XVTWO SIMULTANEOUS SOLILOQUIES
THE countenance of Mrs. Cultus after this trying scene was a study in itself. She was attempting to understand her own daughter. Worldly wisdom was well developed in Mrs. Cultus, and it was fortunate for Adele that her mother had suppressed dangerous personalities early in the interview, else the result would have been permanently bad instead of what it proved to be. Much of what Adele said Mrs. Cultus had fully appreciated, but not all; not when her daughter began talking of what constituted perfection, and the consequences. Then worldly wisdom failed, and the mother regarded her daughter with amazement.
“The child! What does she know of metaphysics? Yet she talked as if she knew all about it as well as she knows her own classmates. She must have studied both religion and science at college. I don’t wonder they made her valedictorian of her class, to get in the last word. She is just like her father, intellectual, and I certainly was with her when she became angry with that woman for not giving medicine to sick babies. Extraordinary, isn’t it, how some people can crowd out their natural instincts for an idea—it is not safe to live, not with such notions. What new-fangled medical schools without medicine are being propagated! Here are two new ones on board this ship—even in mid-ocean there’s no getting rid of them. Well, I’m rejoiced that Adele has not been educated out of her natural instincts. It is so much safer to be orthodox about such things, and take medicine; and these fads,why, never bother with fads except for amusement. Now that telepathic reading we had one night at home was almost as good as the other evening with hypnotics, both were so diverting. But, oh! deliver me from these new sciences. Now I mustn’t forget; I must tell Adele how much I admired her standing up for old-fashioned medicine and orthodoxy in religion.”
Thus soliloquized Mrs. Cultus in her state-room, while a door, slamming every ten seconds in the passageway, somewhat interfered with the continuity of her thoughts.
There was yet another of the party whose estimation of Adele rose immensely. Paul Warder had overheard the discussion; it gave him an insight as to Adele’s character which he would have been a long time discovering, and he felt strengthened himself by the thoughts she had expressed. Paul was not given to ostentation in religious matters any more than Adele herself, nor did he feel quite able to discuss such things even if opportunity offered. He was not so constituted, either by heredity or education. His antecedents had been of good Quaker stock, his own affiliations with churchmen, his daily associations with Doctor Wise, from whom he had heard views almost to the verge of heterodoxy.
Paul kept his own counsel and, like Adele, preferred to show by acts rather than words what his principles were. He and Adele were physically and mentally different, but spiritually not at all unlike. Without appreciating it themselves at this time they already embodied that potent yet mysterious combination in nature which affords the most solid, durable foundation for true friendship, the secure and real basis upon which marriage should stand. To hear Adele speak her mind freely, as she did, was a new experience to Paul, an insight which from its very nature forced him to think about her. It was one of these incidents in his own life he could never forget, never forget her nor what she had said.
Paul’s vernacular when he soliloquized was not so Emersonianas it might have been; if it lacked anything it certainly was even a suspicion of transcendentalism. No; Paul had a vernacular of his own, equally characteristic and, from his own point of view, even more forcible. He still retained some of his college idioms when talking aloud to the bed-post, and there was in them a peculiar virility. When he found himself alone after this new experience his youth effervesced in this style:
“By Jove, what a girl! No nonsense there! And she was right, too; O. K. every time. How she did pick out the flaws in that queer woman’s racket. I could see that it was absurd myself, but I never could have spotted the thing as Adele did and then finally smoothed things down so well. She must be an awfully good girl. I wonder if a man can ever be as good as a woman. And these college girls get on to things we fellows never grasp by the right end, and then they put them in practice, too. I detest women preachers, but, hang it! I believe Adele Cultus could preach first-rate if she wished. I hope she won’t get into the habit, but it is a deuced good thing to be able to say exactly what you really think when occasion arises. By Jove, she is a stunner! Take care, old boy, and don’t fall in love with a strong-minded girl, whatever you do. I never heard her talk so before, and if it had not been for the provocation given her by that crank and the preposterous statements she made about all-metaphysics and no-medicine Adele would never have been roused. No, it was not that either which aroused her—it was the abuse of the serious words and what Adele saw differently that roused her. No, that was not uncalled-for interference, but a regular spontaneous stand-up for the truth as she saw it. But she must have gone over it somehow beforehand, in her mind. We fellows always have to peg over such things, or get the exact words from books, so we can be sure of our ground. I expect she has a good verbal memory; I wish I had. Science, religion, and metaphysics all mixed up in the same breath. I believeshe’s right, metaphysics and religion do go together in brain work, but it’s very dangerous ground for weak minds. Great Scott! when a bright girl does use her intellect how attractive she can be, and a fellow can’t help seeing and feeling how lovely she is.”
Why should Paul have been so moved? He had just learned something well worth knowing of a truly good woman whose intellect worked comprehensively, not in grooves; one who really knew more than he did on certain lines, andhad the courage of her convictions, the convictions being precisely what he himself most highly approved, instinctively and by education. His youth did the rest.
He was attracted to her, as he said, and even more than he thought, but he was not enamored of her—the masculine desire for possession had not yet asserted itself; he was being unconsciously led, however, in that direction. Nature’s preparatory course was on a much higher plane than was the human style of preparation given by the Doctor to Mr. Onset. Paul felt beginning to blossom within him such an honest regard, such a profound admiration for Adele, for her sincerity and the truth in her, that he was led to “believe in her,” trusted her perfectly, and was ready to defend her in all things. But he did not love her in the complete sense of the term under natural laws: the “for better or for worse” in the supreme sense had not yet made its appeal, nor had either of them yet seen Aphrodite rising from the sea.
What was Paul’s condition from a purely philosophical standpoint? He had acquired through Adele’s force of character that which was far better, the permeating sacred spirit in which all true affection must rest if it is to endure. Paul was as true in type as Adele. Her mentality had conquered by manifesting her spirit from within, he had obtained a firm intellectual belief based upon certain phenomena in nature. Would the realizing sense of the need of each other follow? If so, what direction, what line would it take—physicalor spiritual, downwards or upwards, for better or for worse? The blossom might fall blighted before the perfect fruit was formed.
As a matter of fact they themselves were absorbed simply in the beauty of the flower as it unclosed, with little thought of else than the enjoyable present.