly, “Go wash your face now, while I call the taxi. We’ll charge the mileage to office expenses, so don’t fuss.” And when Petra—her face innocent of tear stains and well powdered—returned from the dressing room through Miss Frazier’s door, Lewis was tipping two small white pills from the palm of his hand into an envelope. He put the envelope, carefully sealed, into the pocket of Petra’s polo coat, and said, “Take two when you get to Green Doors. They’re a sedative. Then go to bed. Really to bed. Make them give you dinner on a tray. It won’t matter, since Clare and your father are away.—Would they have gone to the Cape, do you think, on this jaunt, if Dick had things straight? Of course they wouldn’t. Put that out of your head.—By eight or so you’ll be rested. Then we can talk. Get dressed and I’ll be out as near nine as I can manage. Perhaps we can go over to the guest-house piazza? Like the first time, remember? We’ll talk out the whole thing,—about Neil, I mean now. And after all, you mustn’t tell Teresa. You’d better tell me. It will be easier—and save Teresa from being hurt. We’ll protect Teresa. You want to, don’t you?”
Then, because the bewildered look she gave him stabbed him almost beyond endurance, he whispered—for the door all this while was open into the reception room—“My dearest, everything will be all right. In the end. Why, the whole world is waiting spread out for you, lovely long years of your life. Things pass. Even loneliness passes. Truly. I have—been lonely—and I know.”
Down at the curb the taxi driver opened the taxi door when he saw them emerge from the foyer of the office building. But Lewis stopped short, midway across the pavement. There was something more he must say, even if those people were waiting for him up there in his office, the pale mother holding the writhing idiot boy desperately in tired arms.
“Petra,” Lewis exclaimed, “we’re in this together, you and I. You can trust my devotion as you’d trust a brother’s. If you had a brother, I mean, who loved you very deeply! I’m going to help you get clear of the spider web of Green Doors—and you can talk to me about Neil all you want. You can tell me anything. You see, my dear, I’m fond of Neil too. There’s nothing I won’t understand when you tell it.”