She did it justice. "No: I don't suppose it _can_ be so for you if you
_are_ insane."
I risked the long laugh which might have seemed that of madness. "'If I
am' is lovely!" And whether or not it was the special sound, in my ear,
of my hilarity, I remember just wondering if perhaps I mightn't be.
"Dear woman, it's the point at issue!"
But it was as if she too had been affected. "It's not at issue for me
now."
I gave her then the benefit of my stirred speculation. "It always
happens, of course, that one is one's self the last to know. You're
perfectly convinced?"
She not ungracefully, for an instant, faltered; but since I really would
have it----! "Oh, so far as what we've talked of is concerned,
perfectly!"
"And it's actually what you've come down then to tell me?"
"Just exactly what. And if it's a surprise to you," she added, "that I
_should_ have come down--why, I can only say I was prepared for
anything."
"Anything?" I smiled.
"In the way of a surprise."
I thought; but her preparation was natural, though in a moment I could
match it. "Do you know that's what I was too?"
"Prepared----?"
"For anything in the way of a surprise. But only _from_ you," I
explained. "And of course--yes," I mused, "I've got it. If I _am_
crazy," I went on--"it's indeed simple."
She appeared, however, to feel, from the influence of my present tone,
the impulse, in courtesy, to attenuate. "Oh, I don't pretend it's
simple!"
"No? I thought that was just what you did pretend."
"I didn't suppose," said Mrs. Briss, "that you'd like it. I didn't
suppose that you'd accept it or even listen to it. But I owed it to
you----" She hesitated.
"You owed it to me to let me know what you thought of me even should it
prove very disagreeable?"
That perhaps was more than she could adopt. "I owed it to myself," she
replied with a touch of austerity.
"To let me know I'm demented?"
"To let you know I'm _not_." We each looked, I think, when she had said
it, as if she had done what she said. "That's all."
"All?" I wailed. "Ah, don't speak as if it were so little. It's much.
It's everything."
"It's anything you will!" said Mrs. Briss impatiently. "Good-night."
"Good-night?" I was aghast. "You leave me on it?"
She appeared to profess for an instant all the freshness of her own that
she was pledged to guard. "I must leave you on something. I couldn't
come to spend a whole hour."
"But do you think it's so quickly done--to persuade a man he's crazy?"
"I haven't expected to persuade you."
"Only to throw out the hint?"
"Well," she admitted, "it would be good if it could work in you. But
I've told you," she added as if to wind up and have done, "what
determined me."
"I beg your pardon"--oh, I protested! "That's just what you've not told
me. The reason of your change----"
"I'm not speaking," she broke in, "of my change."
"Ah, but _I_ am!" I declared with a sharpness that threw her back for a
minute on her reserves. "It's your change," I again insisted, "that's
the interesting thing. If I'm crazy, I must once more remind you, you
were simply crazy _with_ me; and how can I therefore be indifferent to
your recovery of your wit or let you go without having won from you the
secret of your remedy?" I shook my head with kindness, but with
decision. "You mustn't leave me till you've placed it in my hand."
The reserves I had spoken of were not, however, to fail her. "I thought
you just said that you let my inconsistency go."
"Your moral responsibility for it--perfectly. But how can I show a
greater indulgence than by positively desiring to enter into its
history? It's in that sense that, as I say," I developed, "I do speak of
your change. There must have been a given moment when the need of it--or
when, in other words, the truth of my personal state--dawned upon you.
That moment is the key to your whole position--the moment for us to
fix."
"Fix it," said poor Mrs. Briss, "when you like!"
"I had much rather," I protested, "fix it when _you_ like. I want--you
surely must understand if I want anything of it at all--to get it
absolutely right." Then as this plea seemed still not to move her, I
once more compressed my palms. "You _won't_ help me?"
She bridled at last with a higher toss. "It wasn't with such views I
came. I don't believe," she went on a shade more patiently, "I don't
believe--if you want to know the reason--that you're really sincere."