Fred studied the white ash of his cigarette before he flicked it off. “You mean he’ll see me as even worse than I am. Yes, I suppose I shall look very low to him: a fifthrate scoundrel. But that only matters in so far as it hurts his feelings.”
Thea sighed. “We’ll both look pretty low. And after all, we must really be just about as we shall look to him.”
Ottenburg started up and threw his cigarette into the grate. “That I deny. Have you ever been really frank with this preceptor of your childhood, even when you were a child? Think a minute, have you? Of course not! From your cradle, as I once told you, you’ve been ‘doing it’ on the side, living your own life, admitting to yourself things that would horrify him. You’ve always deceived him to the extent of letting him think you different from what you are. He couldn’t understand then, he can’t understand now. So why not spare yourself and him?”
She shook her head. “Of course, I’ve had my own thoughts. Maybe he has had his, too. But I’ve never done anything before that he would much mind. I must put myself right with him,—as right as I can,—to begin over. He’ll make allowances for me. He always has. But I’m afraid he won’t for you.”
“Leave that to him and me. I take it you want me to see him?” Fred sat down again and began absently to trace the carpet pattern with his cane. “At the worst,” he spoke wanderingly, “I thought you’d perhaps let me go in on the business end of it and invest along with you. You’d put in your talent and ambition and hard work, and I’d put in the money and—well, nobody’s good wishes are to be scorned, not even mine. Then, when the thing panned out big, we could share together. Your doctor friend hasn’t cared half so much about your future as I have.”
“He’s cared a good deal. He doesn’t know as much about such things as you do. Of course you’ve been a great deal more help to me than any one else ever has,” Thea said quietly. The black clock on the mantel began to strike. She listened to the five strokes and then said, “I’d have liked your helping me eight months ago. But now, you’d simply be keeping me.”
“You weren’t ready for it eight months ago.” Fred leaned back at last in his chair. “You simply weren’t ready for it. You were too tired. You were too timid. Your whole tone was too low. You couldn’t rise from a chair like that,”—she had started up apprehensively and gone toward the window.—“You were fumbling and awkward. Since then you’ve come into your personality. You were always locking horns with it before. You were a sullen little drudge eight months ago, afraid of being caught at either looking or moving like yourself. Nobody could tell anything about you. A voice is not an instrument that’s found ready-made. A voice is personality. It can be as big as a circus and as common as dirt.—There’s good money in that kind, too, but I don’t happen to be interested in them.—Nobody could tell much about what you might be able to do, last winter. I divined more than anybody else.”
“Yes, I know you did.” Thea walked over to the oldfashioned mantel and held her hands down to the glow of the fire. “I owe so much to you, and that’s what makes things hard. That’s why I have to get away from you altogether. I depend on you for so many things. Oh, I did even last winter, in Chicago!” She knelt down by the grate and held her hands closer to the coals. “And one thing leads to another.”
Ottenburg watched her as she bent toward the fire. His glance brightened a little. “Anyhow, you couldn’t look as you do now, before you knew me. You were clumsy. And whatever you do now, you do splendidly. And you can’t cry enough to spoil your face for more than ten minutes. It comes right back, in spite of you. It’s only since you’ve known me that you’ve let yourself be beautiful.”
Without rising she turned her face away. Fred went on impetuously. “Oh, you can turn it away from me, Thea; you can take it away from me! All the same—” his spurt died and he fell back. “How can you turn on me so, after all!” he sighed.