We took Nokomis with us, and walked over the hill as we had walked the day before. "We," I say, for, had any spectator been on the hillside to watch us pass on both days he could have seen no difference in the couple. With me was the same gracile creature abounding with life and beauty, the same small, brown-haired, brown-eyed woman with the flower-like hands.
But I need not say how different she was in talk, in gesture, in her mental attitude toward me. Yet, though I have shown Joy as intense, even as melancholy, this was not her natural quality. She could be as gay and debonair as Edna, but it was vivacity of a different key. Her laugh was as light and ringing, but it was provoked by other occasions. Her sallies were as joyous, but they sparkled with wit and comprehension. She was as frank, but she was keen as well. So it was not so much the sunny-dewy as against the quiet-shadowy, as it was April rivaled by June.
After luncheon with Leah, we went up to Joy's private sitting-room, or study, as she called it—and it was really that, as I saw by the books which lined its walls. She had indeed time enough to read them! It was a woman's room, but it was expressive of virility as well as taste. Like most of the other rooms, except the sleeping chambers and the dining-room, it was paneled to the ceiling—Joy confessed that she disliked plaster even when covered with paper. The wood here was a beautifully grained poplar and the general air of lightness and coolness was helped by the high, irregular, ceiled roof whose beams and ties stretched across from wall to wall. The ship-like bay-window which I had noticed from the outside was a nest of cushions of all colors of the rainbow—I speak literally—varying from violet, through blue, green, yellow and orange to red and purple again. There was a great table here where I saw a large microscope and case of slides. An upright piano stood in a corner. I noticed also a typewriter, and a camera on a tripod. The place had an air of work and study quite different from Edna's clutter and disorder. It showed me in a glance how it had been possible for her to live alone, so far away from civilization.
Here we spent the afternoon discussing her condition and prospects. She asked me much about Edna, for, though she had always been kept informed of Edna's actions by Leah, and had attained by this time a pretty good comprehension of her alternate's character, she was much interested in my opinions and conclusions, and I was able to cast new lights upon this second self of hers which gave her a new point of view. I could not yet bring myself to speak of Edna's coquetries, for of this she had no suspicion. There had been few visitors to Midmeadows since she had lived there, only the doctor and her lawyer, I believe; for she had, of late years, become more and more retiring as Edna's appearances had become more frequent.
Whatever indiscretions Edna had permitted herself with the doctor had been well concealed, as they were so much alone. I myself would never have suspected anything, had she not been free enough with me to set me on the watch. And all this sort of thing, too, had evidently been only of recent growth—it was coincident with Edna's increasing "strength." I don't think that either Leah or I had, for an instant, any compunction on Edna's account against informing Joy of what might be going on. We were loyal to Joy alone—it seemed unquestionable that she was the rightful sovereign self, and that the other was an interloper—our devotion did not hesitate at any violation of confidence incident to such a revelation. But we wanted to spare Joy's feelings as long as possible. For, under whatever spell, it was still Miss Fielding whose actions we must criticize. Irresponsible as she was, she could hardly bear to think of herself as appearing in such a light, knowing what the picture must be in our eyes, and her own. Indeed, it takes a more than ordinary amount of philosophy to know that one has shown a lack of taste or delicacy even under the effects of an anesthetic or an intoxicant, without suffering from mortification and shame. Her embarrassment would be quite as poignant as her sensibility was exquisite.
Joy had kept a diagram of her changes, and she got it out from her desk to show me. The first appearance of No. 2 had occurred when she was about fourteen years old; the second a month or so later, and there had been this usual interval until she was about twenty-one. From that time on, the appearance of No. 2 had increased in frequency, until for the last few years it had settled into a fairly regular average of two days in every week. There had been in her early childhood, beginning when she was seven years old, some curious abnormal tendencies that had not been recorded; it seemed, therefore, that her development was progressing, roughly, in seven-year cycles.
If that were so, the present daily alternation of personalities seemed to predict a gradual overthrow of her normal self, the original No. 1. The more I discussed it with her, however, the surer I was that this sudden access of strength on the part of Edna was chiefly attributable to the doctor's influence. I did not say so in so many words to Joy, for I wanted first to prepare my plan, but there was no doubt, in my mind, that whatever was his object in overthrowing Joy's control, and making Edna paramount, my coming had somewhat interfered with his experiments, and he had consequently increased his energy in a determination to succeed as soon as possible in his attempt at the replacement. How terrible this slow eclipse of her soul must be to Joy, I knew well enough.
It is hardly to be wondered at, therefore, that, thrown into intimate contact with so beautiful and so rare a character, I should bend all my will and powers toward helping her in her misfortune. I had decided already to make any sacrifice, and devote all my time to the task. Nor is it to be wondered at, I think, that, so devoting myself to her cause and being so privileged to study her closely, I should, by this time, have fallen deeply in love with her. Her very desperation, her hopeless, futile struggle against something outside any ordinary human experience drew me to her with an ever-increasing fondness. Her reliance on my aid strengthened the bond day by day, hour by hour. How much the doctor's interest in her had given me the additional fillip of jealousy, I would not care to say.
We came back to the incident of the gold chain more than once. What did that phenomenon mean? It was almost the first, and certainly the strongest and clearest symptom of a common share in Edna's life that Joy had ever had. Was it, then, Joy's dim vision of Edna's experience, or was it more sinister and significant, an evidence of Edna's ability to project herself into Joy's waking life? Did Edna, perhaps, have a coexistent, subconscious life? That it meant something, that it marked some new phase in this last cycle of development, we were both sure.
So we talked and talked that afternoon and through dinner. In the evening, exhausted with speculation, we gave it all up. Joy played her violin for me for an hour or so, and we lost all thought of the problem in our common enjoyment of her music. Then we started a game of chess, which, hard fought, lasted till bed-time.