“But she’s fond of you....”
“Her father and I were good friends. He was very like her ... disagreeable and given to speaking unpleasant truths.... He wasn’t a popular man. Perhaps that’s why she’s friendly toward me ... on account of him.”
“No, it’s more than that....”
Slowly Olivia felt herself slipping back into that state of confused enchantment which had overwhelmed her more and more often of late. It seemed that life grew more and more tenuous and complicated, more blurred and indistinct, until at times it became simply a morass of minute problems in which she found herself mired and unable to act. No one spoke directly any more. It was like living in a world of shadows. And this old man, her father-in-law, was the greatest puzzle of all, because it was impossible ever to know how much he understood of what went on about him, how much he chose to ignore in the belief that by denying its existence it would cease to exist.
Sitting there, puzzled, she began to pull a leaf from the cluster of lilacs into tiny bits.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I think Sabine is unhappy....”
“No ... not that.... She’s beyond happiness or unhappiness. There’s something hard in her and unrelenting ... as hard as a cut diamond. She’s a clever woman and a queer one. She’s one of those strange creatures that are thrown off now and then by people like us. There’s nothing else quite like them in the world. They go to strange extremes. Horace was the same ... in a different, less creditable fashion.”
Olivia looked at him suddenly, astonished by the sudden flash of penetration in the old man, one of those sudden, quick gleams which led her to believe that far down, in the depths of his soul, he was far more profound, far more intelligent, unruly and defiant of tradition than he ever allowed the world to suppose. It was always the old question. How much did he know? How much did he not know ... far back, behind the lined, severe, leathery old face? Or was it a sort of clairvoyance, not of eternal illness, like Jack’s, but of old age?
“I shall ask Sabine,” she began.
“It’s not necessary at the moment. She appears to have forgotten the matter temporarily. But she’ll remember it again and then I think it will be best to humor her, whatever comes. She may not think of it again for months ... until Sabine has gone.... I only wanted to ask you ... to consult you, Olivia. I thought you could arrange it.”