"I shouldn't have promised Dr. Carl," she mused, knowing that even without that promise her course must still have been the same. "I shouldn't have, not until I'd talked to Nick—my own Nick."
And still, she reflected forlornly, what difference did it make? She had to give him up; she couldn't continue to see him not knowing at what instant that terrible caricature of him might appear to torment her. But he might have explained, she argued miserably, answering her own objection at once—he's said he couldn't explain, didn't understand. The thing was at an impasse.
She shook her shining black head despondently, and descended the dusky well of the stairs to the kitchen. Magda was there clattering among her pots and pans; Pat entered quietly and perched on the high stool by the long table. Old Magda, who had warmed her babyhood milk and measured out her formula, gave her a single glance and continued her work.
"Sorry about the accident, I was," she said without looking up.
"Thanks," responded the girl. "I'm all right again."
"You don't look it."
"I feel all right."
She watched the mysterious, alchemistic mixing of a pastry, and thought of the vast array of them that had come from Magda's hands. As far back as she could remember she had perched on this stool observing the same mystic culinary rites.
Suddenly another memory rose out of the grave of forgetfulness and went gibbering across her world. She remembered the stories Magda used to tell her, frightening stories of witchcraft and the evil eye, tales out of an older region and a more credulous age.
"Magda," she asked, "did you ever see a devil?"