Some of this feeling, I admit, was fanciful. It was due to the disturbed imagination natural to a man whose mental equipment has been put awry. Averill had been courteous throughout my visit. More than that, he was by nature kindly. Anywhere but in his own house his attitude to me would have been cordial, and for anything I needed he would have backed me with more than his good-will.
Nevertheless, that Sunday rankled as a poisoned memory, and one from which I found it impossible wholly to dissociate any member of his family. Though I could blame Mrs. Averill a little, I could blame Miss Averill not at all; and yet she belonged to the household in which I had been made to feel an unwelcome guest. That in itself might give me a clue to her sentiment toward me.
As I went on with my dinner I came to the conclusion that it did give me such a clue. I was the idiot Malvolio thinking himself beloved of Viola. Where there was nothing but a balked philanthropy I was looking for the tender heart. The dictionary teemed with terms that applied to such a situation, and I began to heap them on myself.
I heaped them on myself with a sense not of relief, but of disappointment. That was the odd discovery I made, as much to my surprise as my chagrin. Falling in love with anybody was no part of my program. It was out of the question for obvious reasons. In addition to these I was in love with some one else.
That is to say, I knew I had been in love; I knew that in the portion of my life that had become obscured there had been an emotional drama of which the consciousness remained. It remained as a dream remains when we remember the vividness and forget the facts—but it remained. I could view my personality somewhat as you view a countryside after a storm has passed over it. Without having witnessed the storm you can tell what it was from the havoc left behind. There was some such havoc in myself.
Just as I could look into the glass and see a face young, haggard, handsome, if I may use the word without vanity, that seemed not to be mine, so I could look into my heart and read the suffering of which I no longer perceived the causes. It was like looking at the scar of a wound received before you can remember. Your body must have bled from it, your nerves must have ached; even now it is numb or sensitive; but its history is lost to you. It was once the outstanding fact of your childish existence; and now all of which you are aware is something atrophied, lacking, or that shrinks at a touch.