Miriam thought for a moment. “You deserve an explanation. I can’t explain it all; it’s too personal.” She had almost said too humiliating. “But I’ll make a partial confession. Louise imported me here long ago as a sort of tutor, at her expense. You weren’t to know; but it can’t do any harm to give the game away now. While I was supposed to be tutoring her, I was really learning. By watching Louise I’ve learned the beauty of unselfishness, trite as that may sound. I can’t be unselfish on Louise’s scale, for I can’t be anything on her scale, good, bad, or indifferent. But like you I can mean well, and since I’ve known Louise I can mean better.
“You sometimes speak of Louise’s play-acting. When your people were here we once said that she was having a lovely time showing off. I know better now. I’m convinced that she was trying, in her own way, to reflect distinction on you, just as I’m convinced that when she jerrymandered the proletariat she was going it in the face of bodily discomfort and your disapproval simply because she couldn’t bear the thought of your being disappointed. I don’t think either of us has given Louise enough credit for disinterestedness, chiefly because she doesn’t give herself credit for it. She prates so much about her individual rights, that we assume her incapable of sacrificing them. At times we’ve mistaken her pride for indifference. Do look back and see if that isn’t so. I’m inclined to think that even her present illness is merely the nervous strain consequent upon some splendid reticence.”
Miriam paused, unable to confess that the reticence had to do with herself, as she suspected it had. She saw that she had permission to go on.
“Then her interest in Dare. That, you and I have avoided referring to, and I think we were a little hypocritical. But the core of the secret is connected with Dare, and I can’t do Louise the injustice of not telling you. It was unpardonable of me to listen, but I did. I was in the sun-parlor, in the hammock, dozing, and she and Dare came and sat by the fire in the hall. The door was open.”
“When was this?”
“Only yesterday. They were talking about the elections. ‘When I saw all those idiots wavering between Oat Swigger and Keble,’ she said, ‘something snapped. From that moment I had only one determination: to make them feel the worth of all the things Keble stood for in the universe’ . . . The conversation swung around to the monkey. She told Dare, as she had long ago told me, that before the monkey arrived she hoped he would be a boy, not for her sake, but to gratify his grandfathers. Then when he did turn out a boy, she was amazed to find herself thankful for your sake. The grandfathers were forgotten, but she was indifferent. Then after the elections she was for the first time conscious of cherishing the monkey for her own sake. That feeling grew until she suddenly resented your rights in him. Then yesterday she took it into her head to bathe the monkey, and had an insane delusion that she could wash off his heredity,—scrubbed like a charwoman till the poor darling howled. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘I was sorry, and by the time I had got on all his shirts I felt that I had put his heredities on again, and was glad and kissed him and he flapped his arms and squealed. Then I cried, because, deep down, I was terrified that perhaps Keble might some day, if he hasn’t already, resent my contribution to the monkey’.”
Miriam waited. “I couldn’t resist passing on that monologue to you, for it seems the most complete answer to many criss-cross questions, and Louise might never have brought herself to let you see. It would be impudent of me to say all this had we not formed a habit out here of being so criss-crossly communicative, and if you hadn’t tacitly given me a big sister’s licence. Anyway, there it is, for what it’s worth. At least I mean well.”
Keble was too strangely moved to trust his voice, and walked out of the house to ride over the rain-soaked roads.
That was the most bitter moment that Miriam had ever experienced. She had come to know that Keble had no emotion to spare for her; but that he should fail to see into her heart, or, seeing, refuse her the barest little sign of understanding and compassion,—it was really not quite fair.
She had letters to write. She had decided to leave, but apart from that her plans were uncertain. Her most positive aim was to avoid living with her old-fashioned aunt in Philadelphia. Grimly she looked forward to a process of gradual self-effacement. In two or three years she would probably not receive invitations to the bigger houses. Then there would be some hot little flat in Washington, on the Georgetown side, with occasional engagements to give lessons in something,—at best a post as social secretary to the wife of some new Cabinet Member full of her importance. Something dependent, and dingy. Each year would add its quota to an accumulation of dust on the shelves of her heart. And with a sigh she would take down from a shelf and from time to time reread this pathetic romance in the wilderness. From time to time she would receive impulsive invitations from Louise, and would invent excuses for declining. Perhaps, some years hence, when she could view the episode with some degree of impersonality and humor, she would write a long letter of confession to Louise. In advance she was sure of absolution. That was her only comfort.