“It looks the other way around to me.”
“That’s because you don’t know the background. She’s always been lonely. From childhood. Her mother was impatient of children and never found time for her.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Why ... she told me, of course.”
“And you believed her. Without corroborative evidence. Is that what’s called the scientific attitude?”
He stopped stock-still. “Look here, Backmaker—” a moment before I had been Hodge to him—“Look here, Backmaker, I’m damned tired of all the things people say about Barbara; the jeers and sneers and gossip by people who just aren’t good enough to breathe the same air with her, much less have the faintest notion of her mind and spirit—” “Come off it, Ace,” I interrupted. “I havent got anything against Barbara. The shoe is on the other foot. Tell her I’m all right, will you? Don’t waste time trying to convince me; I’m just trying to get along.”
It was clear, not only from the slips which evaded Ace’s guard, but from less restrained remarks by other fellows, that Barbara’s tortured jealousy was a fixture of her character. She had created feuds, slandered and reviled fellows who had been guilty of nothing except trying to interest her father in some project in which she herself was not concerned. I learned much more also, much Ace had no desire to convey. But he was a poor hand at concealing anything, and it was clear he was helplessly subject to her, but without the usual kindly anesthetic of illusion. I guessed he had enjoyed her favors, but she evidently didnt bother to hide the fact that the privilege was not exclusive; perhaps indeed she insisted on his knowing. I gathered she was a fiercely moral polyandrist, demanding absolute fidelity without offering the slightest hope of reciprocal singlemindedness.
12. MORE OF HAGGERSHAVEN
Among the fellows was an Oliver Midbin, a student of what he chose to call the new and revolutionary science of Emotional Pathology. Tall and thin, with an incongruous little potbelly like an enlarged and far-slipped adamsapple, he pounced on me as a ready-made and captive audience for his theories.
“Now this case of pseudo-aphonia—” “He means the dumb girl,” explained Ace, aside.