“Della, if you mean what I suppose you mean by ‘helping’ you, I wouldn’t have the faintest idea of how to help you in that way. And of course I wouldn’t anyway. It’s not only wicked to consider such a thing; it’s the worst kind of wickedness. It’s dreadful, awful, criminal.”
Her words seemed to dry Della’s tears. She got up, wrapping her coat around her.
“Well, I can kill myself,” she said, her blurred blue eyes full of childish drama. There was something in this pure childishness that went home to Cecily’s heart. There were only three or four years between her age and Della’s, but she felt decades older and wiser. It came to her suddenly that this was no figure of evil before her. It was just a frightened little girl, uttering angry threats in the face of her fear—ignorant of all things that might stand her in stead in a crisis, equipped only to meet gayety and enjoyment. Cecily had the heavier equipment and she longed to lend it, to bolster up this frail little soul. She took her by both shoulders.
“You won’t do any such ridiculous thing. Sit down and let me tell you a few things. Let me tell you,” she went on to Della, reluctant beside her, “what a joy it is, what wonderful happiness it really is, in spite of all the pain and trouble, to have a baby of your own, something living that you really created and made strong. Why, it’s most beautiful.”
But Della’s face was hard and drawn and sullen.
“That’s if you like that sort of thing. I don’t, that’s all. I’m not the type,” she repeated.
The motion picture phrase struck Cecily as true. Della wasn’t the “type” to understand what she was talking about. Della had been told that she was the type to wear electric blue, to carry off a Marcel, to dance the toddle. And it was true. She hadn’t got a word of what Cecily said, and she wouldn’t. To her little mind there was no entrance for the abstract or the philosophical. It must all be pictorial.
Cecily felt failure, and as she felt she wasn’t gaining her point, she cast about for new weapons. She was on the offensive with her philosophy this time, and she realized that the old weapons of defense were useless. She could not make Della see these things by talking to her. But there must be a way; she must find it.
“You and Walter can talk about how low I am when you see him. He feels like you do,” said Della bitterly.
“Walter thinks you’re wonderful,” answered Cecily. “He’s crazy about you.”