“How beautifully simple! Why didn’t you tell me when I was in the throes, and doubtful of its being for the best?”
“I didn’t think of it. It only occurred to me when I was beginning to feel—perplexed. Now, as I really need a rest, and can take it in this interval of peace, I am going to see what the preliminary surrenders are like, and enjoy them. That much I owe to myself. And I shall not have its memory destroyed, neither.”
“No, don’t,” said Ishbel. “Merely have it put in cold storage. Suspended animation. You might be able to marry Mr. Tay, after all. It would be a pity to lose it altogether. Should you have to fall in love all over again, or should you go back to your psychowhatyoucallhim and have the original suggestions replanted? Will he keep them in alcohol in a glass jar like those things in the Sorbonne?”
“You can jest, my dear, but I am talking pure science. And I learned it at the fountainhead. The Anglo-Saxon world is slow to accept anything it thinks new, but suggestive therapeutics were practised two thousand years B.C.”
“No one could be less conservative than I, although I have an adorable husband and two babies. Some day that may be thought radical. My mind is hospitable to all your lore, but I want to hear you work it out to its logical conclusion. What shall you do if you suddenly find yourself free to marry Mr. Tay—delightful man!—before he, with or without the aid of psychos, has recovered from you?”
“I have other reasons for intending to marry no man. And as for Dan—he is not even sure he is in love with me —”
“Oh, isn’t he?” cried Bridgit and Ishbel in chorus.
“Well, granted he is; he was not when he came over. He was convinced that I had grown hard and masculine, altogether terrifying; he was quite over his boyish infatuation. Now, he is attracted because he is delighted to find me not so much changed outwardly from his old ideal, and much more interesting to talk to. Besides, his masculinity is alert at the prospect of a difficult hunt. But when he is once more on the other side of the world, he will recover.”
“Julia,” said Ishbel, “you haven’t studied that man’s jaw-bones. And he has had his own way too much. He is tenacious. Now, as you are a human woman, you will adopt my suggestion. You will take him with you to Paris, and persuade him to go in for alternate treatments. Sauce for the goose, etc.”
“No,” said Julia, frowning.