“No,” Bardek replied, while he watched her out of half-closed eyes; “I do not say so much. I think she do not know what she do. But she is vairy interested—oh, vairy interested—in the nice young man. She do not like him? Oh, no! But she go, and go; and she talk and she write. In all the great big world there is but one reason for that. The little roots of the weeds, zey shove and push and work and zey do not know why, but one day zey come out where is water; and zen zey know why.”
“It is terrible!” the words escaped Gorgas involuntarily. It gave her an inexpressible sensation of illness to think of mon capitaine at the mercy of so irresistible a force.
“Oh, no!” laughed Bardek; “it is not terrible. No! It is vairy wonderful and le bon Dieu, he has made it so!”
Le bon Dieu! Ah, no! It could not be from heaven, or why should the very thought of it torment her?
She went home to nights of acute distress and days of smiling mockery. She listened to all sorts of inquiries about her health, parried the questions with vague fibbings; but she knew the cause of the storm that raged within.
Then came a night of resignation. She surprised herself—and blamed herself, too—at her easy recovery. What powers of adaptability we have! The deepest grief is, somehow, assuaged. If it was to be; it was to be. She found herself, one day, laughing at herself. A fortnight later, she was lost in the preparation for her graduation from The Misses Warren’s Select French and English School for Young Ladies. The sorrows of seventeen are not fatal. Yes; she was quite herself now, marvelling only occasionally at the turbulence that had shaken her.
And therein she deceived herself, as all of us continually do. She was quite her serene self—so she thought. We know so little about ourselves, about what we think, about what we want, even about what we are doing. We talk much—confidently; we declaim, make speeches, deny vehemently, or affirm with hand upraised: but deep within us, like a Hidden River, flows the unconscious life. When it wells to the surface we know it for the first time, cry out in fear, or exult. When it subsides we say, “It is not there!” We are poor witnesses, with all our boastings and modesties, poor witnesses either for or against ourselves.
“I wonder where my roots are going?” Gorgas asked herself. For answer she dropped the consideration of the width of ribbon she would wear on her graduation dress and sat down to write a letter to Allen Blynn. It was a burst of personal confession—the Hidden River was welling very, very near the surface!—and most particularly she told him about the “Brass Image,” and warned him. Then she read it over and destroyed it.
“Oh, I guess I’m not brassy enough,” she said and shook her head.