“What in the world do you think it is?”
My voice had become involuntarily hushed. There
was awe in it. Her answer, given with slow emphasis,
brought back all my reserve: the phraseology provoked
me rather:—“Whatever it is, Bill,
it is not of God.”
I got up to go downstairs. I believe I shrugged
my shoulders. “Would you like to leave,
Frances? Shall we go back to town?” I suggested
this at the door, and hearing no immediate reply,
I turned back to look. Frances was sitting with
her head bowed over and buried in her hands. The
attitude horribly suggested tears. No woman, I
realized, can keep back the pressure of strong emotion
as long as Frances had done, without ending in a fluid
collapse. I waited a moment uneasily, longing
to comfort, yet afraid to act—and in this
way discovered the existence of the appalling emotion
in myself, hitherto but half guessed. At all costs
a scene must be prevented: it would involve such
exaggeration and overstatement. Brutally, such
is the weakness of the ordinary man, I turned the
handle to go out, but my sister then raised her head.
The sunlight caught her face, framed untidily in its
auburn hair, and I saw her wonderful expression with
a start. Pity, tenderness, and sympathy shone
in it like a flame. It was undeniable. There
shone through all her features the imperishable love
and yearning to sacrifice self for others which I
have seen in only one type of human being. It
was the great mother look.
“We must stay by Mabel and help her get it straight,”
she whispered, making the decision for us both.
I murmured agreement. Abashed and half ashamed,
I stole softly from the room and went out into the
grounds. And the first thing clearly realized
when alone was this: that the long scene between
us was without definite result. The exchange
of confidence was really nothing but hints and vague
suggestion. We had decided to stay, but it was
a negative decision not to leave rather than a positive
action. All our words and questions, our guesses,
inferences, explanations, our most subtle allusions
and insinuations, even the odious paintings themselves,
were without definite result. Nothing had happened.
Chapter VI
And instinctively, once alone, I made for the places
where she had painted her extraordinary pictures;
I tried to see what she had seen. Perhaps, now
that she had opened my mind to another view, I should
be sensitive to some similar interpretation—and
possibly by way of literary expression. If I
were to write about the place, I asked myself, how
should I treat it? I deliberately invited an interpretation
in the way that came easiest to me—writing.
