My narrowness again was proved. We understand in others only
what we have in ourselves. But her explanation, in a measure, I knew was
true. It hinted at the strife and struggle that my notion of a Shadow
had seemed to cover thinly.
"Perhaps," I murmured lamely, waiting in vain for her to say more. "But
you said just now that you felt the thing was 'in layers', as it were.
Do you mean each one--each influence--fighting for the upper hand?"
I used her phraseology to conceal my own poverty. Terminology, after
all, was nothing, provided we could reach the idea itself.
Her eyes said yes. She had her clear conception, arrived at
independently, as was her way.
And, unlike her sex, she kept it clear, unsmothered by too many words.
"One set of influences gets at me, another gets at you. It's according
to our temperaments, I think." She glanced significantly at the vile
portfolio. "Sometimes they are mixed--and therefore false. There has
always been in me, more than in you, the pagan thing, perhaps, though
never, thank God, like that."
The frank confession of course invited my own, as it was meant to do.
Yet it was difficult to find the words.
"What I have felt in this place, Frances, I honestly can hardly tell
you, because--er--my impressions have not arranged themselves in any
definite form I can describe.
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