“You mean that because my father happened to be—a rascal, I could successfully live over the effects?” he asked, impersonally; but the question in his eyes caused me to motion him to the easy chair, and I sat beside him.
Prince calls me half irrepressible pagan, and Prince has an aggravating way of winning out; but there are moments when nothing more romantic than the protective hen seems uppermost. Therefore, I attribute the hour which followed to the subconsciousness, groping to assert its right of divination. Back of his impersonality lay an expression of profound solitariness, an appeal as impassioned as it was naïve: quickly masked, but revealing some dumb tragedy of soul. The source mattered nothing to me. Words from a modern philosopher swam through my thoughts: “All tormented souls are not in Inferno. They sit beside us, smile in our faces, devoured by the flame of present torture. Reach to them the drop of cold water.”
Imagination’s shuttle began to spin its swift, silent threads around this aloof personality, and I spoke without restraint of grandma’s enduring, pervasive spirituality, and of his boyhood’s promise. Gradually, then eagerly, response came, his restraint unveiling boyishly under the luxury of sympathy. He talked glowingly of Italy, of unconfessed adventure in Egypt, of wandering and wonder in Sahara, of unexplained mystery in India. Conversationally, his proved to be a sentient comprehension, finely imaginative and suggestive, and momentarily revealing an unsuspected, dual side, alien to the wild boy that I had known in childhood. At last, I said:
“Forgive me, but experiencing and appreciating life as you do, is it not remarkable that you have not married?”
“No. Some are born to be units,” he paused, “and the women I have known have not been like you.”
“Ah, now you shall see the Laughing Duchess!” I returned, rising for the candle.
He smiled down gravely upon me.
“It has been an unusual hour for me. You have caused me to forget time and errand. But, now I must look at your things and go.”
I reminded him of his promise to remain for the night at Brookchase, and he cast a wistful look around the room, but repeated:
“It is better that I should go.”