第13章

It seems to me--I know that, for myself, I'm determined to keep the future clear.I'll never tie myself to the past.""But there are some things one MUST anchor fast to." Pauline was looking as if Scarborough were trying to turn her adrift in an open boat on a lonely sea."There are--friends.You wouldn't desert your friends, would you?""I couldn't help it if they insisted on deserting me.I'd keep them if their way was mine.If it wasn't--they'd give me up.""But if you were--were--married?"

Scarborough became intensely self-conscious.

"Well--I don't know--that is----" He paused, went on: "Ishouldn't marry until I was sure--her way and mine were the same.""The right sort of woman makes her husband's way hers," said she.

"Does she? I don't know much about women.But it has always seemed to me that the kind of woman I'd admire would be one who had her own ideals and ideas of life--and that--if--if she liked me, it would be because we suited each other.You wouldn't want to be--like those princesses that are brought up without any beliefs of any sort so that they can accept the beliefs of the kingdom of the man they happen to marry?"Pauline laughed."I couldn't, even if I wished," she said.

"I should say not!" he echoed, as if the idea in connection with such an indelibly distinct young woman were preposterous.

"But you have such a queer way of expressing yourself.At first I thought you were talking of upsetting everything.""I? Mercy, no.I've no idea of upsetting anything.I'm only hoping I can help straighten a few things that have been tumbled over or turned upside down."Gradually, as they walked and talked, her own affairs--Dumont's and hers--retreated to the background and she gave Scarborough her whole attention.Even in those days--he was then twenty-three--his personality usually dominated whomever he was with.It was not his size or appearance of strength; it was not any compulsion of manner; it was not even what he said or the way he said it.All of these--and his voice contributed; but the real secret of his power was that subtile magnetic something which we try to fix--and fail--when we say "charm."He attracted Pauline chiefly because he had a way of noting the little things--matters of dress, the flowers, colors in the sky or the landscape, the uncommon, especially the amusing, details of personality--and of connecting these trifles in unexpected ways with the large aspects of things.He saw the mystery of the universe in the contour of a leaf; he saw the secret of a professor's character in the way he had built out his whiskers to hide an absolute lack of chin and to give the impression that a formidable chin was there.He told her stories of life on his father's farm that made her laugh, other stories that made her feel like crying.And--he brought out the best there was in her.

She was presently talking of the things about which she had always been reticent--the real thoughts of her mind, those she had suppressed because she had had no sympathetic listener, those she looked forward to talking over with Dumont in that happy time when they would be together and would renew the intimacy interrupted since their High School days.

When she burst in upon Olivia her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks glowing."The air was glorious," she said, "and Mr.

Scarborough; is SO interesting."

And Olivia said to herself: "In spite of his tight clothes he may cure her of that worthless Dumont."