In the morning Lewis seemed to remember that peace had flowed into the channel his prayer had cut through his dark with a rushing benediction in a sound as of many waters. Peace. Then sleep.
In the weeks that followed, Cynthia Allen gradually came to admit to herself that she had had all her worry for nothing about Lewis’ untoward infatuation for an uninteresting young girl; for the affair—if one could give anything so fleetingly ephemeral such a title—had blown over. She had been silly even to imagine it serious. A person like Lewis, so subtle, so perceptive, could not long be held in thrall to mere physical attraction and youth, with nothing to give it depth. No, Harry had not succeeded in convincing Cynthia of the ineptitude of qualifying passion with “mere.” Harry was a simple soul, really, in everything except finance. You could not expect him to understand a man like Cynthia’s famous brother. Lewis was all intellectual subtlety. First of all, in any contact, he would look for understanding and depth. Passion, when it appeared, would be a by-product of the discovery of his ideal. He was like Anodos in “Phantastes” in that. Cynthia was sure of it. He was not common clay!
For weeks now Lewis had not come out to Meadowbrook. That was hard on the children and on Harry. They were so devoted to him. But Cynthia herself was not the loser. She frequently met him in town for lunch, where she had him much more to herself than she possibly could in the midst of the family. And it was fun gossiping with him, her interesting brother, in undomestic freedom, giving him innumerable anecdotes of the children, telling him what Harry thought of the financial situation between the countries, and in our own country, and of what she herself thought of the latest selections of the book clubs. Cynthia subscribed to all the American book clubs and had recently added an English one to the list.... And sometimes, always in fact, she slipped in gossip of Green Doors; for Green Doors and its inmates fascinated Cynthia increasingly. The life there—the people who came and went—the parties, the talk—all of it was just a degree above anything Cynthia had ever experienced before of sophistication and a “newer, larger liberty of thought and feeling.” The air was electric. She remarked on it often.
