Miss Gilman, least obtrusive of chaperones, had been peacefully napping for a good half-hour in her low rocker under the reading-lamp, and the pictures in a thick quarto of Gulf Coast views had pleasantly filled the interval for the two who were awake, when Griswold finally assured himself that the danger of recognition was a danger past. As a mental analyst he knew that the opening of each fresh door in the house of present familiarity was automatically closing other doors opening upon the past; and it came to him with a little flush of the seer's exaltation that once again his prefigurings were finding their exact fulfilment. In a spirit of artistic daring he yielded to a sudden impulse, as one crossing the flimsiest of bridges may run and leap to prove that his theory of safety-stresses is a sufficient guarantee of his own immunity.
"You were speaking of first impressions of places," he said, while they were still turning the leaves of the picture-book. "Are you a believer in the absolute correctness of first impressions?"
"I don't know," was the thoughtful reply; but its after-word was more definite: "As to places, I'm not sure that the first impression always persists; in a few instances I am quite certain it hasn't. I didn't like the Gulf Coast at all, at first; it seemed so foreign and different and unhomelike. As to people, however——"
She paused, and Griswold entered the breach hardily.
"As to people, you are less easily converted from the original prejudice—or prepossession. So am I. I have learned to place the utmost confidence in the first impression. In my own case it is invariably correct, and if for any reason whatever I suffer any later characterization to take its place, I am always the loser."
She was regarding him curiously over the big book which still lay open between them.
"Is that a part of the writing gift?" she asked.
"No, not specially; most people have it in some more or less workable quantity, though for many it expresses itself only in a vague attraction or repulsion."
"I've had that feeling," she answered quickly.
"I know," he affirmed. "There have been times when, with every reasonable fibre in you urging you to believe the evil, a still stronger impulse has made you believe in the good."