The year will all be summer weatherWhen speech and action go together;When Aucassin's sage words are metIn all his deeds with Nicolette;And though fair Daphne's words be free,Look not too soon her swain to be:The year will all be summer weather,When speech and action go together.—Song from The Monarch of Nil.
The reader of this history may have been conscious, from time to time, of a mysterious glow—now baleful, now rather cheerful, like the light from the tap-room of an inn—which has illuminated the horizon of the narrative. It appeared in certain allusions found in Mr. Alvord's conversation with Mr. Amidon during the episode of the Wrong House, and so terrified him as to give him thoughts of flight from Bellevale. It glared more brightly in the chat at the Club. It flamed concretely on our sight when Mr. Brassfield met its source on the street that day he made his fatal escape. Mr. Alvord slangily called it "the Strawberry Blonde." Mr. Brassfield very improperly pinched its elbow, and called it "Daise." It is high time that we put on our smoked glasses and look it in the face in such a formal introduction as will enable us to do it tardy justice—for we may have been guilty of misjudgment!
Miss Daisy Scarlett, sitting on a piano-stool, with one foot curled up under her, was entertaining Doctor Julia Brown and Miss Flossie Smith, who had called on her at the home of Major Pumphrey, her uncle. Miss Scarlett was well and shiveringly known in Bellevale, where she visited often, and was generally esteemed for her many good qualities of heart and mind, and for the infinite variety of her contributions to the sensations of a not over-turbulent social swim. Her entertainment in this instance consisted in readings from a certain book which must be regarded as an early literary imprudence of a most estimable and industrious, as well as improving writer—Poems of Passion. The particular selection rendered by Miss Scarlett was the one (unknown, I presume, to my readers—no, my dear, we haven't it) which informs us what the first person singular feminine, being invited into Paradise, would do if the third person singular masculine, down in the regions infernal, should open his beautiful arms and smile. Miss Scarlett read ill sentiments very well, and Miss Smith laid violent hands on herself and looked shocked.
"Oh, Daisy!" she exclaimed, "don't, please don't!"
"Oh, Flossie!" said Miss Daisy imitatively, "don't pretend! That poem is simply great!"
Doctor Brown laughed, quite in the manner of the bass villain in the comic opera.
"The dissecting table," said she, "brings all these beautiful arms and brows to the same dead level of tissue—unpoetical, but real."
Miss Scarlett liberated her foot, spun about, and dashed into a stormy prelude, modulating into the accompaniment to the refrain of Sullivan'sOnce Again, which she sang with much fervor.
She was about the height of a well-grown girl of twelve or thirteen, and had appealing eyes of delf blue, and a round face of peachy softness. Her hair was undeniably red, of a shade which put to shame such verbal mitigations as "auburn" or "golden," and was of tropic luxuriance and anarchistic disposition. It curled and uncurled and strayed all about her brow and neck like an explosion of spun lava. For the rest, had she really been a little girl of twelve, one would feel free to describe her as fat and roly-poly; but in the case of a young spinster of somewhere in her third decade, well-gowned and stayed and otherwise in physical subjection to the modiste, and singing of love like a diva, what can one say? No more than this, perhaps, that the fortunate man who carries her off the field a prize, will realize before he has got very far that he has captured something.
"Love, once again, meet me once again!Old love is waking; shall it wake in vain!"
Thus sang Miss Scarlett, ending with a fervid trill. Then she turned about, sitting with her feet very wide apart, and faced Doctor Brown.
"Dissecting table, indeed!" she burst forth. "I tell you, it's blasphemy to speak of making such use of a nice man! But, if I could pick 'em out, so as to be sure the right ones were dissected, I don't know but I'd agree."
Flossie Smith said that some of them ought to be put tosomeuse; and Doctor Brown, having reminded the company of her profession, merely laughed again.
"Here I am down from Allentown," Miss Scarlett proceeded, "on purpose to be stayed with flagons and comforted with apples, as I have been here in the past. I wanted to have a good sort of lackadaisical time with the nice boys here, and I've had to stay—I don't know how long—on a famine diet of women and girls, with Ella Wheeler for sauce. It makes me swearing mad!"
"I like that now!" said Flossie. "I really like that!"
"Well, I don't," Miss Scarlett went on. "I'm not used to it. To be left alone—oh, of course Billy Cox has been trying to butt in, but what good is he? My Hercules, my Roman Antony, who won my trusting heart last summer, at a time when I had just got it back from what I had thought a final and total loss—I find him away, and when he gets back, because, forsooth, he happens to be newly engaged, he's so wrapped up in a little thing like that, that he might as well have stayed in New York. He doesn't respond when I ring up his office on the telephone; he doesn't see me on the street—-or, at least, only once—he seems scared. I've a good mind to give him something tobescared about!"
"Your condition," said the doctor, "is verging on the pathological."
"I don't know what path it's verging on," was the reply, "but it isn't the primrose path of dalliance. There's some mystery in it."
"Go to Madame What's-Her-Name down at the hotel," said Flossie. "She has solved almost all the mysteries we used to have—for a consideration. And she is said to have superior facilities for observing this Great Brassfield Mystery of yours."
"I must!" replied Miss Scarlett, looking out of the window. "There's Billy Cox just going into his house! What a pity for a bachelor to have such a big house all to himself—it has filled me with sighs for the past week, that thought! Oh, girls, I've an idea! Let's call him over and have him take us down to her! Central! Give me 432, please. Is that you, Billy? This is Daisy. Don't you want to do something for me?—Oh, you behave, now! We want you to take us somewhere down town, so don't take off your coat. We'll explain when you come over. Good-by!"
"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Flossie. "Idon't care about Mr. Cox, nor his big house! And the doctor and I have just started——"
"Oh, we can't go," said the doctor, "but that won't break Daisy's heart; she didn't expect we would, did you?"
"Well, I shall be sorry not to have you go, of course," said Miss Scarlett. "But if you must go, how would it do for you to slip away before Billy, comes in, so as to leave him to me? I may be able to make something of Billy, if I'm allowed to have my way with him.Mustyou go? So glad you called. Of course, we shall meet at our reception? Good-by!"
Madame le Claire looked amusedly down on Miss Scarlett. The bright-haired one was questioning her concerning her mystic art.
Could she see into the future?
Sometimes, when the conditions were right.
Could she read thoughts?
Let the lady judge, on the statement that two men, one with brown and the other with gray eyes, had been much in the lady's thoughts lately.
Marvelous! And could she tell what her thoughts in that connection had been? Well, never mind about that! Did she know about palmistry? And could shereallyput people under her influence so that they must do as she willed? How nice that must be! And would she and the professor come up to the Pumphreys' reception and arrange to give a program of occult feats for the entertainment of the guests? Surely; they should be very glad; that was a part of their profession.
During these negotiations Mr. Cox waited outside, and Florian Amidon, meeting him in the lobby and being accosted as 'Gene, stopped for a talk, fearing to slight some dear but unknown friend. The word "'Gene" was becoming a sort of round shot across the bows in his Bellevale cruises. The parley (concerning wells and tanks) he cut as short as possible, and, passing on, started up the stairway.
Half-way up there was a broad landing, and as Florian turned on this, he saw at the head of the flight the blast-furnace of hair, the striking hat and the pleasantly rounded figure of Clara's visitor—a person to him quite unknown. Fate, however, seemed to have in store for him an extraordinary introduction, for instantly he was aware of the descent upon him of a fiery comet of femininity. The lady seemed to be falling down stairs. With a little cry she descended, partly flying, partly falling, partly sliding flown the baluster—a whirl of superheated hair, swirling skirts, and wide, appealing eyes of delf blue. Amidon caught her in his arms, and sought to place her gently on her feet: but in the pure chance and accident of the encounter, her arms had fallen about his neck, and she hung upon him in something like a hug.
"Oh! oh!" said she, "the idea of your flying to me like that! But it's nice of you!"
Amidon bowed distantly, and in evident embarrassment. Miss Scarlett drew herself up, as at an undeserved rebuke.
"I am very glad," said he, "to have been of any service, even at the risk of seeming familiarity, in saving you from a fall. I hope you will pardon me, a stranger, for so far——"
"A stranger!" she ejaculated; "oh, heavens! Leave me, 'Gene! Go away!"
The "Go away" was pronounced as Mr. Cox appeared at the foot of the stairs. Amidon passed on, now fully aware of having committed afaux pas. Looking back, he saw Miss Scarlett leaning against a newel-post as if in agitation; saw Mr. Cox come up and lead her down; and as she disappeared, leaning weakly on her escort's arm, the mop of rumpled hair faded from his sight like a receding fire-ship. Who could she be? Suddenly Alvord's whispered caution flashed on his mind, and he knew that he had encountered, embraced and repudiated the Strawberry Blonde. He paused for a moment to think over the situation—considerations of policy were coming more and more to appeal to him as guides, and he found himself feeling vulpine and furtive. But here, thought he, would it not really have been best to temporize with the situation, and not to have terminated all relations with Miss Scarlett in this public way? Would it not——
Then rolled over his heart the consciousness of the manifold glories of his Elizabeth's womanhood. Temporize with another woman? The very thought repelled him. He involuntarily brushed his coat where it had supported and encircled Miss Scarlett. He felt a sense of unworthiness in having, even of necessity and for a proper purpose, embraced this other girl. Looking up, he saw Judge Blodgett regarding him like a portly accusing angel from the head of the stairway. He made a feint at assisting Amidon in brushing his coat.
"Those red ones," said he, "are the very devil for showing on black! I'd carry a whisk-broom, if I were you!"
"Those red ones," said the judge, "are the very devil for showing on black!"[Illustration: "Those red ones," said the judge,"are the very devil for showing on black!"]
"Those red ones," said the judge, "are the very devil for showing on black!"[Illustration: "Those red ones," said the judge,"are the very devil for showing on black!"]
"Blodgett," said Amidon, "I don't care to be chaffed about an accident of that sort."
"Oh, certainly not!" said the judge. "But pick off the ringlets all the same. And say, Florian, of course I don't count, but there was another fellow at the foot of the stairs, the junior in the firm of Fuller and Cox, my fellow practitioners; and in accidents of this sort one sometimes does as much damage as a regular cloud of witnesses. And remember, if you won't use the letter of withdrawal, you're to be a good deal in the public eye, now."
Amidon moved on in disgust. And the poor faithful fellow, that his spiritual tone might be restored, sat down and read once more his Bible—the letter superscribed in the large, scrawly hand, "To be Read En Route."
One made himself a name for skill to traceTo its last hiding-place,Each secret Mother Earth engaged to save,Of jungle, sea or cave.No path so devious but he mastered it;And, bit by bit,From off the face of mystery, he toreThe veil she wore;Then, turning inward all his skill in seeing,To solve the knot of Being,In the deep crypts of Self fordone he lay,Quite cast away.—Adventures in Egoism.
Every morning, now, a box of flowers went up to Elizabeth, at the house with the white columns; and every evening Mr. Amidon bravely followed. The terror he felt of women was overpowered by the greater terror of losing this woman, and the fortitude and resolution he possessed in all other fields of action were returning to him. His violets and carnations she always wore for him, and all the roses except the red ones, which she put in vases and kept near her, but did not wear. She was ineffably kind and sweet, in a high and pure and far-off way fit for Olympus, but all the intimate little coquetries and tricks of charm with which she had at first received and disconcerted him were gone. She talked to him in that low voice of hers, but oftener she sat silent, and seemed to desire him to talk to her.
Since that first night, he could not bring himself to act a part, further than to assume the name and place of Eugene Brassfield. He stood afar off, looked at his divinity and worshiped. He read to her her favorite books, and ventured somewhat, out of his exceptional knowledge, to expound them—whereat she looked away and listened with something of the astonishment with which she had received his disquisitions on poetry and art on that first unlucky evening. For the most part, however, he, too, was inclined to silences, in which he looked at Elizabeth in the happiness of a lover's wretchedness. The love she had given to Brassfield seemed to him based on the deceitful pretensions of that wretch, and in any case it was not his, and he felt repelled from accepting it. He yearned to show her the soul of Florian Amidon, purified, adorned, and dedicated to her.
Once or twice she had hinted at something fateful which she wanted to say to him; but he had begged her to wait. After a few days of this slavish devotion of his, she seemed less aloof, not quite so much the unattainable goddess.
She gave him her hand, as usual, one evening at parting.
"I shall not expect to see you to-morrow," said she, "until we meet at the Pumphreys' reception. Until then, good-by."
"I thought," said he, "that if you would permit, I should like to call in the afternoon—say at three or four. May I?"
He looked so pleadingly at her, holding the little hand in both of his, that it is no wonder her color rose. It was like the worshipful inception of a new courtship.
"I shall be invisible," said she, "all day—so you must wait. You haven't any time to bother with me, anyhow. Haven't you your platform to complete? A public man must attend to public matters first, and, anyhow, I shall be denied to all my friends, and you must wait with the rest!"
"It is hard to wait," he answered, "when you are so near."
"I shall try to make amends," said she, "by endeavoring to be as beautiful as—as you used to describe me—at the reception. Good night! Good night!"
He once more violated the Brassfield traditions; he simply raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. To do more, he felt, would spoil all. She went in, more nearly happy than at any time since his return, but sorely puzzled. "I shall never understand him," she thought.
Mrs. Major Pumphrey, standing in line with Miss Scarlett and Mrs. Pumphrey's sister from Wisconsin; a procession of people coming in by twos and threes, and steered by attendants into rooms for doffing wraps; a chain of de-wrapped human beings circulating past the receiving line and listening to Mrs. Pumphrey's assurances that she was delighted to welcome them that she might have the pleasure of introducing them to her sister—and of course they knew Miss Scarlett; an Italian harper who played ceaselessly among palms; a punch-bowl presided over by Flossie Smith and Mrs. Alvord; a mélange of black coats, pretty frocks and white arms and shoulders; a glare of lights; a hum like a hive's—in short, a reception. Such was the function to which Florian made his way, waiting until he could arrive concomitantly with the Waldron carriage so that he might hand the ladies therefrom, and receive from his divinity a little, uncertain pressure of the hand. Then came his respects to Mrs. Pumphrey. Amidon started as he recognized in the bright-haired second person in line his fairy of the balustrade.
"So delighted to see you here, Mr. Brassfield!" said Mrs. Pumphrey. "It gives me the opportunity of presenting you to—why, Daisy, where's your auntie gone? She was here just now!"
"She was called away for a few moments," said Miss Scarlett. "Yes, I believe Mr. Brassfield and I have met"—this with an icy bow—"and please, Mr. Cox, don't go, until I have told you the end of the story!" And she went on vivaciously chatting to Billy Cox, who had moored himself as close to her as the tide of guests sweeping by her would permit. Which current swept Mr. Amidon onward as he was in the act of assuring his hostess of his sense of loss in her sister's absence—until an eddy left him in a quiet corner, where he found absorbing occupation in trying to imagine again as vividly as possible that pressure of the hand. Was it meant as an evidence of affection?—or did her foot slip, so that she clung to his hand to prevent a fall? This question seemed of the most transcendent importance to him, and he debated it mentally all the evening, as he talked the set conversation of such an occasion. He knew no one; but every one knew him; yet he had no difficulty in getting on, because there was no sense in any of the conversation. He could answer all the remarks regarding his new role of political leader without committing himself to anything serious. Bright eyes flashed meaning and soulful glances into his, as sweet lips said things which he could answer quite as well as if the context of the conversation had been as familiar to him as it was supposed to be. Platitudes, generalities, inanities; and inanities, platitudes and generalities in reply. Amidon looked the part of Brassfield perfectly, and on occasions of this sort, to look the part is quite enough.
He found Elizabeth again, surrounded by a circle of admirers—men and women—an oasis of intelligence, it seemed to him as he listened, in a desert of twaddle. She smiled at him with her eyes, as he looked at her through the press, and just as he had won to a place by her side, the tide was sent flooding into a large room where, it was announced, Professor Blatherwick and Madame le Claire were doing feats of occultism.
"Laties ant shentlemen,"—it was the professor who spoke, "you are at liperty, of gourse, to adopt any t'eory vich seems to you goot to eggsblain dese phenomena. Madame le Claire offers none. Ven she hass broduced te phenomena, she iss—she iss all in! If dey seem to you to be de vork of tisempodied spirits, fery well—goot! Somedimes it seems so to her. If you rekard letchertemain as a sufficient vorking hypot'esis, vy, letchertemain goes, and upon dat hypot'esis ve vill gontinue to vork de miracles ant de public. Id iss kvite de same to Madame le Claire. It iss only fair to say, howefer, dat she hass nefer yet detected herself in any fraut. Bud she offers no eggsblanation; she chust gifes dese tests for your gonsiteration."
A ripple of laughter and a buzz of interested comment ran through the room.
"But how was it possible for her to get her hands loose?" said one.
"I assure you," said Mrs. Meyer, she of theParsifalimpressions, and the wife of the Hebrew leader of the Gentile mob who went "down the line" for McCorkle the night before the caucuses, "I assure you that what she told me was unknown not only to every one else, but to me also; but it turned out true. It's uncanny!"
"It's humbug," said the bass voice of Doctor Brown, "and until you show me the source of this 'occult' energy, I shall so contend. Animal magnetism and sleight-of-hand! What do you think, Mrs. Hunter?"
Amidon looked across and saw—Mrs. Hunter, of Hazelhurst! It was she and her daughter from whom he had bashfully flown to the buffet, just before he alighted from the train at Elm Springs Junction. As he looked at her all the old life returned to him! He saw himself sitting with her and Minnie in the car, as she talked fashions to him and chattered her anticipations of the lovely time Minnie was to have with the family of Senator Fowler on the Maine coast. He saw Blodgett come in, and himself seize the opportunity to escape with his lawyer to the buffet. Then he saw the rural railway platform, the fading glory of the west—and then the waking in the sleeping-car! Could it all be possible?
"Do you know the lady talking with Doctor Brown?" he asked of Miss Waldron.
"Mrs. Hunter?" said Elizabeth questioningly. "Why, didn't you meet her when you came in? She is Mrs. Pumphrey's sister, of Hazelhurst, Wisconsin. She receives with Mrs. Pumphrey to-night."
"I thought it was Mrs. Hunter, as soon as I saw her," answered Amidon; "she is an old acquaintance of mine."
And it was some little time, so far had he forgotten his peculiar position, before the baleful possibilities of this innocent and truthful remark occurred to him. When he thought of it, any observing friend might well have inquired after his health, so gray with pallor and moist with sweat had his face become. Not that he felt hanging over him any such danger as he had feared when he found himself in the shoes of another man, with that other man unaccounted for. He really cared very little aboutthat, now. The people of Bellevale, and Hazelhurst, too, might think what they pleased about this mystery of disappearance and reappearance: he was independent of them all, and those he really cared about would understand.
But Elizabeth! Everything now revolved about her. Now that she had grown so dear—that she had come to smile on him in his new character—how could he let her know that this Eugene Brassfield whom she so admired and loved, was no more for ever; and that Florian Amidon had never seen her, never loved her, never wooed her until these past few days! Would she ever see him again? Could she regard him as anything else than an interloper and an impostor? His right to Brassfield's clothes and Brassfield's fortune might be as clear as Judge Blodgett said; but would not Elizabeth feel that as to her he had attempted the very deed of which he had first suspected himself—fraud and robbery? And her "perfect lover," whom Amidon habitually thought of as "that fellow Brassfield"—all the perfections which Elizabeth had learned to attribute to him, would no longer be credited to Amidon. It was tragic!
As a matter of fact, beloved, any man would have been a perfect lover, or none at all, to Elizabeth. A perfect lover is the noblest work of woman.
"Te autience," went on the professor, "vill haf te eggstreme gourtesy to assist in a temonstration of Madame le Claire's power as a hypnotist. Not effery vun gan pe hypnoticed te fairst dime; bud ve vill try. Vill te autience bleace suchest te name of a laty or shentleman as a supchect?"
"Doctor Brown!" said many voices. "Alvord!" said others, but most of the votes appeared to be for Brassfield—a name which the professor hailed joyfully as insuring against failure. It is not often that the audience will hit on the only practised sensitive in the room.
Madame le Claire started, as there was thus presented to her the thought of bringing her power to bear on Amidon. The serious results of her last exercise of it came vividly to her mind. Yet, here she was openly hypnotizing him. Here she could keep him under control. She could limit his Brassfield state as to time, or she could keep him in a state of automatism.
"Mr. Brassfield vill greatly obliche by goming forvart," said the professor; and, as he had learned to do, Amidon obeyed his request.
Elizabeth, standing near Mrs. Hunter, heard an agitated exclamation from that lady as Mr. Amidon went forward.
"For heaven's sake," said she, "it's Florian Amidon!"
"Who?" inquired Mrs. Pumphrey, "that? Why, that's our chief citizen, soon to be our chief magistrate, Mr. Eugene Brassfield."
Elizabeth heard no more, but in spite of perplexity at what she regarded as Mrs. Hunter's recognition of her lover's face and forgetfulness of his name, she could not help noticing her excited talk to her sister, and the meaning glances finally directed toward her, Elizabeth. Whereat, to hide a little rosy flush, Miss Waldron turned more completely toward the place of the hypnotist.
Madame le Claire stood in the little curtained alcove, empty save for the great tiger-skin rug, the dais, and a chair or two. She was gowned once more in the yellow and black, and stood in tigrine splendor cap-a-pie. Amidon felt her old power over him, as he approached her and looked into those mysterious eyes, and knew that he should do her bidding. She looked at his troubled countenance, and pitied him for his long evening of mental strain. She had seen his devotion to Elizabeth, and, be it confessed, was jealous in spite of herself. Pity and jealousy inspired the resolution which now formed in her mind: she would for an interval—an interval definitely limited—restore Eugene Brassfield to this company in which he was so completely at home, and lay the troubled ghost, Amidon. He would appear to better advantage altogether and do himself more credit; he would, in fact, be more convincingly Bellevale's "chief citizen."
She bowed deeply and waved him to the chair. Then she performed the charm of "woven paces and of waving arms," and he slept, "lost to life and use and name and fame."
"When he opens his eyes," said she, "he will know nothing, think nothing, do nothing, except what I suggest."
"Make him dance with the broom," suggested Cox.
"Let's have his inaugural address," petitioned Edgington.
"Give him this," said Alvord, offering a coin, "and make him think it's hot. People in this neighborhood would go farther to see Brassfield drop a piece of money, than to interview a live dinosaur!"
The laughter at this sally was lost on Madame le Claire. She was looking down on the unconscious Amidon, and wondering how any one could think of making him the instrument of buffoonery.
"I will perform only one simple, yet very difficult, lest," said she. "This gentleman will soon wake as Mr. Brassfield, and will be his old and usual self among you until a certain hour, which I will write on this card, and seal up in this envelope, so that no one will know, and inform Mr. Brassfield by suggestion. When that particular moment arrives, wherever he may be, whatever he may be doing, he will enter the cataleptic state. The test is regarded as a severe and perfect one. The card will remain in the possession of Major Pumphrey until it succeeds or fails, and the envelope will then be opened."
Kneeling on the dais, she seemed whispering in the subject's ear. Then, tapping his wrist, she said, decisively, "Wake!"
It was Eugene Brassfield who opened his eyes on a circle of his friends, associates and cronies. He rose lightly and confidently, and laughed at the chaffing of his friends. He bowed to Madame le Claire, and moved across the room to Elizabeth's side, with an air of incipient proprietorship.
"No true lover of carnations," he confided to her, "could wish you to wear them as you do to-night."
"Really? I suppose I ought to ask why?"
"It isn't fair to the flowers," said he. "Flowers have rights, you know, and to be outdone in sweetness—— Ah, Jim! Go away, and don't bother me! Don't you see I'm very busy?"
"Old man," said Alvord, answering to the name of "Jim," "it's good to see you as you are to-night—your old self. You'll make a hit, my boy. This will make it more than ever a cinch!"
Self-possessed, masterful, Mr. Brassfield moved through the assembly like a conqueror. Those who, a short time ago, found him dull and moody, rejoiced now in his confident persiflage pitched safely in the restful key of mediocrity, but possessed withal of a species of brilliancy, like the skilful playing of scales. Elizabeth noted the return of that dash and abandon which she had lately so missed—but for the first time the Brassfield music had a hollow ring in her ears. The subtler melody of last night—after all, it was best!
Madame le Claire, immensely popular, gave readings in palmistry. Miss Smith was to have a husband with dark eyes. Mr. Brassfield offered to cross her palm with any gold coin she might name, if she would promise him a sweetheart with party-colored eyes, who would meet him for a long talk next day. Madame le Claire blushed and dropped the hand.
Mr. Brassfield adroitly overtook Miss Scarlett, who seemed endeavoring to retreat. He stood by her, chatting lightly, using two voices, a distinct and conversational tone, and one so low as to be for her ear alone.
"Oh, isn't it a crush?" said he. "(Daise, what's the matter?) A perfect evening, though. (Are you running away from me?) And such delightful people! (The east room in ten minutes; is it yes?)"
Miss Scarlett nodded, and Brassfield moved on. Mrs. Pumphrey, Mrs. Hunter and Elizabeth Waldron were sipping punch.
"May I have some?" said he. "And, please, Mrs. Pumphrey, may I be presented to the guest of the evening?"
Mrs. Hunter received the introduction with a gasp.
"Is it possible," said she, "that you don't know me? Can the possessor of that voice and face be any one but Florian Amidon?"
"Amidon, Amidon?" he repeated. "Pardon me, but some one else spoke that name to me lately, and I was trying to recall the circumstances. It is in every way on my part to be regretted, as the fact has deprived me of the happiness of knowing you, that I am not Mr. Amidon. Am I so like him?"
"Oh, it isn't a matter of resemblance, but of identity!" replied Mrs. Hunter. "Were you never in Hazelhurst, Wisconsin?"
"Never," said Mr. Brassfield; "but I am beginning to see its beauties as a place of residence. And I hope to know more of this other Dromio before the evening is past."
Mrs. Hunter bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment, and Mr. Brassfield took himself gracefully from their presence. In the fashion of one pressed for time, he moved on.
Elizabeth had grown suddenly very grave. What did this conduct of her lover mean? A little while ago he had recognized Mrs. Hunter, at a distance, as an old acquaintance. Now he had audaciously outfaced her, and denied that he ever knew her. Could this be the man she had trusted with her all? Again her doubts and fears and scruples rose—rose instantly in full strength. The new impressions she had lately received of him vanished, and all the subtle suggestions of sordid lightness which the diplomacy of Brassfield, even, had not entirely kept from her mind, came back with multiplied distinctness. These transformations of character, these curious duplicities, and now this lie. She must think it over: it impressed her, and she must act.
"Auntie," said she, "let us go."
As down the stairway they came, robed for departure, they were conscious of a hum of excitement running through the assembly.
"Where is he? The envelope has been opened and the time is up! Where is he?" were the cries. "It's eleven: it's a minute past eleven! Where's Mr. Brassfield?"
At this moment, a scream, a soprano scream, high, long-drawn and piercing, the scream of a woman in terror, came echoing from the deserted east room. A body of guests rushed through the portières, Madame le Claire, pale with fright, at their head, and Elizabeth borne with them, all looking to see what violence had provoked that scream. They saw Mr. Brassfield, seated on a sofa in a shadowy corner, holding both Miss Scarlett's hands in his; saw the girl frantically, but in vain, trying to take them from his grasp. He sat like a statue, with his eyes set wide and unwinking like a corpse's, every limb and muscle rigid, his body tense and immovable as a stone image. The sight was terrible. It was as if the living man had been transformed in an instant into a ghastly trap, to catch those soft, warm, pretty hands! She ceased her efforts to break away, but stood white and almost fainting, and begging hysterically for help.
Madame le Claire leaped forward like a tigress, so light was her step, and passed her hand over his eyes, so as to close them. Then, bending her gaze one moment piercingly on his face, she sharply tapped his wrist and uttered the single word, "Wake!"
Florian Amidon opened his eyes. He saw that something extraordinary was taking place, for, in the act of opening his eyes, he had seen Miss Scarlett fall back into the arms of Mr. Cox, and knew that she was being conveyed rapidly away.
"It iss now," said the professor, "vun minute past eleven. Te test, you vill atmit, hass peen a gomplete success. Dis sairgumsdance vill pe noted as exdablishing to a sairtain eggstent an important brinciple, ant hass peen in effery vay bleasant ant a success: not?"
A laugh or two was heard, then more laughter, then a little hum of reviving talk, and one could observe that the affair was to be passed off as one of the mysteries of occultism.
"Well," said Mr. Amidon, "if I have contributed my share to the gaiety of the occasion, I shall beg now to be permitted to depart."
The Waldrons were waiting for their carriage as he came down.
"There will be plenty of assistance," said the aunty "and we shall not need to detain you."
"Oh, auntie, auntie!" wept Elizabeth, when they were safely alone, "there was a spell upon him, as you say, there in the east room, but the spell that took him there was none of the hypnotist's working! I am shamed, and humiliated, and robbed of all I have to live for! He went there, auntie, of his own accord,and left me!"
Mr. Alvord passed the thing off more lightly.
"Confound it!" said he, "I wish they were in Hades with their mesmeric stunts! I shan't tell Brass what happened, for it won't do any good; and the less notice there's taken of it the better. But carrying things before him as he was—it was hard luck to have that occur. Puts him in an undignified position, to say the least. I wish I could think there was nothing more to it!"
We are but Sitters at the Table, Guests,Where each drinks more, the more that he protests,Sees, One by One, his Fellows slip from Sight,And then himself beneath the Table rests.******Some walk the Sinuous Crack for Test, and SomeJudge by the throbbing Fullness of the Thumb—But lo! the Fool continues till the GuestsAre changed to Pairs of Twins as in they come!—Imitations of Immorality.
Barring the somewhat equivocal episode of the east room at Major Pumphrey's, everything had gone to Mr. Alvord's liking since Mr. Brassfield had placed the campaign in his hands. And, as a matter of fact, that affair was so susceptible of plausible explanation, and so fenced about by the sanctities of private hospitality, that Alvord was reassured after a day or two had passed with no public scandal. Amidon stayed away from headquarters, and Alvord, acting under the unlimited authority granted by Brassfield, took all responsibility and proceeded most effectively in his own way. Amidon's instructions by telephone, to prepare a statement of disbursements to be made public, he regarded as one of Brassfield's jokes. His suggestion that he meant to stand on a platform of principles seemed equally humorous. To propose such ridiculous things in a perfectly serious way, and laugh at the victim's credulity in "biting" on the hoax, was quite in harmony with the relations among the members of the set to which they belonged, where practical jokes, merciless chaffing and perpetual efforts to get the best of one another had given the group a more than local celebrity.
Having, therefore, no suspicion that his candidate's platform of principles was in the hands of the reporters, and would appear in the next morning's papers, Alvord took his way to the annual supper of the A. O. C. M. feeling that all was well in the world, and that here, at least, his candidate would acquit himself well.
Messrs. Bulliwinkle and Cox were absent when the time came for sitting down to supper, and Mr. Simpson, the Master of the Revels, decreed that no one was to be waited for. So the chairs of the absentees were shoved up, and reminded Mr. Slater, who was quite high in spirits, ofThe Vacant Chair, which he sang to the bass of Judge Blodgett, and a humming accompaniment by Alvord and Edgington. Professor Blatherwick listened with rapt attention and was much affected.
"Dis iss Heidelberg unt stutent tays," said he. "Strong and luffing hearts, ant veak hets ant stomachs! Oh, te svorts ant steins ant songs ant scraps! It iss brotuctife of tears ant schmiles!"
"Especially smiles," said Mr. Simpson; "and right in that connection, these cocktails are supposed to go in ahead of the refection. Gentlemen, a good time to all!"
Now, after some courses of soup and fish andentrées, Mr. Alvord noted the cocktails and the unconsumed glasses of wine at the plates of Bulliwinkle and Cox, and with a sense of equity truly Anglo-Saxon, he raised the point that it was an injustice to those who had been prompt, to have these two fresh competitors come in late and entirely sober in the middle of the feast.
"Point seems to be well taken," said Judge Blodgett. "I move, your Honor, that the wet goods apportionable to our absent friends be set aside for them."
"Sustained!" roared Simpson. "Let the booze of Bulliwinkle and Cox be filed away for future reference, in the sideboard!"
So their glasses stood in two rows, lengthening course by course, awaiting the coming of the absentees. And thus it was that when Mr. Bulliwinkle, fat, bald, and rubicund, made his appearance, the proceedings were suspended until he had imbibed his share, glass by glass, beginning with the cocktails and ending temporarily with Madeira. Then Mr. Bulliwinkle suddenly became profoundly grave, and was soon detected by Alvord in the act of stealthily endeavoring to place his finger accurately upon certain small round spots in the table-cloth. Whereupon, Mr. Bulliwinkle, to show how entirely he had himself in hand, proposed a toast in verse beginning,
"Now here's to the girl with the auburn hair,And the shoulders whiter than snow,"
and drank it off in a bumper. All seemed to forget Bulliwinkle at this and transferred their attention to Amidon, and pounded on the table and called for a response from him. Blodgett nodded for him to yield, and in order that he might be fully in character, Florian began by saying that they, who knew him so well were quite well aware that he could respond to a toast in honor of the girl with the auburn hair——
"Or any other old color!" shouted Edgington.
"Or all colors at once!" roared a nameless wight at the foot of the table.
At which gaucherie, the nameless wight was the recipient of nudges and scowls in the direction of the professor (who was probably unaware of the color of the hair on his own head, to say nothing of his daughter's) and Edgington filled the gap caused by the unexpected collapse of Amidon's response by charging that Cox was absent because of his having recently taken passage upon the water-wagon, and was traitorously staying away. Alvord proposed that a messenger be sent for him, and when the A. D. T. boy came, a written summons was penned on a menu card, on which progress to date was checked, and instructions given that the document be presented to Cox at his home every twenty minutes until he came—Cox to pay the charges; and the messenger to return between trips to report, and to have the menu checked up so that Cox might note the forward movement of events, and see how far he was behind.
When Mr. Simpson rose to make a few general observations ushering in that part of the program usually devoted to speech-making, Mr. Bulliwinkle, whose vision was slightly impaired, took him for the tardy Cox and some friend whom Cox had brought, and greeted them with a strident "How-de-do!" After this blunder, of course, Mr. Bulliwinkle was logically bound to show that the exclamation was uttered by virtue of a deliberate plan, and so he repeated it from time to time all the evening, until the ordeal of mixed drinks, to which his late arrival had subjected him, proved too much for his endurance and robbed him of speech. But this is anticipating.
A dozen matches were burning and a dozen Havanas sending forth their first cloudlets of blue over the sparkling glasses of champagne, as Mr. Simpson began his remarks.
"To most of those present," he said, "I don't need to say that this is a sort of annual affair. To our new friends I will explain that this club is an institution of Bellevale Lodge, Number 689, of the Ancient Order of Christian Martyrs, of which noble fraternity we are all devoted members. Present company are members, ex or incumbent, of the Board of Control, and a system of fines for absence at board meetings accumulates a fund which has to be spent, and we are now engaged in spending it. Beyond the logic of the situation, which points unerringly to the blowing-in of this fund, the impending happy event in the life of our treasurer, Brother Brassfield, together with the public honors already and about to be conferred on him, render it fitting that this banquet be in his honor. What the devil is that racket? Oh, the boy——! Let the wandering caitiff enter! What says the recreant invader of our Mystic Circle?"
"He said he'd hev' me 'rested 'f I came there any more, an' the whole bunch pulled," said the boy. "An' he chucked the paper out o' the winder."
"Let another scroll be prepared," roared Simpson, "and go back to him as per schedule."
"But," said the boy, "he said——"
"We hold the police force in the hollow of our hands!" shouted Simpson. "We will protect you."
"I should say we would!" "You trust us!" "To the death!" chorused the roisterers.
"I'll collect damages from him for your death!" said Judge Blodgett. "Whom do you want 'em paid to?"
"D'vide the boodle," said the boy, "among my grandchildren—ekally. Do I go back?"
"You do," said Simpson, "as soon as another Exhibit A is prepared."
"It's ready, most noble Potentate," said Edgington ritualistically.
"Then let the messenger depart. Where's that menu I had? Hang it, you've used it for the kid, and it had my remarks on it. As I was saying, this is Brassfield's night. Everybody tells a story, sings a song or dances."
Edgington told a story which, he said, was "on Brassfield," and showed what regular devil that gentleman had been. It seemed that he and "Brass" were at one time fly-fishing in the mountains, and Eugene had so wrought on the fancy of the schoolmistress that she had let school out at three, and gone to learn casting of Brassfield.
"And when they came to the house at suppertime," he went on, "the whole family were laying for them. 'Ketch anything?' said the old lady, 'anythin' more'n a bullhead?' 'I c'n see,' said the hired man, 'that she's been castin' purty hard, by the way her dress is kinder pressed around the waist. It allers fixes mine that way!'"
And so on, to the narration of the outbreak of hostilities with the hired man, and the flight of Brassfield and Edgington. At every point Amidon winced, as he got views of Brassfield's character which hypnotism could not yield, and the assembly roared the louder at his embarrassment.
The messenger boy returned again by this time, still unsuccessful, and was provided with a bunch of cannon fire-crackers to be exploded in Cox's front yard so that the invitation to the banquet might not be overlooked. Then Slater told of Mr. Brassfield's adventures at the Mardi Gras, the story consisting mostly of the account of Eugene's wonderful series of winnings at the race course, where he adopted the system of always finding what horse was given the longest odds, and playing him.
"Our friend," said Slater, "on that last day, was too full of mint-juleps and enthusiasm to tell the field from the judges' stand. Said he never saw the judges' stand run with the horses before (laughter); thought it was a good idea—judges could always tell whether the riding was fair (cheers); and put his money on Azim at about one hundred to one; and when Azim romped in a winner, they stuffed all his pockets full of money, and the reporters came with cameras to get shots at the northern millionaire who had such a thundering run of luck, and you ought to have seen 'Gene when he saw the papers in the morning! Had to take him to Pass Christian next day. It was too strenuous for your humble servant at New Orleans. All the sports knew him by this time, and wanted to run into him so as to touch him for luck, and 'Gene wanted to fight every guy that touched him, and about half the time was getting accommodated and taking second money in every fight!" (Great laughter and applause.)
Amidon was unable to tell as to the absolute truth of these tales, but they had such verisimilitude that they impressed and shocked him. He was doubly astounded at the evident enjoyment with which they were received by his friends, and especially at the fact of the hearty and unrestrained manner in which Blodgett and even Blatherwick joined in the applause. Every shot from the quiver of horse-play (except those aimed at the luckless Cox) seemed directed at him, Amidon the dignified. Here, it seemed, he was known to have been guilty of gambling, drunkenness and libertinism—the three vices that he most detested. His face burned with shame. How had Elizabeth ever cared for such a man as that villain Brassfield? Where was the Sir Galahad, or Lancelot either, in this life? He must somehow, some time, find a way to tell her that it was Brassfield, not Amidon, who had done these things, and that he, Amidon, reared by a doting mother and cared for by a solicitous sister, and all his life the model of the moral town of Hazelhurst, was as innocent of these things as she was.
These thoughts so filled his mind that he heard very little of Judge Blodgett's dialect story. Professor Blatherwick began a German song full of trilled r's, achs and hochs; but became offended at Bulliwinkle's strident "How-de-do!" at the end of the first stanza, and quit. Whereupon Bulliwinkle, for the first time sensing the fact that something was wrong, in the goodness of his heart began singing,Dot's How Poor Yacob Found It Oudt, in seeming compliment to the nationality of the professor; but, owing to the subtlety of the reasoning, the professor failed to take it as such. He took mortal umbrage instead, and hurled his card down on the table with a bang, at which Bulliwinkle slipped under the mahogany,
"Gently as a skylark settles downUpon the clustered treasures of her nest."