"It is hereditary, of course," said Desire calmly.
The professor jumped.
"My dear girl! What an idea."
"An idea which I could not very well escape. All these things tend
to transmit themselves, do they not? Only not necessarily so. I seem
to have escaped."
"Yes," shortly. "Surely you have never supposed--"
"No. I haven't. That's the odd part of it. I have never been the
least bit afraid. Perhaps it's because I have never felt that I have
anything at all in common with father. Or it may be because I have
never faced facts. I don't know. Even now, when I am facing facts,
they do not seem really to touch me. I never pretended to understand
father. He seemed like two or three people, all strangers. Sometimes
he was just a rather sly old man full of schemes for getting money
without working for it, and very clever and astute. Sometimes he
seemed a student and a scholar--this was his best mood. It was
during this phase that he wrote his scientific articles and taught
me all that I know. His own knowledge seemed to be an orderly
confusion o>f all kinds of things. And he could be intensely
interesting when he chose. In those moods he treated me with a
certain courtesy which may have been a remnant of an earlier manner.
But it never lasted long."
"And the other mood--the third one?"
"Oh, that Well, that was the bad mood. If it is a disease he was not
responsible. So' we won't talk of it." Desire's lips tightened.
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