These were at their best vague plans. Only one thing was definite about
them. They were to include no more make-believe. Whatever came
hereafter, Joan intended to be herself. The world must accept her on her
own terms; in the phrase of her childhood "like her or lump her!"
The difficulty was to decide just what that self might be. Hitherto it
had altered obligingly to suit different situations; blowing now hot,
now cold, according to the wind of circumstance. But surely underneath
there was a definite entity, which did not chop and change and adapt
itself, but remained Joan?
At school she had shown no particular aptitude that would help her
now--or rather had shown an aptitude in so many directions as to give
rise to a widespread impression that "Joan Darcy would get somewhere
some day," but which had caused more than one of her teachers to shake
her head and murmur something about Jack of all trades being master of
none. She herself had found this facility convenient, not in the pursuit
of study but in the avoidance of it. She had managed to slip through the
brief period allotted by Richard Darcy for the necessities of a young
gentlewoman's education, with the minimum of work combined with the
maximum of pleasure. It seemed to her then, and afterwards, the wisest
possible use to make of a superior brain. Possibly the mental diet
offered for her consideration was not altogether suited to Joan's
peculiar requirements.
Certainly she came away from school with little more knowledge than she
had taken into it, even with regard to herself. Vague yearnings she was
aware of, vague inhibitions and promptings; together with tastes and
distastes that were not vague at all. She put the latter down on a bit
of paper, in an effort to come to a clearer understanding of the girl
who was Joan Darcy.
She liked:
1. Books. On any subject whatever, provided they did not try to teach
anything and came up to her rather exacting standards of style.
2. Dancing--if people kept in step with the music and did not hold her
too close.
3. Out-of-doors, especially when the wind was blowing.
4. Music, if there was no one around to discuss it or analyse it.
5. Children, without their families.
6. Almost any sort of a dog, particularly if it did not seem to belong
to anybody. Strays regarded her as their own.
She disliked (and here there were no qualifications. It was never hard
for Joan to say what she disliked!):
1. Debt.
2. Effusiveness.
3. Humility.
4. Vulgarity--under which heading she included everything her
step-mother did, or said, or thought, or wore, or was. Yet she did not
quite dislike her step-mother.
This exhaustive survey left her with the impression of a hypercritical,
overconfident, extremely unpleasant young ego, which intended to get as
much out of life as possible with as little given in return, and which
so far had got about what it deserved. She was glad that no one of her
acquaintance was clever enough to see her quite as clearly as she saw
herself.
Except, of course, Mr. Nikolai: and he did not count.
There was something odd about Stefan Nikolai's attitude toward his
fellow-men. He seemed to regard humanity as if it were a vast picture
puzzle which it was his privilege to take apart and put together again
for his amusement. He asked nothing of any piece of the puzzle except
that it fit eventually into the spot where it belonged. Joan had a
comfortable feeling that he would presently find her spot for her in
case she failed to find it for herself. But she preferred to find it for
herself, if possible.
His letter in response to the one in which she informed him of her
impending engagement to Eduard Desmond had confirmed her faith in his
uncanny insight. She did not realize how vividly her untrammeled
descriptions made people and conditions about her known to a student of
human kind. If she always saw things more clearly herself after she had
set them down in black and white, the clarity doubtless extended to
other vision.
He wrote from Russia, where he had been living for a while among the
mouzhiks in order to understand how mouzhiks live. His curiosity about
such things was insatiable.
"I also have a wish to see how Tzars live, since it is an order that is
passing," he added casually. "But I fear for one of my race that will be
difficult. Mouzhiks have less reason to fear us Jews than have Tsars."
Then he went off at one of his usual tangents, and described to Joan
briefly the theory of vaccination. "It is a question of phagocytes, you
understand. Metchnikoff's idea is that when a disease manifests itself a
certain number of phagocytes detach themselves from the blood to fight
it. The stronger the virus injected of that disease, the greater the
number of phagocytes formed; and it is the presence of these detached
phagocytes after the virus has run its course that render the patient
immune from further attack."
("What," wondered bewildered Joan, "is the man talking about? It sounds
like a medical almanac!")
But as there was usually some method in Mr. Nikolai's tangents, she read
on. At the end of the last page he enlightened her, and disposed of the
affair with Eduard Desmond in two sentences.
"By this time you will be recuperating from your first love-attack.
Severe, doubtless, but so much the better. More phagocytes!"
It was his only reference to her revelations with regard to Eduard
Desmond. Evidently to the scientific mind love in its various
manifestations was merely a form of mal-ease to which humanity is
subject.
Joan sincerely hoped that enough of the phagocytes had been released by
the innoculation to render her immune from further attack forever.