Richard, no doubt, would explain it glibly with his theory of “subliminal self,” which is always telling us the unknown truth. Why had that expedient come so pat to her tongue? She did not need to ask. Whether or not the questionable “subliminal” had spoken, she, the only self she really believed in, knew it to be the expression of her own wish.
Had she known this disturbing fact from the beginning? Lovers are prone to claim as much. Isn’t it the time-honoured formula to ask. “When did you—ah—begin to care?” and to answer, “From the beginning.” As she reviewed their days together from that long uncomfortable first day on the steamer when unknown to him she had lounged beside him in her steamer-chair and watched him repel each invader of his solitude, the design of her life began to appear; and she knew, then, that she had “cared from the beginning.”
Predestination, Richard would call it. She smiled at the picture of his mild interested face as he would analyze the rare experience into terms of kismet. “The gods” would be blamed cheerfully.
Each incident was fitted into its mate to make the full design. She had watched the modern Gobelin weavers in Paris and noted how the meaningless splotches of colour here and there grew gradually into a meaningful pattern. Life was like that. Her suggestion that they go about Naples together; the intimacy caused by the incognito; her own insistence upon secrecy; the invitation to “Red Jacket”; even her indignation at his suggestion that she would eventually make eyes at him—all these were parts of the curious weaving.
And she had begun already to make eyes at him! Not in a literal sense, to be sure—she would die before she did that—but in confessing her hopes to Walter she had gone a considerable step toward making the first move.
Hers was the type of mind which cleared up one confused thought at a time. The important matter of her own relation to Richard having been settled, she permitted Walter’s accusations to come in review. Was this impersonal friendly Richard a genteel bad man, after all? She could not decide. The actual card which Walter had found on his door looked like the practice of some sort of confidence man. She remembered that he had been most reluctant to give up the comfortable “Mr. Richard” which she had dubbed him. And his philosophy of drifting along, coupled with no occupation and a shocking state of low funds—all that seemed to fit in; along with his even more shocking lack of a sense of the culpability of all wrong-doers.
And she had been quite taken by his philosophy. A faithful Episcopalian—true to her Virginia traditions—she had never questioned religious matters. She had neither believed deeply nor troubled herself to disbelieve. Richard it was who constantly reminded her of the foundation principles of her own faith. “Neither do I condemn thee” had been one of his most striking quotations. “Judge not lest ye also be judged” was another; and “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” And now she saw that this attitude would be consistent with the credo of a man who might choose to act against the moral code of those about him. According to Walter, Richard was after her “tin.” “Well,” she laughed, “he is welcome to it—what there is of it—so long as he is willing to take me, too.”
But Walter had also hinted rather strongly—strange how this important thought had come last in review!—that Richard had been paying open court to Phœbe Norris. So far her mind had worked openly and frankly in the light. Now it began to deceive her; or rather, to put it in terms that Richard might have employed, the subliminal self did not lay all its cards on the table. It was a most uncomfortable thought that Richard and Phœbe Norris should be chatting and laughing together intimately—a most uncomfortable thought. But Jerry did not at all recognize the little wave of “tremor cordis” that made her “heart dance.” She saw instead the evil that might come to Richard and to Phœbe if an innocent and proper relationship should be allowed to grow until Walter might be aroused to some vile deed. They must all be saved from that! She would warn them both. Oh, it was very necessary that they should be warned.
And with that decision a tranquil feeling possessed her, which assured her that she had decided exactly right; so tranquil and inspiriting that she rose and walked along the ridge for a mile or more until she came to the spot where she could see the main body of Lake Keuka spread out wondrously before her. Then she walked briskly home and went light-heartedly to bed.