human
We shall see, she said, more lightly.
gpt
Susan Fleet is going out, I know, after Christmas, when Adelaide Shiffney goes off to India.
human
Yes, she has promised Charmian to come. And Lake will visit us too.
gpt
Naturally. Will you see him in Paris on your way through?
human
Oh, yes! What an enthusiast he is!
gpt
I shall miss you, Madre, he said, somberly almost.
human
I am so accustomed to be within reach of you.
gpt
I hope you will miss me a little. But the man who never leans heavily never falls when the small human supports we all use now and then are withdrawn. You love me, I know. But you don't need me.
human
Then do you think I never lean heavily?
gpt
Do you?
human
I--I don't know that it is natural to me to lean. Still--still we sometimes do things, get into the habit of doing things, which are not natural to us.
gpt
That's a mistake, I think, unless we do them from a fine motive, from unselfishness, for instance, from the motive of honor, or to strengthen our wills drastically. But I believe we have been provided with a means of knowing how far we ought to pursue a course not wholly natural to us.
human
What means?
gpt
If the at first apparently unnatural thing soon seems quite natural to us, if it becomes, as it were, part of ourselves, if we can incorporate it with ourselves, then we have probably made a step upward. But if it continues to seem persistently unnatural, I think we are going downward. I am one of those who believe in the power called conscience. But I expect you knew that already. Here is Charmian!
human
Sitting with Madre, Claude!
gpt
I have been telling her we expect her to come to us in spring.
human
Of course we do. That's settled. I found these cuttings in the hall.
gpt
They find out almost everything about us, she said, in her clear, slightly authoritative voice.
human
But we shall soon escape from them. A year--two years, perhaps--out of the world! It will be a new experience for me, won't it, Madretta?
gpt
Quite new.
human
And I shall see the island with you.
gpt
The island?
human
Don't you remember--the night I came back from Algiers, and you dined here with Madre and me, I told you about a little island I had seen in an Algerian garden? I remember the very words I said that night, about the little island wanting me to make people far away feel it, know it. But I couldn't, because I had no genius to draw in color, and light, and sound, and perfume, and to transform them, and give them out again, better than the truth, because _I_ was added to them. Don't you remember, Claudie?
gpt
Yes, now I remember.
human
You are going to do that where I could not do it.