DR VON HALLER: But did he say outright that he had arranged your adventure?

MYSELF: Never flatly. Never in so many words. But he talked about the wounding experiences young men often had learning about sex from prostitutes or getting mixed up with virgins, and said that the only good way was with an experienced older woman, and that I would bless Myrrha as long as I lived, and be grateful it had been managed so intelligently and pleasantly. That’s the way the French do it, he said.

DR VON HALLER: Was Myrrha Martindale his mistress?

MYSELF: Oh, I don’t imagine so for a minute. Though he did leave some money for her in his will, and I know from things that came out later that he helped her with money from time to time. But if he ever had an affair with her, I’m sure it was because he loved her. It couldn’t have been a money thing.

DR VON HALLER: Why not?

MYSELF: It would be sordid, and Father always had such style.

DR VON HALLER: Have you ever read Voltaire’s Candide?

MYSELF: That was what Knopwood asked me. I hadn’t, and he explained that Candide was a simpleton who believed everything he was told. Knopwood was furious with Father. But he didn’t know Father, you see.

DR VON HALLER: And you did?

MYSELF: I sometimes think I knew him better than anyone. Do you suggest I didn’t?

DR VON HALLER: That is one of the things we are working to find out. Tell me about your row with Father Knopwood.

I suppose I brought it on because I went to see Knopwood a few days after returning to Toronto. I was in a confused state of mind. I didn’t regret anything about Myrrha; I was grateful to her, just as Father had said, though I thought I had noticed one or two things about her that had escaped him, or that he didn’t care about. Really they only meant that she wasn’t as young as Judy. But I was worried about my feelings toward Judy. I had gone to see her as soon as I could after returning from Montreal; she was ill—bad headache or something—and her father asked me to chat for a while. He was kind, but he was direct. Said he thought Judy and I should stop seeing each other so much, because we weren’t children any longer, and we might become involved in a way we would regret. I knew he meant he was afraid I might seduce her, so I told him I loved her, and would never do anything to hurt her, and respected her too much to get her into any kind of mess. Yes, he said, but there are times when good resolutions weaken, and there are also hurts that are not hurts of the flesh. Then he said something I could hardly believe; he said that he was not sure Judy might not weaken at some time when I was also weak, and then what would our compounded weakness lead to? I had assumed the man always led in these things, and when I said that to Dr Wolff he smiled in what I can only describe as a Viennese way.