Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/291

 of the mind. For Felix Rinderfeld discerned with complete clarity the basis of his hold on her; here was a girl with an excellent mind—one capable actually of ruling her—but a girl reared under conditions which had required no exercise of it, which, in fact, had practically forbidden its use; and when all of a sudden she had been brought with frightful shock against a reality which she had to combat with her mind, Felix Rinderfeld had gained the golden opportunity of guiding her in her first experiments with thought.

But neither at the time when she sent for him nor upon the following days when he came to talk with her had he erred by betraying the slightest physical feeling for her; Gregg Mowbry only, at one accidental moment when he caught Rinderfeld off guard, had surprised a glimpse of that. Clara warned Marjorie against Rinderfeld, of course, but Clara cautioned against every man and, to tell the truth, when Clara learned who Marjorie's friend was, she was less uneasy about him. "He's no boob; he knows he's got a shady rep, professionally, and if he queers himself personal, he knows he's cooked," Clara admitted and observed with increasing curiosity the peculiar plays that Rinderfeld made for Marjorie's attention.

For instance: "What do you suppose he picked as light reading to slip a girl?" Clara discussed the puzzle with Sam. "Wells' 'Outline of History'—at ten dollars the throw." Clara dipped into it, suspiciously, half expecting it might be a trick book, and she was disappointed, of course, and then got astoundingly interested and she read it, with Marjorie, late at night after they went to bed. For Marjorie also surprised herself by her interest. At home her mother had had the books, but Marjorie had never opened