"Why, none at all. I had a wonderful childhood. Free and peaceful and not bothered too much by anybody. Well, yes, I did feel bored very often. But I'm used to that."
"I suppose you're just an unfortunate product of our times. That's what I've always said. We're too cynical, too decadent. If we went back in all humility to the simple virtues ... "
"Alvah, how can you start on that stuff? That's only for your editorials and ... " She stopped, seeing his eyes; they looked puzzled and a little hurt. Then she laughed. "I'm wrong. You really do believe all that. If it's actually believing, or whatever it is you do that takes its place. Oh, Alvah! That's why I love you. That's why I'm doing again right now what I did tonight at the meeting."
"What?" he asked, bewildered.
"Talking as I am talking — to you as you are. It's nice, talking to you about such things. Do you know, Alvah, that primitive people made statues of their gods in man's likeness? Just think of what a statue of you would look like — of you nude, your stomach and all."
"Now what's that in relation to?"
"To nothing at all, darling. Forgive me." She added: "You know, I love statues of naked men. Don't look so silly. I said statues. I had one in particular. It was supposed to be Helios. I got it out of a museum in Europe. I had a terrible time getting it — it wasn't for sale, of course. I think I was in love with it, Alvah. I brought it home with me."
"Where is it? I'd like to see something you like, for a change."
"It's broken."
"Broken? A museum piece? How did that happen?"
"I broke it."
"How?"
"I threw it down the air shaft. There's a concrete floor below."
"Are you totally crazy? Why?"
"So that no one else would ever see it."
"Dominique!"
She jerked her head, as if to shake off the subject; the straight mass of her hair stirred in a heavy ripple, like a wave through a half-liquid pool of mercury. She said:
"I'm sorry, darling. I didn't want to shock you. I thought I could speak to you because you're the one person who's impervious to any sort of shock. I shouldn't have. It's no use, I guess."
She jumped lightly off the table.
"Run on home, Alvah," she said. "It's getting late. I'm tired. See you tomorrow."
Guy Francon read his daughter's articles; he heard of the remarks she had made at the reception and at the meeting of social workers. He understood nothing of it, but he understood that it had been precisely the sequence of events to expect from his daughter. It preyed on his mind, with the bewildered feeling of apprehension which the thought of her always brought him. He asked himself whether he actually hated his daughter.
But one picture came back to his mind, irrelevantly, whenever he asked himself that question. It was a picture of her childhood, of a day from some forgotten summer on his country estate in Connecticut long ago. He had forgotten the rest of that day and what had led to the one moment he remembered. But he remembered how he stood on the terrace and saw her leaping over a high green hedge at the end of the lawn. The hedge seemed too high for her little body; he had time to think that she could not make it, in the very moment when he saw her flying triumphantly over the green barrier. He could not remember the beginning nor the end of that leap; but he still saw, clearly and sharply, as on a square of movie film cut out and held motionless forever, the one instant when her body hung in space, her long legs flung wide, her thin arms thrown up, hands braced against the air, her white dress and blond hair spread in two broad, flat mats on the wind, a single moment, the flash of a small body in the greatest burst of ecstatic freedom he had ever witnessed in his life.
He did not know why that moment remained with him, what significance, unheeded at the time, had preserved it for him when so much else of greater import had been lost. He did not know why he had to see that moment again whenever he felt bitterness for his daughter, nor why, seeing it, he felt that unbearable twinge of tenderness. He told himself merely that his paternal affection was asserting itself quite against his will. But in an awkward, unthinking way he wanted to help her, not knowing, not wanting to know what she had to be helped against.
So he began to look more frequently at Peter Keating. He began to accept the solution which he never quite admitted to himself. He found comfort in the person of Peter Keating, and he felt that Keating's simple, stable wholesomeness was just the support needed by the unhealthy inconstancy of his daughter.
Keating would not admit that he had tried to see Dominique again, persistently and without results. He had obtained her telephone number from Francon long ago, and he had called her often. She had answered, and laughed gaily, and told him that of course she'd see him, she knew she wouldn't be able to escape it, but she was so busy for weeks to come and would he give her a ring by the first of next month?
Francon guessed it. He told Keating he would ask Dominique to lunch and bring them together again. "That is," he added, "I'll try to ask her. She'll refuse, of course." Dominique surprised him again: she accepted, promptly and cheerfully.
She met them at a restaurant, and she smiled as if this were a reunion she welcomed. She talked gaily, and Keating felt enchanted, at ease, wondering why he had ever feared her. At the end of a half hour she looked at Francon and said:
"It was wonderful of you to take time off to see me, Father. Particularly when you're so busy and have so many appointments."
Francon's face assumed a look of consternation. "My God, Dominique, that reminds me!"
"You have an appointment you forgot?" she asked gently. "Confound it, yes! It slipped my mind entirely. Old Andrew Colson phoned this morning and I forgot to make a note of it and he insisted on seeing me at two o'clock, you know how it is, I just simply can't refuse to see Andrew Colson, confound it! — today of all ... " He added, suspiciously: "How did you know it?"
"Why, I didn't know it at all. It's perfectly all right, Father. Mr. Keating and I will excuse you, and we'll have a lovely luncheon together, and I have no appointments at all for the day, so you don't have to be afraid that I'll escape from him."
Francon wondered whether she knew that that had been the excuse he'd prepared in advance in order to leave her alone with Keating. He could not be sure. She was looking straight at him; her eyes seemed just a bit too candid. He was glad to escape.
Dominique turned to Keating with a glance so gentle that it could mean nothing but contempt.
"Now let's relax," she said. "We both know what Father is after, so it's perfectly all right. Don't let it embarrass you. It doesn't embarrass me. It's nice that you've got Father on a leash. But I know it's not helpful to you to have him pulling ahead of the leash. So let's forget it and eat our lunch."
He wanted to rise and walk out; and knew, in furious helplessness, that he wouldn't. She said:
"Don't frown, Peter. You might as well call me Dominique, because we'll come to that anyway, sooner or later. I'll probably see a great deal of you, I see so many people, and if it will please Father to have you as one of them — why not?"
For the rest of the luncheon she spoke to him as to an old friend, gaily and openly; with a disquieting candor which seemed to show that there was nothing to conceal, but showed that it was best to attempt no probe. The exquisite kindliness of her manner suggested that their relationship was of no possible consequence, that she could not pay him the tribute of hostility. He knew that he disliked her violently. But he watched the shape of her mouth, the movements of her lips framing words; he watched the way she crossed her legs, a gesture smooth and exact, like an expensive instrument being folded; and he could not escape the feeling of incredulous admiration he had experienced when he had seen her for the first time. When they were leaving, she said: