For a moment Doris could not see the girl across the room. The sunlight fell full on her, and hid her, rather than revealed her.
"I'll try to be worthy of your faith in me, darling. Go on." Doris spoke quietly.
They did not come together physically, these two. They felt no need of the affectionate human contact; it was more one soul reaching out to another with courage and honesty.
Doris listened, following closely. People and places became visualized as Joan spoke. Sylvia Reed with her strong, purposeful face and eyes of a young prophet; the new nest of genius where the brave creature, believing in herself, waited for another in whom she trusted and for whom she held a deep-founded affection. Doris felt her way in silence—relinquishing, loving, fearing, but never blinded. She knew the moment's pain of disappointment caused by the realization that with all her love and riches she had not, for the time being, anything to offer this untried soul that could lure it from its vision.
Presently she heard herself speaking as if a third person were in the room:
"If this means anything it means that it must be met in the spirit with which Sylvia is meeting it. She has risked all; is willing to pay the price—are you?"
"Yes, Aunt Dorrie."
"You know, darling, that it would be easier for me to lavish everything on you?"
"You understand that if I leave you free to meet this chance in its only true way—the hard, struggling way—it is not because I desire to sicken you of it and so regain you for Nancy and me?"