oon discovered, however, that teaching a mentally alert, whimsically
unexpected, stubbornly diligent, and always grateful pupil is among the
most stimulating and delightful of human occupations. My own psychic
laziness, which had been long creeping upon me, vanished in this new
atmosphere of competition--competition, for that is what it came to,
with the unwearying Phil. It was a real renascence for me. Forsaken
gods! how I studied--off hours and on the sly! My French was excellent,
my Italian fair; but my small Latin and less Greek needed endless
attention. Yet I rather preen myself upon my success; though Phil has
always maintained that I overfed Susan with aesthetic flummery, thus
dulling the edge of her appetite for his own more wholesome daily bread.

In one respect, at least, I disagreed fundamentally with Phil, and
here--through sheer force of conviction--I triumphed. Phil, who lived
exclusively in things of the mind, would have turned this sensitive
child into a bemused scholar, a female bookworm. This, simply, I would
not and did not permit. If she had a soul, she had a body, too, and I
was determined that it should be a vigorous, happy body before all else.
For her sake solely--for I am too easily an indolent man--I took up
riding again, and tennis, and even pushed myself into golf; with the
result that my nervous dyspepsia vanished, and my irritability along
with it; with the more excellent result that Susan filled and bloomed
and ate (for her) three really astonishing meals a day.

It was a busy life--a wonderful life! Hard work--hard
play--fun--travel.... Ah, those years!

But I am leaping ahead----!

Yet I have but one incident left to record of those earliest days with
Susan--an incident which had important, though delayed,
results--affecting in various ways, for long unforeseen, Susan's career,
and the destiny of several other persons, myself among them.

Sonia, Susan's little Russian maid, was at the bottom of it all; and
the first hint of the rather sordid affair came to me, all unprepared,
from the lips of Miss Goucher. She sought me out in my private study,
whither I had retired after dinner to write a letter or two--a most
unusual proceeding on her part, and on mine--and she asked at once in
her brief, hard, respectful manner for ten minutes of my time. I rose
and placed a chair for her, uncomfortably certain that this could be no
trivial errand; she seated herself, angularly erect, holding her