As free from
unwholesome inquisitiveness as a girl can possibly be, she often
wished to know, once for all, whatever was to be learnt about the
concealed life of men; to know it and to have done with it; to
settle her mind on that point, as on any other that affected the
life of a reasonable being. Yet she shrank from all such enquiry,
with a sense of womanly pride, doing her best to believe that there
was no concealment in the case of any man with whom she could have
friendly relations. She scorned the female cynic; she disliked the
carelessly liberal in moral judgment. Profoundly mysterious to her
was everything covered by the word "passion"--a word she detested.
Her way of seeing life on the amusing side aided, of course, her
maidenly severity against trouble of sense and sentiment. This she
had from her father, a man of quips and jokes on the surface of his
seriousness. As she grew older, it threatened a decline of intimacy
between her and her cousin Olga, who, never naturally buoyant, was
becoming so cheerless, so turbid of temper, that Irene found it
difficult to talk with her for long together. Domestic miseries
might greatly account for the girl's mood, but Irene had insight
enough to perceive that this was not all. And she felt uncomfortably
helpless. To jest seemed unfeeling; sympathy of the sentimental sort
she could not give. She feared that Olga was beginning to shrink
from her.
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