Her own character, she knew, had been made by her little rebellions. Bardek had taught her the meaning of freedom; but she lacked his courage to be really herself. “You don’t know what you have in there,” he would often say, tapping his heart and his head. “Only God knows, who gave you great forces to use.” She was seventeen and thoroughly matured, she admitted, yet custom hardly sanctioned even her apparel. What she had achieved in that department was won by fighting; and it was a fact, she bore witness in every daily movement, that until she had boldly adopted the costume of womanhood she had not been able to think the thoughts of woman. So small a thing as inches on a skirt influenced mightily one’s very thinking. How strange was that; but how much more powerful were other restrictions. Until one accepted freedom and moved forward, there was a stoppage of mental growth.
Many things she would like to do but dared not. At this moment, if she had the courage, she told him, she would slip into a travelling-gown, pack a bag, and take a sleeper for Holden. In the morning she would go straight to her capitaine, Allen Blynn, have breakfast with him and spend the day talking anything that chose to come into their heads, and read poetry, and let the world slip. The spring air had done this thing to her—she knew that; but why should one resist the call of spring. Cherry blossoms did not resist. Neither did the veriest worms. All night long Birchall’s dog had barked his delight. Why shouldn’t he? He didn’t consider, “Gorgas Levering is trying to sleep; I should not do this natural thing; I will resist the overpowering temptation to yowl.” If he did he would cease to be a dog. Next spring it would be easier for him to shut up; and in a few years he would move into a porch-house and be writing essays on the immorality of any barking whatever. By that time he would be wearing piccadilly collars and eye-glasses.
Some day she would break loose and express herself. She had done so in a number of small things. Phew! How the good mater would carry on if she knew!
For illustration, Gorgas gave a sketchy account of her holiday with Bardek. They had tramped across country to Chestnut Hill, and up the Whitemarsh Valley, where in a thick of young willows by the upper reaches of the Wissahickon they had struck camp. They built a fire and had luscious broiled chicken empaled on sticks—Bardek had negotiated for the chickens at a near-by farm house. For hours they lolled on the ground, Bardek’s thick coat serving as a protection from the damp earth, stirred the fire, and talked themselves out. They should have started for home, of course, but it was Gorgas who declined to go back, and Bardek had consoled himself with the sight of an occasional puffing train off beyond the trees; when they willed they could whisk back to Mount Airy in a half-hour or less.
Then, as the warm sun was slanting warningly toward the west, Gorgas, prowling among the willows, came upon an amateur spring-board disclosing a swimming-hole, shut in from all the world. The day was exceptionally warm, but when she shouted with delight and invited him to dare her to dive in, Bardek was wise enough to know the dangerous deception in the day and season, and ordered her most thunderously to do no such thing. And therein Bardek was not wise at all. She would not be ordered about by anyone, she had retorted angrily; she would do as she pleased; and when he strode forward, talking the while as if he were disciplining one of his youngsters, she plunged in. And just to show that she was master of herself, she had swum about deliberately in the tingling water until he changed his tone and pleaded with her to come out.
That, of course, put trains out of the question. The miles to Mount Airy must be walked, and at a good pace, too. The stimulating chill of that water she recorded as one of the most satisfying shocks of her young experience; and the swift tramp homeward on an exquisitely warm April night was altogether good.
Bardek, mindful of added trouble to Gorgas if the Leverings should glimpse him, discreetly dropped out at his white-washed cottage; so to Gorgas it was left to face the family alone. It was close to midnight. The Levering household was awake and watching, one might be sure, and full of silly speculation.
There was a row, of course; but not a word of explanation from Gorgas. She answered questions with tantalizing vagueness, foraged for food and ate hungrily, but only stared like Ophelia at their admonitory speeches.
Presently they noticed her closer resemblance to Ophelia, the damp hair, and presented the theory that she had fallen into the water. The thought of swimming in April did not occur to them. As that drew sympathy and a cessation of fault-finding she affected a clever shiver or two and was put to bed with much solicitude and a comforting drink of hot lemonade. At this hour she was presumed to be sleeping.
What good would explanations have done? She asked Blynn. The net result had been good, physically, mentally and spiritually good. She had let loose struggling feeling and had the fine bounding recompense that always comes when mother nature says, Give. To tell the bare facts would be to tell a sort of untruth; certain persons—the plaster-of-paris sort—are incapable of receiving; preconceived notions of conduct have “set” them forever.