Mr. Corinth winced slightly. “Mmm. And life is soiling, too, Jimmie. You’ve got to keep scrubbing your brains and your soul. One bath doesn’t cleanse a man for a lifetime. That’s the trouble with conversion.” The old man smiled gently and changed the subject without altering his expression or his tone: “How’s Audrey?”
Jimmie jumped. “I dunno. Haven’t seen her since day after I arrived.”
The corners of the old man’s eyes crinkled. “She sure must have made a big impression, anyhow, to be avoided for so long!”
“Funny way to figure.”
“Is it? I’ll tell you how to figure. First, figure out how you feel. Then, what you think. Next, figure the opposite of both. Finally, integrate the whole business. At that point you get an answer. There’s not an idea that hasn’t a true opposite. There’s not a human feeling that doesn’t set up the possibility· of its opposite. There’s not an act you can perform without instituting the potentiality of performing an opposite act. Newton’s law of action and reaction applies in the brain and in the soul. It applies to history as much as shotguns. Who you are in the end is entirely a matter of what choices you make between constant opposites. Applying the law, I guess that if you haven’t seen Audrey she is important to you. I could be wrong if I didn’t know she was important, the first time.”
Jimmie considered. “She mailed me all her diaries,” he said, finally, in an uncertain tone.
Mr. Corinth looked at him for a moment, and he threw back his head in a spasm of his soundless laughter. “What a woman! Have you read ’em yet?”
“Of course not!”
“I accept the ‘not’ and reject the ‘of course.’ I asked you to examine the lady without reference to her dazzling exterior. Impressed by your exterior—or something—she has tendered you an unparalleled opportunity to do that very thing. You, however, have ignored the chance, and probably hidden the diaries someplace.”
Jimmie grinned. “I’ll read ’em tonight.”