Eleanor read her letter over and addressed a tear splotched envelope to Peter. Then she slowly tore letter and envelope into little bits.
“He would know,” she said to herself. “I haven’t any real right to tell him. It would be just as bad as any kind of tattling.”
She began another letter to him but found she could not write without saying what was in her heart, and so went to bed uncomforted. There was nothing in her experience to help her in her relation to David. His kiss on her lips had taught her the nature of such kisses: had made her understand suddenly the ease with which the strange, sweet spell of sex is cast. She related it to the episode of the unwelcome caress bestowed upon her by the brother of Maggie Lou, and that half forgotten incident took on an almost terrible significance. She understood now how she should have repelled that unconscionable boy, but that understanding did not help her with the problem 238 of her Uncle David. Though the thought of it thrilled through her with a strange incredible delight, she did not want another kiss of his upon her lips.
“It’s—it’s—like that,” she said to herself. “I want it to be from somebody—else. Somebody realer to me. Somebody that would make it seem right.” But even to herself she mentioned no names.
She had definitely decided against going to college. She felt that she must get upon her own feet quickly and be under no obligation to any man. Vaguely her stern New England rearing was beginning to indicate the way that she should tread. No man or woman who did not understand “the value of a dollar,” was properly equipped to do battle with the realities of life. The value of a dollar, and a clear title to it—these were the principles upon which her integrity must be founded if she were to survive her own self-respect. Her Puritan fathers had bestowed this heritage upon her. She had always felt the irregularity of her economic position; now that the complication of her relation with David had arisen, it was beginning to make her truly uncomfortable. 239
David had been very considerate of her, but his consideration frightened her. He had been so afraid that she might be hurt or troubled by his attitude toward her that he had explained again, and almost in so many words that he was only waiting for her to grow accustomed to the idea before he asked her to become his wife. She had looked forward with considerable trepidation to the Easter vacation following the establishment of their one-sided understanding, but David relieved her apprehension by putting up at his club and leaving her in undisturbed possession of his quarters. There, with Mademoiselle still treating her as a little girl, and the other five of her heterogeneous foster family to pet and divert her at intervals, she soon began to feel her life swing back into a more accustomed and normal perspective. David’s attitude to her was as simple as ever, and when she was with the devoted sextet she was almost able to forget the matter that was at issue between them—almost but not quite.
She took quite a new kind of delight in her association with the group. She found herself suddenly on terms of grown up equality with them. Her consciousness of the fact that David was 240 tacitly waiting for her to become a woman, had made a woman of her already, and she looked on her guardians with the eyes of a woman, even though a very newly fledged and timorous one.
She was a trifle self-conscious with the others, but with Jimmie she was soon on her old familiar footing.
“Uncle Jimmie is still a great deal of fun,” she wrote in her diary. “He does just the same old things he used to do with me, and a good many new ones in addition. He brings me flowers, and gets me taxi-cabs as if I were really a grown up young lady, and he pinches my nose and teases me as if I were still the little girl that kept house in a studio for him. I never realized before what a good-looking man he is. I used to think that Uncle Peter was the only handsome man of the three, but now I realize that they are all exceptionally good-looking. Uncle David has a great deal of distinction, of course, but Uncle Jimmie is merry and radiant and vital, and tall and athletic looking into the bargain. The ladies on the Avenue all turn to look at him when we go walking. He says that the gentlemen all turn to look 241 at me, and I think perhaps they do when I have my best clothes on, but in my school clothes I am quite certain that nothing like that happens.