NERVES AND INTUITION

“Mr. Gael,” said Joan standing before him at the breakfast-table, “I’m a-goin’ to work.”

She was pale, gaunt, and imperturbable. He gave her a quick look, one that turned to amusement, for Joan was really as appealing to his humor as a child. She had such immense gravity, such intensity over her one-syllable statements of fact. She announced this decision and sat down.

“Woman’s work?” he asked her, smiling quizzically.

“No, sir,” with her own rare smile; “I ain’t rightly fitted for that.”

“Certainly not in those clothes,” he murmured crossly, for she was dressed again in her own things.

“I’m a-goin’ to do man’s work. I’m a-goin’ to shovel snow an’ help fetch wood an’ kerry in water. You tell your Chinese man, please.”

“And you’re not going to read or study any more?”

“Yes, sir. I like that. If you still want to teach me, Mr. Gael. But I’m a-goin’ I’m going to get some action. I’ll just die if I don’t. Why, I’m so poor I can’t hardly lift a broom. I don’t know why I’m so miserably poor, Mr. Gael.”

She twisted her brows anxiously.

“You’ve had a nervous breakdown.”

“A what?”

“A nervous breakdown.”

He lit his cigarette and watched her in his usual lazy, smoke-veiled manner, but she might have noticed the shaken fabric of his self-assurance.

“Say, now,” said Joan, “what’s that the name for?”

“There’s a book about it over there third volume on the top shelf look up your case.”

With an air of profound alarm, she went over and took it out.

“There’s books about everything, ain’t there? isn’t there, Mr. Gael? Why, there’s books about lovin’ an’ about sickness an’ about cattle an’ what-not, an’ about women an’ children ” She was shirking the knowledge of her “case,” but at last she pressed her lips together and opened the book. She fell to reading, growing anxiety possessed her face, she sat down on the nearest chair, she turned page after page. Suddenly she gave him a look of anger.

“I ain’t none of this, Mr. Gael,” she said, smote the page, rose with dignity, and returned the book.

He laughed so long and heartily that she was at last forced to join him. “You was you were jobbin’ me, wasn’t you?” she said, sighing relief. “Did you know what that volume said? It said like this I’ll read you about it ” She took the volume, found the place and read in a low tone of horror, he helping her with the hard words: “’One of the most frequent forms of phobia, common in cases of psychic neurasthenia, is agrophobia in which patients the moment they come into an open space are oppressed by an exaggerated feeling of anxiety. They may break into a profuse perspiration and assert that they feel as if chained to the ground....’ And here, listen to this, ’batophobia, the fear that high things will fall, atrophobia, fear of thunder and lightning, pantophobia, the fear of every thing and every one’.... Well, now, ain’t that too awful? An’ you mean folks really get that way?”

Their talk was for some time of nervous diseases, Joan’s horror increasing.

“Well, sir,” said she, “lead me out an’ shoot me if I get anyways like that! I believe it’s caused by all that queer dressin’ an’ what-not. I feel like somethin’ real to-day in this shirt an’ all, an’ when I get through some work I’ll feel a whole lot better. Don’t you say I’m one of those nervous breakdowns again, though, will you?” she pleaded.

“No, I won’t, Joan. But don’t make one of me, will you?”

“How’s that?”

“By wearing those clothes all day and half the night. If you expect me to teach you, you’ll have to do something for me, to make up for running away. You might put on pretty things for dinner, don’t you think? Your nervous system could stand that?”

“My nervous system,” drawled Joan, and added startlingly, for she did not often swear, “God!” It was an oath of scorn, and again Prosper laughed.

But he heard with a sort of terror the sound of her “man’s work” to which she energetically applied herself. It meant the return of her strength, of her independence. It meant the shortening of her captivity. Before long spring would rush up the canyon in a wave of melting snow, crested with dazzling green, and the valley would lie open to Joan. She would go unless had he really failed so utterly to touch her heart? Was she without passion, this woman with the deep, savage eyes, the lips, so sensuous and pure, the body so magnificently made for living? She was not defended by any training, she had no moral standards, no prejudices, none of the “ideals.” She was completely open to approach, a savage. If he failed, it was a personal failure. Perhaps he had been too subtle, too restrained. She did not yet know, perhaps, what he desired of her. But he was afraid of rousing her hatred, which would be fully as simple and as savage as her love. That evening, after she had dressed to please him, and sat in her chair, tired, but with the beautiful, clean look of outdoor weariness on her face, and tried, battling with drowsiness, to give her mind to his reading and his talk, he was overmastered by his longing and came to her and knelt down, drawing down her hands to him, pressing his forehead on them.

For a moment she was stiff and still, then, “What is it, Mr. Gael?” she asked in a frightened half-voice.

He felt, through her body, the slight recoil of spirit, and drew away, and arose to his feet.

“You’re angry?”

He laughed.

“Oh, no. I’m not angry; why should I be? I’m a superman. I’m made let’s say of alabaster. Women with great eyes and wonderful voices and the beauty of broad-browed nymphs walking gravely down under forest arches, such women give me only a great, great longing to read aloud very slowly and carefully a ’Child’s History of the English Race’!” He took the book, tossed it across the room, then stood, ashamed and defiant, laughing a little, a boy in disgrace.

Joan looked at him in profound bewilderment and dawning distress.

“Now,” she said, “you are angry with me. You always are when you talk that queer way. Won’t you please explain it to me, Mr. Gael?”

“No!” said he sharply. “I won’t.” And he added after a moment, “You’d better go to bed. You’re sleepy and as stupid as an owl.”

“Oh!”

“Yes. And you’ve destroyed what little superstitious belief I had left concerning something they tell little ignorant boys about a woman’s intuition. You haven’t got a bit. You’re stupid and I’m tired of you No, Joan, I’m not. Don’t mind me. I’m only in fun. Please! Damn! I’ve hurt your feelings.”

Her lips were quivering, her eyes full. “I try so awful hard,” she said. It was a lovely, broken trail of music.

He bent over her and patted her shoulder. “Dear child! Joan, I won’t be so disagreeable again. Only, don’t you ever think of me?”

“Yes, yes; all the while I’m thinking of you. I wisht I could do more for you. Why do I make you so angry? I know I’m awful awfully stupid and ignorant. I I must drive you most crazy, but truly” here she turned quickly in his arm and put her hands about his neck and laid her cheek against his shoulder “truly, Mr. Gael, I’m awful fond of you.” Then she drew quickly away, quivered back into the other corner of her great chair, put her face to her hands. “Only I can’t help seein’ Pierre.”

Just her tone showed him that still and ghastly youth, and again he saw the brown hand that moved. He had stood between her and that sight. The man ought to have died. He did not deserve his life nor this love of hers. Even though he had failed to kill the man, he would not fail to kill her love for him, sooner or later, thought Prosper. If only the hateful spring would give him time. He must move her from her memory. She had put her hands about his neck, she had laid her head against his shoulder, and, if it had been the action of a child, then she would not have started from him with that sharp memory of Pierre.