Part 8 (1/2)
”Because,” said the Doctor, shying away toward the door, ”I should have liked to know if the child turned out to be a genius. That kind do sometimes,” and he disappeared into the doorway.
”Anyhow,” said the Critic, ”I am going to wear laurels until some one tells a better--and I'd like to know why the Journalist looks so pensively thoughtful?”
”I am trying to recall who she was--Margaret Dillon.”
”Don't fret--she may be a 'poor thing,' but she is all 'mine own'--a genuine creation, Mr. Journalist. I am no reporter.”
”Ah? Then you are more of a sentimentalist than I even dared to dream.”
”Don't deny it,” said the Critic, as he rose and yawned. ”So I am going to bed to sleep on my laurels while I may. Good night.”
”Well,” called the Sculptor after him, as he sauntered away, ”as one of our mutual friends used to say 'The Indian Summer of Pa.s.sion scorches.'”
”But, alas!” added the other, ”it does not _always_ kill.”
”Witness--” began the Journalist, but the Critic cut him short.
”As you love me--not that famous list of yours including so many of the actresses we all know. I can't bear THAT to-night. After all the French have a better phrase for it--'La Crise de quarante ans.'”
The Nurse and Divorcee had been very quiet, but here they locked hands, and the former remarked that they prepared to withdraw:
”That is our cue to disappear--and you, too, Youngster. These men are far too wise.”
So we of the discussed s.e.x made a circle with our clasped hand about the Youngster and danced him into the house. The last I saw of the garden that night, as I looked out of my window toward the northeast, with ”Namur” beating in my head, the five men had their heads still together, but whether ”the other s.e.x” was getting scientifically torn to bits, or they, too, had Namur in their minds I never knew.
IV
THE DOCTOR'S STORY
AS ONE DREAMS
THE TALE OF AN ADOLESCENT
The next day was very peaceful. We were becoming habituated to the situation. It was a Sunday, and the weather was warm. There had been no real news so far as we knew, except that j.a.pan had lined up with the Allies. The Youngster had come near to striking fire by wondering how the United States, with her dislike for j.a.pan, would view the entering into line of the yellow man, but the spark flickered out, and I imagine we settled down for the story with more eagerness than on the previous evening, especially when the Doctor thrust his hands into his pockets and lifted his chin into the air, as if he were in the tribune. More than one of us smiled at his resemblance to Pierre Janet entering the tribune at the _College de France_, and the Youngster said, under his breath, ”A _Clinique_, I suppose.”
The Doctor's ears were sharp. ”Not a bit,” he answered, running his keen brown eyes over us to be sure we were listening before he began:
In the days when it was thought that the South End was to be the smart part of Boston, and when streets were laid out along wide tree shaded malls, with a square in the centre, in imitation of some quarters of London,--for Boston was in those days much more English in appearance than it is now,--there was in one of those squares a famous private school. In those days it was rather smart to go to a private school.
It was in the days before Boston had much of an immigrant quarter, when some smart families still lived in the old Colonial houses at the North End, and ministers and lawyers and all professional men sent their sons and their daughters to the public schools, at that time probably the best in the world.
At this private school, there was, at the time of which I speak, what one might almost call a ”princ.i.p.al girl.”
She was the daughter of a rich banker--his only daughter. The G.o.ds all seemed to have been very good to her. She was not only a really beautiful girl, she was, for her age, a distinguished girl,--one of the sort who seemed to do everything better than any one else, and with a lack of self-consciousness or pretension. Every one admired her. Some of her comrades would have loved her if she had given them the chance. But no one could ever get intimate with her. She came and went from school quite alone, in the habit of the American girl of those days before the chaperon became the correct thing. She was charming to every one, but she kept every one a little at arm's length. Of course such a girl would be much talked over by the other type of girl to whom confidences were necessary.
As always happens in any school there was a popular teacher. She taught history and literature, and I imagine girls get more intimate with such a teacher than they ever do with the mathematics.