"I'm going to sell those dogs pretty soon," she remarked carelessly, kicking at a thistle. "I don't see why in the world you wanted that puppy."
"Because you offered him to me," I answered, to see what she would say.
"Take them all, then, if you like," she said. "I confess I'm afraid of them sometimes."
We went along a lane behind the stable and beside a potato patch, and then, rising rapidly, through a gateway to a scrubby hillside, covered with huckleberry bushes and sweet fern. Miss Fielding, for so I must still call her, or you will perhaps forget that she was to all intents and purposes physically the same in this secondary personality, stuck her hands in the pockets of her red golf-jacket and swung up the path between the boulders, with a frank joyousness and comradeship that seemed as natural in its abandon as the windy air and the sunshine; and yet, mingled with it, was a sort of innocent trickery—the petty ruses of a primitive woman cropping out through a veneer of civilization.
I doubt if I can recall in precisely their order the little things which occurred after that to make me notice as evidences of her pursuit of me, but, as significant of her degree of craft, they amused me mightily. If I mention them, however, it is only fair to me to bear in mind that I regarded her quite as an abnormal phase of womanhood. She was not merely another person in Miss Fielding's guise, she was only the part of a person—a collection of functions sufficiently synthesized to have an independent consciousness and volition, but by no means a perfect whole. This is, I believe, the modern interpretation of multiple personality. Certain definite psychological tracts are split off and run themselves, so to speak. One might perhaps say that it is as if France, Germany, Austria and Italy should float off the map, and achieve a lesser Europe of their own. The line of cleavage in Miss Fielding's case was chiefly along intellectual and moral lines; Edna was a lesser and, mentally, a younger Joy—less cultured, less conscientious. It was quite in this way that I studied her.
She stopped in the lane before we got to the gate, and, unfastening the little gold chain with a sapphire pendant which she had about her neck, held it out to me.
"Here, would you mind taking this, Chet? Keep it safe for me, please! I'm afraid I may lose it."
I reached for it, but before I could take it she had herself tucked it into my vest pocket and patted the place humorously.
She stopped again, afterward, to ask me to tie her shoe-lace. It was patently one of the many attempts she was always making to establish a closer physical contact, an effort to keep the relation personal. I remember, also, that not long afterward, having climbed up a sandy bank with my help, and with compliments upon my strength, she stopped at the top to take off that same shoe and empty it of sand, disclosing quite unaffectedly a delicate little foot in a grass-green silk stocking. I helped her also over several stone walls, as she appeared to expect it, smiling to think how often she must have scaled them unassisted. We passed cows of which she professed to be much afraid and clung tightly to me for protection. It all sounds crude enough, but it was prettily done, and I was more amused than critical.
We reached the top of the hill and threw ourselves down on the grass to rest. To the east, the land fell away, mottled with boulders and bushes, with a bunch of trees here and there, and away in the distance was the sea. On the other sides the middle distance was blocked with woods. It was warm and sweet with a fresh earthy smell, and still as a church.