Auntie again said grace; the thoughts of all bowed heads but hers were on supper. The evening was spent by the family on the dark veranda singing old-fashioned hymns; after which the peace of night came over all—but one.
Next day, Minnie, repentant of her wickedness, appeared as a fresh blown morning glory, gave hearty, cheerful greetings to all, and to Louis talked as might an ordinarily affectionate sister. Her eyes were crystalline, her carriage buoyant. Then, at the appointed time, she began her hour of French with Auntie; and as Louis, nearby, listened, he framed a desire and a resolve to learn the language which Minnie seemed to read and speak as easily as Auntie. The lesson over, Minnie came to Louis, took a place beside him and as one wooing, said, “Dear protégé: the hour is at hand. I have much to say. The woods are calling, the birds are waiting. Let us now repair to the pulpit and be two sensible humans.” To the pulpit they repaired, that day and many a day. Once seated on the great stone, Minnie put Louis at his ease and began rapid-fire questions, about Louis’s home and school life. She wished every detail; and Louis answered faithfully. He told her not only the story of his life, but the story of everyone and everything therewith connected: Minnie saying: “Fine, fine, how well you tell it,” in running comment. He even told Minnie one of Julia’s fairy tales, the tale of the “Good People,” and Minnie cried: “Oh, what a lovely brogue, isn’t it sweet?” and Louis said yes, it was, and added that Julia had taught him some real Gaelic words, but he had forgotten the meaning of most of them. “That gives me a bright idea, Louis; you don’t know French, so I will give you a password, in French, that is better than any Gaelic. Say to me, once every day, Je t’aime”; and Louis said to her once every day Je t’aime—deeming it a secret. And Minnie would gravely say each time, in approval, that he pronounced it beautifully.
She told him conversationally about herself and her home. She described in detail her finishing school, and mimicked its follies. She raved over her adored brother Ed, fresh from Yale. Told of her coming out, of Utica society, and her set, and of the landed aristocracy, the old families, the exclusive, best people; said her father was a big grain forwarder, and had plenty of money, as far as her simple needs were concerned, and described minutely her trip to Europe. She travelled this ground to and fro with many a mimicry, flippancy, wise saw, and splendid enthusiasms.
So Louis began to see that people were graded. He was pained at many things Minnie casually described. She was revealing too much. She was unconscious of lifting many veils, as Louis was unconscious of repeating world-truth when he said, every day, Je t’aime. He was not lifting any veil for Minnie; this selfsame Minnie having one small devil peeping through each eye. Their talk, throughout that livelong day, was gossip.
When Minnie came, through questioning, to a full sense of the depth of Louis’s ignorance of the world, of social organization both in its ephemeral and its momentous inert and stratified aspects, that he was provincial, that he was honest, frank, and unsuspecting, she became alarmed at the new danger, and determined to prepare him; and in so doing, she lifted at least a corner of a sinister and heavy veil that lay behind appearances. This she did with skill, and a little at a time, proving her case in each instance, by direct illustration and remarks none too complimentary. But Minnie could not be serious for long at a time; she preferred frivolity, nonsense and high spirits—never for a moment neglecting to keep Louis dazed in her land of enchantment.
Minnie became Louis’s precious teacher. She made him feel he was not being taught, but entertained with gossip. She knew that what she said in persiflage, would later sink in deep, and she knew why it would do so.
Minnie was both worldly and unworldly. With nature she was dreamy; but when it came to people, she became a living microscope, her sharp brain void of all illusion, for her true world was of the world of people—there she lived—as Louis’s world had been a world of the wide open—of romance. Hence, with Louis she was ever gentle, even though she dangled him as though he were a toy balloon.
An aching in her guarded heart was soothed by him; and he became for her a luxury—a something to remain awhile a precious memory. Thus Minnie filled the air with laughter, and with debonnaire delight—meanwhile feeding honey drop by drop—just to see upon a human face the rare, the precious witching aspect of idolatry.
So came a day when Minnie, on the pulpit, talked of things pertaining to herself. Among other words she said the young men of her set were grossly stupid; incapable of thought above the level of the sty. Their outlook upon life she said was vapid, coarse and vain. That they held women to be property, their appendage, their vehicle of display. They were all rich, she said, and this made matters worse. To be anchored to such brutes, scarcely decent in their evening clothes, she said, was horror. She would be owned, she said, by no man rich or poor. She must be free, she said; free as air. Knowing all this now, she
