It was Christy who murmured with a grin:
“Pollard’s groping towards the light.”
“Let me take him by the hand,” said Janet Rockingham Welford. “I’ll lead him into such a blaze of light that his young soul will be dazzled. He will see the vision of the glory of light and the bright coloured garments of radiant humanity. . . . Will you come, my friend?”
“Is it far to walk?” asked Bertram, “or must I take a ’bus?”
She told him that it was no further than the Charing Cross Road, over a bookshop, on Tuesday and Friday evenings, at the club meetings of the “Left Wing.” She was secretary, and would make him a probationary member. Fee, two shillings and sixpence. Including coffee.
She made other enquiries as to his political and philosophical mentality, and found him doubtful. She diagnosed him as a case of psychic suppression, with a political complex. His instincts, she thought, were healthy, but his opinions idiotic. If he would leave himself entirely in her hands, with placid faith, she would undertake to root up his inherited and developed prejudices, and turn him out a fresh young soul of the Left Wing, eager for exalted flight.
“Your marriage, Bertram dear?” she enquired presently; “are you fretting at the yoke, or have you acquired that technique which makes it possible for two human beings to dwell under the same roof-tree, day after day, even week after week, without agony of boredom and a nerve strain beyond endurance? Tell me frankly. I can help you.”
Bertram flushed to the roots of his hair, said “Hang it all!” and then laughed heartily. Janet Rockingham Welford was really the most remarkable specimen of modern young womanhood that he had yet met.
She seemed glad to amuse him.
“That laugh will do you good,” she informed him. “You’ve been worrying about things. You’ve secret fears. I expect your dreams ought to be regulated. Laughter is the great remedy of fear. I know that from my blind men.”