"But you remember that Miss Joy said, last night, that she would leave it all to your judgment. Oughtn't we, to protect her, perhaps, find out just what it is he's doing?"
I thought it over at length. But it was a resource that I couldn't help wanting to leave till the last. After all, it wasn't as bad as that, yet. Except in Edna's familiarities with me, and Leah's vague fears, I had no reason for fearing anything wrong. All depended upon the doctor's motives in being alone with her. He might, indeed, be making love to her, but then, perhaps he was truly in love; he might even want to marry her. It was a maddening thought for me, but, after all, it was, strictly, none of my business. He had a right to try to woo her, and it couldn't, at any rate, go far without Joy herself becoming aware of it. She would be the first to acknowledge that Edna had a right to permit it. If, however, he were dishonest in his motive, if he were, for instance, after her money, that was quite another matter, and it was obviously my place to interfere. We should have, at least, to see that Edna could not get hold of any property.
Lastly, and this seemed, at that time, most probable, he might only be carrying on a series of experiments with an interesting patient for some technical end. True, Joy had herself refused to permit him to treat her, and this probably accounted for his devoting himself to Edna; but it was not, so far as I could see, dangerous. My position, therefore, was a delicate one, and I made up my mind to have another talk with Joy before showing my hand in interference.
I went over all this with Leah and she listened attentively. She iterated that she didn't trust Doctor Copin, and that she feared there was danger at hand. I could see that the hint that he might want to marry Edna frightened her most of all.
"How can I tell Miss Joy?" she said. "How can I hint that Edna is too free with him—and all the rest that I suspect? Why, Mr. Castle, if she knew that, it would kill her! But oughtn't I tell her? Is it fair for her not to know? It's the most awful situation! I can't bear to think of it! We must save her from herself, though, as well as from the knowledge of herself—do you see?"
She was sensitively alive to the intricate phases of honor that were entangled in the situation, and, showing such fineness and delicacy, I could quite ignore the fact that she was a negress. But that was merely the negative aspect of my admiration for her. From this time on, the more I was thrown with her in the intimate way required by our coöperation, the more I began actually to find in her a positive beauty, a beauty that was truly of her race and type—a beauty that foreshadowed what, were environment to permit its development, her race might in time attain, when, even though the skin were still dark, the features, insensibly modified by mental processes, would lose something of the extravagance of modeling now so repellent to whites.
Such vision came in moments like this, when her spirit was aroused and free. Usually, and always when suffering patiently the contempt or anger of Edna, I saw her only as the personification of loyalty, the loyalty of the hound who licks the hand that smites him. It was then as if her woman's soul were crushed back farther into the figure of the servant. But always those two qualities were finely blended in her—she was slave and friend, not alternately but at once. One dwelt with the other in perfect peace. No hunchback ever carried his deformity with a nobler grace than she the trial of her color.
Miss Fielding and the doctor remained closeted together till dinner-time, when we three met at table. She was slightly flushed and her eyes were keen and bright. It was as if she somehow saw more—as if she had passed from that curious, mentally apathetic state which I have called childlike, and were inspecting a new world. But this analysis, no doubt, comes from what I learned later rather than from my observation at that time. Perhaps all that impressed me then was that she had, in some way, changed. I could find no way in which to account for the precise degree of difference that I noticed. She was alternately gay and abstracted, at which latter times she fell unconsciously into poses so like those of her normal self—Joy's self—that it gave me, often, a start of surprise.
But, as if to cover all this, the doctor was more than usually jocose in a mechanical way so devoid of real humor that it irritated me. Try as I might, I could not get him to talk seriously. At every remark or question of mine, he threw me off with some nonsensical comment. It was the more maddening because of Edna's inevitable laughter, and it was evident that she thought him a most amusing companion, though to me he seemed wholly without atmosphere or radiation; everything appeared calculated, deliberate. I saw that there could be nothing between us, unless, indeed, it should come to open conflict. He was the sort of man who could, I was well aware, arouse all my antagonism. It was easy enough to see that I was already jealous.
We talked on thus through the meal and then adjourned to the library for our coffee. As we entered I cast a quick look about to see if I could catch any revealing sign. I saw nothing except that the morris chair was drawn up to another, so that the two faced each other, almost near enough to touch. There were a few sheets of ruled yellow paper on the table. These the doctor took up as he went in, and placed in his pocket.