The doctor was interested. “The fourth dimension,” he repeated slowly; “and is that slang, too?”
“No,”—Fred shook his head,—“that’s merely a figure. I mean that life is not quite so personal here as it is in your part of the world. People are more taken up by hobbies, interests that are less subject to reverses than their personal affairs. If you’re interested in Thea’s voice, for instance, or in voices in general, that interest is just the same, even if your mining stocks go down.”
The doctor looked at him narrowly. “You think that’s about the principal difference between country people and city people, don’t you?”
Fred was a little disconcerted at being followed up so resolutely, and he attempted to dismiss it with a pleasantry. “I’ve never thought much about it, doctor. But I should say, on the spur of the moment, that that is one of the principal differences between people anywhere. It’s the consolation of fellows like me who don’t accomplish much. The fourth dimension is not good for business, but we think we have a better time.”
Dr. Archie leaned back in his chair. His heavy shoulders were contemplative. “And she,” he said slowly; “should you say that she is one of the kind you refer to?” He inclined his head toward the shimmer of the pale-green dress beside him. Thea was leaning, just then, over the balcony rail, her head in the light from the chandeliers below.
“Never, never!” Fred protested. “She’s as hard-headed as the worst of you—with a difference.”
The doctor sighed. “Yes, with a difference; something that makes a good many revolutions to the second. When she was little I used to feel her head to try to locate it.”
Fred laughed. “Did you, though? So you were on the track of it? Oh, it’s there! We can’t get round it, miss,” as Thea looked back inquiringly. “Dr. Archie, there’s a fellow townsman of yours I feel a real kinship for.” He pressed a cigar upon Dr. Archie and struck a match for him. “Tell me about Spanish Johnny.”
The doctor smiled benignantly through the first waves of smoke. “Well, Johnny’s an old patient of mine, and he’s an old admirer of Thea’s. She was born a cosmopolitan, and I expect she learned a good deal from Johnny when she used to run away and go to Mexican Town. We thought it a queer freak then.”
The doctor launched into a long story, in which he was often eagerly interrupted or joyously confirmed by Thea, who was drinking her coffee and forcing open the petals of the roses with an ardent and rather rude hand. Fred settled down into enjoying his comprehension of his guests. Thea, watching Dr. Archie and interested in his presentation, was unconsciously impersonating her suave, gold-tinted friend. It was delightful to see her so radiant and responsive again. She had kept her promise about looking her best; when one could so easily get together the colors of an apple branch in early spring, that was not hard to do. Even Dr. Archie felt, each time he looked at her, a fresh consciousness. He recognized the fine texture of her mother’s skin, with the difference that, when she reached across the table to give him a bunch of grapes, her arm was not only white, but somehow a little dazzling. She seemed to him taller, and freer in all her movements. She had now a way of taking a deep breath when she was interested, that made her seem very strong, somehow, and brought her at one quite overpoweringly. If he seemed shy, it was not that he was intimidated by her worldly clothes, but that her greater positiveness, her whole augmented self, made him feel that his accustomed manner toward her was inadequate.