Chapter 7

CHAPTER X.TOM'S RECOVERY.At length the man perceives it die awayAnd fade into the light of common day.WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.After rereading the foregoing deposition I am forced to the conclusion that I was designed by nature neither for a novelist nor a historian. I can see that my narrative fails to be convincing, considered either as a work of fiction or as a statement of fact. But may I not comfort myself with the thought that I have given my testimony conscientiously, and that if the outcome of my literary efforts is unsatisfactory my failure is due rather to the inexplicable phenomena with which I have been obliged to deal than to my own defects as an annalist and witness? I have endeavored to inscribe simply and in chronological order the unadorned tale of my husband's sudden attack of genius and its consequences, and I realize now that my data will not be accepted by the scientific, nor will their arrangement appeal to the artistic. But I have told the truth, and if not the whole truth, at least nothing but the truth. As literature my story belongs to the realistic school and is of the present. As a contribution to science it will have no standing to-day, but I am firmly convinced that the psychologists of the future will read the details of Tom Remsen's case with enlightened interest.I have felt too deeply the nervous strain of setting down in black and white the story of the greatest crisis in my life to go into details here and now regarding the ups and downs of the long illness that Tom underwent after his triumphant appearance before the Chopin Society.For two days before he collapsed I saw that he was fighting in grim silence against weakness and fever. He was like a man struggling to overcome an unnatural appetite and growing constantly more weary of the contest. He would stroll with reluctant steps into the music-room, stand for a time gazing defiantly at the piano, with his hands clenched and beads of perspiration on his troubled brow; then he would turn away, meeting my gaze with a melancholy smile, and hurry off to his office or his club, to return to me after a time pale and listless, but always stubbornly silent as to the cause of his evident suffering. Only once before he was forced to take to his bed, where he tossed for a week in delirium, did he refer, even indirectly, to the cause of his disquietude."Has Signorina Molatti been here to-day?" he asked me, abruptly, one evening at dinner."No, Tom," I answered, a note in my voice that I'm sure he did not like. "Did you expect her?""I always expect her," he muttered, speaking more to himself than to me.That evening the magnetism of the open piano in the music-room proved irresistible to him. To my mingled consternation and delight he played selections from Chopin until long after midnight, the while I sat behind him fascinated by his renditions but appalled by the persistent recurrence of his "seizures." "To-morrow," I said to myself, "I will consult Dr. Woodruff again. Perhaps he has made his diagnosis and can suggest some line of treatment."But on the morrow Tom was in charge of our family doctor and two trained nurses. The morning had found him hot with fever, and by noon he was out of his head and inclined to be violent. Then followed days and nights of alternating hope and fear, during which there came to me a complete revelation of what the old Tom had been to me, the Tom who had bored me at times--ungrateful woman that I was!--by his practical, unimaginative, inartistic personality. How I treasured a word of encouragement from the doctor or a nurse! How bitterly I repented my former discontent, my disloyal longing for something in Tom's make-up that nature had not vouchsafed to him! It had come to him--this "something"--and it had well-nigh ruined our lives. Whatever it had been, demoniac possession, hypnotism or what-not, it had been a thing of evil, despite the uncanny beauty of its manifestation. In my heart of hearts I craved one of two alternatives--either Tom's death or his restoration to his former self, freed forever from the black shadow of Chopin's genius.It was not until one afternoon well on in his convalescence that I knew my fondest hopes had been realized. We had betaken ourselves to the library, not to read but to enjoy in an indolent way our new freedom from trained nurses and the discipline of the sick-room. Tom, leaning back comfortably in a reclining-chair and puffing a cigarette, wore on his invalid's face an expression of supreme contentment. Not once, I was glad to note, did his eyes wander to the distant shelf on which stood our Chopin literature, books that I had doomed in my mind to anauto-da-féwhen a fitting opportunity for the sacrifice should arise."Isn't this cozy?" remarked Tom, presently, glancing at me affectionately. "But I suppose I must hasten my recovery, my dear. The Pepper and Salt Trust and other enterprises don't take much stock in sick men.""Don't worry about business matters, Tom Remsen," I said, with playful sternness. "We can get on very well if you never do another stroke of work in your life."A shadow passed over Tom's face, and he puffed his cigarette nervously. "I'm not fitted for a life of leisure, my dear," he remarked, grimly. "A man may get into so many kinds of mischief if he isn't busy."I hastened to change the subject. "Remember, sir, that you are under orders. You are to do as you are told to do. You may not know it, Tom, but the fact is that you and I sail for Europe just as soon as you are strong enough to stand the voyage.""Where are we going?" he asked, apprehensively. "Not to Paris?""No, not to Paris," I answered, understanding him. "We'll spend all our time in Scotland and Ireland. They're the only countries over there that we have not seen, Tom."The next day I discharged our butler for an indiscretion that he committed at this moment."Signorina Molatti," he announced from the doorway of the library, and turning my head I saw the violiniste, with her Cremona under her arm, coming toward us. I glanced at Tom. The two red spots that had leaped into his white cheeks seemed to be an outward manifestation, not of joy but of hot anger. I rose and went toward our visitor, a question in my face."Will you not forgiva me, signora?" cried Molatti, in soft, pleading tones. "Eet ees what you calla vera bad form, but I hava been so vera unhappy. They tolda me that Signor Remsen was dying. Can you not forgiva me?""But he is on the road to recovery, signorina," I said, perfunctorily. It would not do to give way to my inclination to chide this insinuating girl for her presumption. A scene might cause Tom to have a relapse."I see," she cried. "And I am so glad! And I hava broughta my violin. That the signor would lika to hear the voice of themaestro--""Stop right there, will you--ah--signorina," exclaimed Tom, gruffly, endeavoring, as I saw, to control his annoyance and show no discourtesy to even an unwelcome guest. "I'm not it, young woman. He's gone away, whoever he was. If he comes back--which God forbid--I'll notify you. But you won't catch me drumming any more on a piano. My musical career is at an end. I'm under the care of a doctor, and he says that I'm on the road to recovery. Forgive me if I have spoken too plainly. You're a very charming young woman, and I admire your--ah--genius. But mine's gone, and I'll take good care that it doesn't come back. If you'd like that piano in the music-room, Signorina Molatti, I'm sure that my wife would be glad to send it over to your apartments. We're through with it--forever!"I was sorry for the girl. The expression of amazement--even horror--that had come into her dark, expressive face touched my heart, and I laid my hand gently on her arm."It's a great mystery, signorina," I whispered to her, as I led her from the library. "I can't explain it to you very clearly, for I don't understand it myself. But Mr. Remsen told you the truth. He is no longer musical. In his normal condition he is the most unmusical man in the world. The Signor Remsen that you have known, with whom you have played duets, is dead--I can hardly believe that he ever existed. Will you, Signorina Molatti, grant me the great privilege of presenting to you yonder piano? Frankly, it would be a great relief to me to be rid of it."There were tears in her splendid black eyes as she turned her face toward me. "I do not understand," she said, mournfully. "You do not know whata it all meant to me. I cannot taka your piano. There is nobody in the wide world to playa eet, now that he ees gone. And you are telling me the truth? I was dreaming? Eet did not really happen? But, signora, there were so many who hearda heem--hearda me--hearda us! Eet could not hava been a dream. Whata was eet?"Her voice broke with a sob, and I bent down and kissed her tear-stained face."I cannot tell you, signorina. But do not let your heart break. You may find him again some day.""Nevaire again," she sighed, seizing my hands impulsively. "Nevaire again. But I thanka you so much. Fareawell."My heart was heavy as I returned to Tom, uncertain of the state in which I should find him. To my delight, I saw as I entered the library that he had suddenly made a great stride toward renewed health. He was sitting erect, and there was little of the invalid in his face or voice."That's over, my dear!" he cried, gaily, "and I'm going to celebrate Chopin's utter rout. Order me a brandy and soda, will you?--and push that box of cigars toward me. Then we'll read up a bit, little woman, about Scotland and Ireland. On the whole, I'm inclined to believe you and I will have a very jolly outing."I leaned forward and kissed the dear fellow's smiling lips. "It's so good to have you back again, Tom," I murmured."And the signorina?" he asked, presently. "How did she take it? I'm afraid I was cruel to her, my dear. Did I speak too harshly to her?""You had no alternative, Tom," I assured him, soothingly; "you had been placed in a very awkward position.""I had--in a very awkward position," he acknowledged. "And who the deuce put me there? I wonder----""Don't wonder, Tom," I cried, sharply. "The less wondering you do the better it will be for us both.""You're right, Winifred, as you always are," he said, raising aloft the glass of bubbling brandy that the butler had brought to him, and nodding toward me. "Here's your good health, my dear, andbon voyageto us both!"III.Clarissa's Troublesome Baby.For while the wheel of birth and death turns round,Past things and thoughts, and buried lives come back,I now remember, myriad rains ago,What time I roamed Himâla's hanging woods,A tiger, with my striped and hungry kind.THE LIGHT OF ASIA.CLARISSA'S TROUBLESOME BABY.CHAPTER I.MY LATE HUSBAND.And while the wheel of birth and death turns roundThat which hath been must be between us two.--Sir Edwin Arnold.I was alone in the nursery with the baby, a chubby boy whose eight months of life had amazingly increased his weight and vigor, when I heard the crack of doom issuing from his miniature mouth!I wonder if your imagination is strong enough to put you, for a moment, in my place. Suppose that you had dismissed the nurse for a time that you might have a mother's frolic in the twilight with your only child, the blessing that had come to you as a reward for marrying again after five years of widowhood. Suppose that the baby, opening his little eyes to their widest extent, had said to you, as my baby said to me:"You don't seem to recognize me, my dear, but I've come back to you."Wedded to Tom, already jealous of your maternal fondness for the boy, what effect would Jack's voice, silenced five years ago by death, have had upon you, rising in gruff maturity from a baby's tiny throat? Was it strange that I came within a hair's breadth of dropping the uncanny child to the floor? Mechanically I glanced over my shoulder, in cold dread lest the nurse might return at any moment. Then I found courage to glance down into the baby's upturned face. There was something in the child's eyes so old and wise that I realized my ears had not deceived me--I had not been the victim of an hallucination resulting from the strain of an afternoon of calls and teas. The conviction came to me, like an icy douche, that I was standing there in a stunning afternoon costume, holding my first husband in my arms, and liable to let him fall if our weirdtête-à-têteshould be sharply interrupted."You aren't glad to see me," grumbled Jack, wiggling uneasily against my gloves and coat. "But it isn't my fault that I'm here, Clarissa. There's a lot of reincarnation going on, you know, and a fellow has to take his chances."Softly, I stole to a chair and seated myself, holding the baby on my trembling knees."Are you--are you--comfortable, Jack?" I managed to whisper, falteringly, the thought flashing through my mind that I had gone suddenly insane."Keep quiet, can't you?" he pleaded. "Don't shake so! I'm not a rattle-box. I wish you'd tell the nurse, Clarissa, to put a stick in my milk, will you? There's a horrible sameness to my present diet that is absolutely cloying. Will you stop shaking? I can't stand it."By a strong effort of will I controlled my nervous tremors, glancing apprehensively at the door through which the nurse must presently return."There, that's better," commented Jack, contentedly. "You don't know much about us, do you, Clarissa?""About--about--who?" I gasped, wondering if he meant spirits."About babies," he said, with a wiggle and a chuckle that both attracted and repelled me. "Where's your handkerchief? Wipe my nose--pardon me, Clarissa, that sounds vulgar, doesn't it? But what the deuce am I to do? I'm absolutely helpless, don't you know?"I could feel the tears near my eyes, as I gently touched the puckered baby face with a bit of lace."There was only one chance in ten thousand millions that I should come here," went on Jack, apologetically. "It's tough on you, Clarissa. Do you think that you can stand it? I've heard the nurse say that I make a pretty good baby."I sat speechless for a time, trying to adapt myself to new conditions so startling and fantastic that I expected to waken presently from a dream--a dream that promised to become a nightmare. But there was an infernal realism about the whole affair that had impressed me from the first. Jack's matter-of-fact way of accepting the situation was so strikingly characteristic of him that I had felt, at once, a strong temptation to laugh aloud."I want you to make me a promise, Clarissa," he said, presently, seizing one of my gloved fingers with his fat little dimpled hand and making queer mouths, as if he were trying to whistle. "You won't tell--ah--Tom, will you? He wouldn't understand it at all. I don't myself, and I've been through it, don't you see? In a way, of course, it's mighty bad form. I know that. I feel it deeply. But I was powerless, Clarissa. You know I never took any stock in those Oriental philosophies. I was always laughing at Buddhism, metempsychosis, and that kind of thing. But there's really something in it, don't you think? Keep quiet, will you? You're shaking me up again.""There's more in it than I had ever imagined, Jack," I remarked, gloomily. "Of course, I'll say nothing to Tom about it. It'll have to be our secret. I understand that.""You'll have to be very careful about what you call me before people, Clarissa," said the baby, presently. "My name's Horatio, isn't it? What the dickens did you call me that for? I always hated the name Horatio.""It was Tom's choice," I murmured. "I'm sorry you don't like it--Jack.""If you called me 'Jack' for short--no, that wouldn't do. Tom wouldn't like it, would he? Your handkerchief again, please. Thank you, my dear. By the way, Clarissa, I wish you'd tell the nurse that she gets my bath too hot in the morning. I'd like a cold shower, if she doesn't mind.""You'll have to adapt yourself to circumstances, my child," I remarked, wearily, wondering if this horrible ordeal would never come to an end. I longed to get away by myself, to think it all over and quiet my nerves, if possible, before I should be forced to meet Tom at dinner."Adapt myself to circumstances!" exclaimed Jack, bitterly, kicking savagely with his tiny feet at his long white gown. "Don't get sarcastic, Clarissa, or I'll yell. If I told the nurse the truth, where'd you be?""Jack!" I cried, in consternation. There seemed to be a hideous threat in his words."You'd better call me Horatio, for practice," he said, calmly, but I could feel him chuckling against my arm. "I'll get used to it after a time. But it's a fool name, just the same. How about the cold shower?""Jack," I said, angrily, "I'll put you in your crib and leave you alone in the dark if you annoy me. You must be good! Your nurse knows what kind of a bath you should have.""And she'll know who I am, if you leave me here alone, Clarissa," he exclaimed, doubling up his funny little fists and shaking them in the air. "I've got the whip-hand of you, my dear, even if I am only a baby. By the way, Clarissa, how old am I?""Eight months, Jack," I managed to answer, a chill sensation creeping over me, as the shadows deepened in the room and a mysterious horror clutched at my heart. I am not a dreamer by temperament; I am, in fact, rather practical and commonplace in my mental tendencies, but there was something awful in the revelation made to me which seemed to change my whole attitude toward the universe and filled me, for the moment, with a novel dread of my surroundings. I was recalled sharply to a less fantastic mood by Jack's querulous voice:"Will you stop shaking, Clarissa?" he cried, petulantly. "You make me feel like a milk-bottle with delirium tremens. Call the nurse, will you? She hasn't got palsy in her knees. I want to go to sleep."At that instant the nurse bustled into the room, apologizing for her long absence."I'm going to make a slight change in his diet, Mrs. Minturn," she explained, taking Jack from my arms and gazing down with professional satisfaction at his cherubic face. "He's in fine condition--aren't you, you tunnin' 'ittle baby boy? But he's old enough to have a bit of variety now and then. There are several preparations that I've found very satisfactory in other cases, and I've ordered one of them for--there, there, 'ittle Horatio! Don't 'oo cry! Kiss 'oo mamma, and then 'oo'll go seepy-bye."As I bent down to press my lips against the baby's fat cheeks, I caught a gleam in his eyes that the nurse could not see, and, unless my ears deceived me, Jack whispered "Damn!" under his breath.CHAPTER II.A FOND FATHER.As in the world of dream whose mystic shadesAre cast by still more mystic substances,We ofttimes have an unreflecting sense,A silent consciousness of some things past.--Richard Monckton Milnes.I remember that Tom impressed me as an extremely handsome man, as he faced me across the dinner-table and smilingly congratulated me on my appearance."You must have had an interesting day, Clare. You look very animated. I am so glad that you are beginning to get around a bit. There's a golden mean, you know. A woman should become a slave to neither society nor the nursery."I realized that there was an abnormal vivacity in my manner as I added: "Nor to her husband, Tom. Do you accept the amendment?""Do you imply that I am inclined to be tyrannical, my dear?" he asked, laughingly. "It's not that, Clare. But I can't help being jealous of you. How's the baby?"My wine-glass trembled in my hand, and I replaced it on the table, not daring to raise it to my lips. "He grows more interesting every day, Tom," I answered, truthfully. "You don't appreciate him." I wanted to laugh hysterically, but managed to control myself."Don't I, though?" cried Tom, protestingly. "He's the finest boy that ever happened, Clare, and I'm the proudest father. But I don't believe in a man's making an ass of himself all over the place because there's a baby in the house. After all, it's hereditary, so to speak, and quite common."I glanced at the butler, but his wooden face showed no comprehension of the bad taste of Tom's remarks. I was glad of that, for Tom has earned a reputation among all classes for always saying and doing the right thing at the right time. I could not help wondering how he would act if I should tell him over our coffee that my first husband was in the nursery, doomed to another round of earthly experience in the outward seeming of Horatio Minturn."Forgive me, Clare," implored Tom, misinterpreting the expression of my face. "I didn't intend to hurt your feelings, my dear. And you mustn't do me an injustice. You have hinted several times of late that I am not as fond of the baby as I should be. Now, I know exactly what you mean, and I--""Suppose, Tom, that we defer further discussion of the subject until later on," I suggested, realizing that I was losing rapidly my grip on my nerves. "Tell me about your day. Where have you been? What have you done? Whom have you seen?"It was not until we were seated in the smoking-room and Tom had lighted a long black cigar that he returned to a topic I had learned to dread. Heretofore, Tom's interest in the baby had seemed to me to be intermittent and never very intense. To-night is struck me as persistent and painfully strong."What I was going to say, Clare, when you interrupted me at the table," he recommenced, gazing at me thoughtfully through a nimbus of tobacco smoke, "was this: Theoretically, I am a fond and enthusiastic father; practically, I haven't seen the baby more than a dozen times--and he has always yelled at sight of me."I laughed aloud, nervously, and Tom's glance had in it much astonishment and a little annoyance."It's hardly a subject for merriment, is it?" he queried, coldly. "You accuse me of not appreciating Horatio. May I ask you, my dear, when I have had an opportunity of observing his--ah--good points, so to speak? To be frank with you, Clare, and to paraphrase a popular song, 'all babies look alike to me.'""But there are great differences among them, Tom," I cried, impulsively; and again a touch of hysteria got into my voice."And ours, of course, is the finest in the world," he remarked, good-naturedly. "But what I was getting at, Clara, is this: I want to become better acquainted with the boy. He's old enough now, isn't he, to begin to--what is it they call it?--take notice?""Oh, yes." I managed to answer, without breaking down. If Tom would only change the subject! But how could I lead his mind to other things? Surely, I couldn't tell him flatly that hereafter the baby must be a tabooed topic between us, that there really was not any Horatio, that the law of psychic evolution through repeated reincarnations was making in our nursery a demonstration unprecedented in our knowledge of the race. All that I could do was to sit silent, pressing my cold hands together, and endeavor to prevent Tom from observing my increasing agitation."He sits up and takes notice," repeated Tom, as if proud of his old nurse's phrase. "Well, it's about time that Horatio ceased to treat me with that antagonistic uproariousness that has characterized his demeanor hitherto in my presence. I have decided to cultivate his acquaintance, Clare, and I need your help.""He's--he's very young, Tom," I remarked, catching at a straw as I sank."I actually believe that you're jealous of the boy, my dear," cried Tom, laughingly. "Frankly, I'm greatly disappointed at your reception of my suggestion. You're so illogical, Clare! In one breath you charge me with lack of appreciation of the baby, and in the next you intimate that he's too young to endure my society. You place me in a very awkward position. I had honestly thought to please you, but I seem to have made a mess of it."I was sorry for Tom, and realized that the accusation he had made against me was just. For a moment the mad project flashed through my mind of telling him the whole truth, the weird, absurd, unprecedented fact that lay at the bottom of my apparent inconsistency. But the instant that the thought took shape in unspoken words I rejected it as wildly impracticable. Furthermore, there had come to me, under the matter-of-fact influences surrounding me, a possibility that appealed to me as founded on common sense. Was it not reasonable to suppose that I had been the victim before dinner of overwrought nerves, of an hallucination that could be readily explained by purely scientific methods? I had gone to the nursery worn out by social exertions to which I had not been recently accustomed. Alone with the baby in the twilight, would it have been strange if I had fallen asleep for a moment and had dreamed that the child was talking to me? As I looked back upon the episode at this moment, it appeared to me more like the vagary of a transient doze than an actual occurrence. Even the "Damn!" that had seemed to issue from Horatio's tiny mouth as I had kissed his cheek might have been merely the tag-end of an interrupted nightmare, the reflex action of my disordered nervous system."You haven't made a mess of it, Tom," I said, presently, "and you have pleased me. The baby's old enough to--to--""To find my companionship bracing and enlightening?" suggested Tom, merrily."Yes, he's old enough for that," I answered, lightly, glad to feel the fog of my uncanny impressions disappearing before the sunlight of a rising conviction. With every minute that passed thus gaily in Tom's companionship, the certainty grew on me that in the nursery I had been the prey of nervous exhaustion, not the helpless protagonist of a startling psychic drama."I'll tell you what we'll do, Clare," remarked Tom, toward the close of an evening that had grown constantly more enjoyable to me as time passed, for, as I playfully misquoted to myself, Horatio was himself again, "I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll come home to luncheon to-morrow and we'll have the baby down from the nursery. I suppose we're all out of high chairs; but you can telephone for one in the morning, my dear.""But, Tom, Horatio is--is only eight months old," I protested. "He--he doesn't know how to act at the table.""Well, I'll teach him, then," cried Tom, paternally. "He needs a few lessons in manners, Clare. He has always treated me with the most astounding rudeness. It's really time for him to come under my influence, don't you think? Of course, I may be wrong. I don't know much about these matters, but I can learn a thing or two by experimenting with Horatio.""He doesn't like his--" I began, impulsively, and then laughed, rather foolishly. The influence of my dream, it appeared, was still upon me."Doesn't like what?" asked Tom, eying me searchingly, evidently surprised at my untimely hilarity."Game and salads and other luncheon things," I explained, adroitly, suddenly glad that the evening was at an end and that I could soon quiet my throbbing nerves by sleep."We'll have some bread and milk for him," suggested Tom, hospitably. "Maybe he won't yell at me if we give him something to eat--something in his line, you know."Again I succumbed to temptation and laughed aloud. "How little you know about babies, Tom," I remarked, in my most superior way; but even as I spoke the horrible suspicion crept over me again that I, also, might have much to learn about my own little boy.CHAPTER III.MY FIRST AND SECOND.Sometimes a breath floats by me,An odor from Dreamland sent,Which makes the ghost seem nigh meOf a something that came and went.--James Russell Lowell.I lunched with Tom and Jack the next day. It was an appalling function, driving me to the very verge of hysteria and destroying forever my belief in my dream theory. My first husband sat in his new high chair, pounding the table with a spoon, as if calling the meeting to order, while my second husband sat gazing at the baby with a fatuous smile on his handsome face that testified to his inability to rise to the situation. Behind the baby's chair stood his nurse, evidently prepared to defend her prerogatives as the protector of the child's health. Lurking in the background was the phlegmatic butler, no better pleased than the nurse at this experiment of Tom's."That's it! Go it, Horatio!" cried Tom, nervously. "Hit the table again, my boy. That's what it's for.""I thought that your idea, Tom, was to teach Horatio how to behave in public," I suggested, playfully, still calm in the belief that I had been deceived in the nursery by a dream."But as you said, Clare," argued Tom, "he's very young. It's really not bad form, you know, for a baby to pound a table with a spoon. Is it, nurse?""I think not, sir," answered the nurse, pushing the high chair back to its place. The baby had kicked it away from the table while Tom was speaking."Isn't he--isn't he rather--ah--nervous, my dear?" asked Tom, glancing at me with paternal solicitude. "It's quite normal, this--ah--tendency to bang things--and kick?""Perhaps he's hungry, Tom," I suggested, lightly. My spirits were rising. In the presence of the baby, whose appearance and manner were those of a healthy child something under a year in age, the absurdity of my recent incipient nightmare was so evident that I blushed at the recollection of my nonsensical panic. Reincarnation? Bah! what silly rubbish we do get from the far East!"Of course he's hungry," assented Tom, glancing down at a bird the butler had put before him. "With your permission, nurse, I'll give the youngster a square meal. How would a bit of the breast from this partridge do? It's very tender and digestible--""How absurd, Tom!" I cried. "He'd choke!""He's choking as it is!" exclaimed Tom, half rising from his chair. "Pat him on the back, nurse!""He's all right, sir," said the nurse, calmly as Horatio's cheeks lost their sudden flush and he opened his pretty little eyes again. "You needn't worry, Mr. Minturn. He's in perfect health, sir.""Aren't they queer?" exclaimed Tom, glancing at me, laughingly."Sir?" cried the nurse in pained amazement."I meant babies, nurse," explained Tom, soothingly, motioning to the disaffected butler to refill his wine-glass. "But look here, Clare; you and I are eating and drinking heartily, but poor little Horatio is still the hungry victim of a dietary debate. What is he to have?--milk?"The baby leaned forward in his chair, seized his empty silver bowl with a chubby hand, and hurled it to the floor."Horatio!" Tom's voice was stern as he scowled at the mischievous youngster. I could not refrain from laughing aloud."Is that bad form, Tom, for a little baby?" I asked, mischievously."No," answered Tom, repentantly. "I don't blame you at all, Horatio. Your prejudice, my boy, against an empty bowl when you are both hungry and thirsty is not unnatural. Give him some bread and milk, nurse, or he'll overturn the table. What a wonderful study it is, Clare, to watch a baby develop! Do you know, Horatio is actually able to grasp a syllogism!""Or a milk-bowl," I added."Don't interrupt my scientific train of thought," protested Tom, gazing musingly at the child. "I saw his mind at work just now. 'I'm hungry,' thought Horatio. 'There's my silver bowl. The bowl is empty. There are bread and milk in the house. If I throw the empty bowl to the floor, my nurse will return it to me filled with food. So here goes! Q.E.D.' Clever baby, isn't he?"It was at that moment I met the baby's eyes, and a sharp chill ran down my back and found its way to my finger-tips. There was an expression in the child's troubled gaze so eloquent that its meaning flashed upon me at once. If the baby had cried aloud, "What an amazing fool that man is!" I could not have been more sure than I was of the thought that had passed through his infantile mind."What's the matter, Clare?" I heard Tom asking me, apprehensively. "Do you feel faint?""Not at all," I hastened to say, turning my eyes from my first to my second husband. The former was eating bread and milk--reluctantly, it seemed to me--from a spoon manipulated by his nurse. That it was really Jack who was sitting there in a high chair, doomed to swallow baby food while he craved partridge and Burgundy was a conviction that had come to me for a fleeting moment, to be followed by a return to conventional common sense and a renewed satisfaction in my environment. Tom sat opposite me, smiling contentedly, while between us, at a side of the table, the baby perfunctorily absorbed a simple but nutritious diet, deftly presented to his tiny mouth by his attentive nurse. It was a charming scene of domestic bliss at that moment, and I realized clearly how much I had to lose by giving way, even intermittently, to the wretched hallucinations that my overwrought nerves begot."Just look at him, Clare!" exclaimed Tom, presently. "I tell you it's an interesting study. It's elevating and enlightening, my dear. To an evolutionist there's a world of meaning in that baby's enthusiasm for bread and milk. Here he sits at the table covered with gastronomic luxuries and actually rejoices in the simplest kind of food. You see, Clare, how well the difference between Horatio and myself in regard to diet illustrates Spencer's definition of evolution as a continuous change from indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to definite, coherent heterogeneity through successive differentiations and integrations. Great Scott, nurse! What's the matter with him? He's choking again!""It's nothing, sir," remarked the nurse, quietly, as the baby recovered from a fit of coughing and resumed his meal. "But, if you'll pardon the remark, sir, I think that he's much better off in the nursery."It was not a tactful suggestion, and I knew that Tom felt hurt; but he maintained his self-control and made no further comment, merely glancing at me with a smile in his eyes. I realized, with a vague uneasiness, that open and active hostilities between baby's nurse and Tom were among the possibilities of the near future, and it was not a pleasing thought."What does he top off with?" asked Tom, presently, grinning at Horatio, who had emptied his bowl and had stuck a fist into his rosebud mouth, as if still hungry. "Have you got an ice for him, James?"The butler stood motionless, gazing fixedly at the nurse."What queer ideas you have, Tom!" I cried, to break the strain of an uncomfortable situation. "An ice would give him an awful pain.""Perhaps he'd like a Welsh rabbit, then?" growled Tom, crossly.The baby seized a spoon and rapped gleefully on the table."Isn't he cunning!" I cried, delightedly. "He's happy now, isn't he? I am inclined to think, Tom, that he'd rather have a nap than a rabbit.""Not on your life!" came a deep, gruff voice from nowhere in particular. I looked at Tom in amazement, thinking that he had playfully disguised his tones and was poking fun at me and the baby. But Tom's expression of wonderment was as genuine as my own, while the nurse was gazing over her shoulder at the butler, who was eying us all in a bewildered way. Tom glanced at the nurse."Leave the room, James," he said hotly. "I'll see you later in the smoking-room." Then, to the nurse: "Remove the baby, will you, please? Thank you for letting us have him for an hour."As soon as we were alone in the dining-room, Tom leaned toward me and said: "Shall I discharge James, my dear? He was most infernally impudent, to put it mildly."But the frightful certainty had come to me that the butler was innocent of any wrong-doing. Absurd as the bald statement of fact seemed to be, my first husband was the guilty man, and, struggle as I might against the conviction, I knew it."Give him another chance, Tom." I managed to say, my voice unsteady and my tongue parched. "James was not quite himself, I imagine. I'm not well, Tom. Give me a swallow of cognac, will you, please?"Tom, alarmed at my voice and face, hastily handed me a stimulant, and presently I felt my courage and my color coming back to me.CHAPTER IV.NURSERY CONFESSIONS.The priceless sightSprings to its curious organ, and the earLearns strangely to detect the articulate airIn its unseen divisions, and the tongueGets its miraculous lesson with the rest.--N. P. Willis.

CHAPTER X.

TOM'S RECOVERY.

At length the man perceives it die awayAnd fade into the light of common day.WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

At length the man perceives it die away

And fade into the light of common day.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

After rereading the foregoing deposition I am forced to the conclusion that I was designed by nature neither for a novelist nor a historian. I can see that my narrative fails to be convincing, considered either as a work of fiction or as a statement of fact. But may I not comfort myself with the thought that I have given my testimony conscientiously, and that if the outcome of my literary efforts is unsatisfactory my failure is due rather to the inexplicable phenomena with which I have been obliged to deal than to my own defects as an annalist and witness? I have endeavored to inscribe simply and in chronological order the unadorned tale of my husband's sudden attack of genius and its consequences, and I realize now that my data will not be accepted by the scientific, nor will their arrangement appeal to the artistic. But I have told the truth, and if not the whole truth, at least nothing but the truth. As literature my story belongs to the realistic school and is of the present. As a contribution to science it will have no standing to-day, but I am firmly convinced that the psychologists of the future will read the details of Tom Remsen's case with enlightened interest.

I have felt too deeply the nervous strain of setting down in black and white the story of the greatest crisis in my life to go into details here and now regarding the ups and downs of the long illness that Tom underwent after his triumphant appearance before the Chopin Society.

For two days before he collapsed I saw that he was fighting in grim silence against weakness and fever. He was like a man struggling to overcome an unnatural appetite and growing constantly more weary of the contest. He would stroll with reluctant steps into the music-room, stand for a time gazing defiantly at the piano, with his hands clenched and beads of perspiration on his troubled brow; then he would turn away, meeting my gaze with a melancholy smile, and hurry off to his office or his club, to return to me after a time pale and listless, but always stubbornly silent as to the cause of his evident suffering. Only once before he was forced to take to his bed, where he tossed for a week in delirium, did he refer, even indirectly, to the cause of his disquietude.

"Has Signorina Molatti been here to-day?" he asked me, abruptly, one evening at dinner.

"No, Tom," I answered, a note in my voice that I'm sure he did not like. "Did you expect her?"

"I always expect her," he muttered, speaking more to himself than to me.

That evening the magnetism of the open piano in the music-room proved irresistible to him. To my mingled consternation and delight he played selections from Chopin until long after midnight, the while I sat behind him fascinated by his renditions but appalled by the persistent recurrence of his "seizures." "To-morrow," I said to myself, "I will consult Dr. Woodruff again. Perhaps he has made his diagnosis and can suggest some line of treatment."

But on the morrow Tom was in charge of our family doctor and two trained nurses. The morning had found him hot with fever, and by noon he was out of his head and inclined to be violent. Then followed days and nights of alternating hope and fear, during which there came to me a complete revelation of what the old Tom had been to me, the Tom who had bored me at times--ungrateful woman that I was!--by his practical, unimaginative, inartistic personality. How I treasured a word of encouragement from the doctor or a nurse! How bitterly I repented my former discontent, my disloyal longing for something in Tom's make-up that nature had not vouchsafed to him! It had come to him--this "something"--and it had well-nigh ruined our lives. Whatever it had been, demoniac possession, hypnotism or what-not, it had been a thing of evil, despite the uncanny beauty of its manifestation. In my heart of hearts I craved one of two alternatives--either Tom's death or his restoration to his former self, freed forever from the black shadow of Chopin's genius.

It was not until one afternoon well on in his convalescence that I knew my fondest hopes had been realized. We had betaken ourselves to the library, not to read but to enjoy in an indolent way our new freedom from trained nurses and the discipline of the sick-room. Tom, leaning back comfortably in a reclining-chair and puffing a cigarette, wore on his invalid's face an expression of supreme contentment. Not once, I was glad to note, did his eyes wander to the distant shelf on which stood our Chopin literature, books that I had doomed in my mind to anauto-da-féwhen a fitting opportunity for the sacrifice should arise.

"Isn't this cozy?" remarked Tom, presently, glancing at me affectionately. "But I suppose I must hasten my recovery, my dear. The Pepper and Salt Trust and other enterprises don't take much stock in sick men."

"Don't worry about business matters, Tom Remsen," I said, with playful sternness. "We can get on very well if you never do another stroke of work in your life."

A shadow passed over Tom's face, and he puffed his cigarette nervously. "I'm not fitted for a life of leisure, my dear," he remarked, grimly. "A man may get into so many kinds of mischief if he isn't busy."

I hastened to change the subject. "Remember, sir, that you are under orders. You are to do as you are told to do. You may not know it, Tom, but the fact is that you and I sail for Europe just as soon as you are strong enough to stand the voyage."

"Where are we going?" he asked, apprehensively. "Not to Paris?"

"No, not to Paris," I answered, understanding him. "We'll spend all our time in Scotland and Ireland. They're the only countries over there that we have not seen, Tom."

The next day I discharged our butler for an indiscretion that he committed at this moment.

"Signorina Molatti," he announced from the doorway of the library, and turning my head I saw the violiniste, with her Cremona under her arm, coming toward us. I glanced at Tom. The two red spots that had leaped into his white cheeks seemed to be an outward manifestation, not of joy but of hot anger. I rose and went toward our visitor, a question in my face.

"Will you not forgiva me, signora?" cried Molatti, in soft, pleading tones. "Eet ees what you calla vera bad form, but I hava been so vera unhappy. They tolda me that Signor Remsen was dying. Can you not forgiva me?"

"But he is on the road to recovery, signorina," I said, perfunctorily. It would not do to give way to my inclination to chide this insinuating girl for her presumption. A scene might cause Tom to have a relapse.

"I see," she cried. "And I am so glad! And I hava broughta my violin. That the signor would lika to hear the voice of themaestro--"

"Stop right there, will you--ah--signorina," exclaimed Tom, gruffly, endeavoring, as I saw, to control his annoyance and show no discourtesy to even an unwelcome guest. "I'm not it, young woman. He's gone away, whoever he was. If he comes back--which God forbid--I'll notify you. But you won't catch me drumming any more on a piano. My musical career is at an end. I'm under the care of a doctor, and he says that I'm on the road to recovery. Forgive me if I have spoken too plainly. You're a very charming young woman, and I admire your--ah--genius. But mine's gone, and I'll take good care that it doesn't come back. If you'd like that piano in the music-room, Signorina Molatti, I'm sure that my wife would be glad to send it over to your apartments. We're through with it--forever!"

I was sorry for the girl. The expression of amazement--even horror--that had come into her dark, expressive face touched my heart, and I laid my hand gently on her arm.

"It's a great mystery, signorina," I whispered to her, as I led her from the library. "I can't explain it to you very clearly, for I don't understand it myself. But Mr. Remsen told you the truth. He is no longer musical. In his normal condition he is the most unmusical man in the world. The Signor Remsen that you have known, with whom you have played duets, is dead--I can hardly believe that he ever existed. Will you, Signorina Molatti, grant me the great privilege of presenting to you yonder piano? Frankly, it would be a great relief to me to be rid of it."

There were tears in her splendid black eyes as she turned her face toward me. "I do not understand," she said, mournfully. "You do not know whata it all meant to me. I cannot taka your piano. There is nobody in the wide world to playa eet, now that he ees gone. And you are telling me the truth? I was dreaming? Eet did not really happen? But, signora, there were so many who hearda heem--hearda me--hearda us! Eet could not hava been a dream. Whata was eet?"

Her voice broke with a sob, and I bent down and kissed her tear-stained face.

"I cannot tell you, signorina. But do not let your heart break. You may find him again some day."

"Nevaire again," she sighed, seizing my hands impulsively. "Nevaire again. But I thanka you so much. Fareawell."

My heart was heavy as I returned to Tom, uncertain of the state in which I should find him. To my delight, I saw as I entered the library that he had suddenly made a great stride toward renewed health. He was sitting erect, and there was little of the invalid in his face or voice.

"That's over, my dear!" he cried, gaily, "and I'm going to celebrate Chopin's utter rout. Order me a brandy and soda, will you?--and push that box of cigars toward me. Then we'll read up a bit, little woman, about Scotland and Ireland. On the whole, I'm inclined to believe you and I will have a very jolly outing."

I leaned forward and kissed the dear fellow's smiling lips. "It's so good to have you back again, Tom," I murmured.

"And the signorina?" he asked, presently. "How did she take it? I'm afraid I was cruel to her, my dear. Did I speak too harshly to her?"

"You had no alternative, Tom," I assured him, soothingly; "you had been placed in a very awkward position."

"I had--in a very awkward position," he acknowledged. "And who the deuce put me there? I wonder----"

"Don't wonder, Tom," I cried, sharply. "The less wondering you do the better it will be for us both."

"You're right, Winifred, as you always are," he said, raising aloft the glass of bubbling brandy that the butler had brought to him, and nodding toward me. "Here's your good health, my dear, andbon voyageto us both!"

III.

Clarissa's Troublesome Baby.

For while the wheel of birth and death turns round,Past things and thoughts, and buried lives come back,I now remember, myriad rains ago,What time I roamed Himâla's hanging woods,A tiger, with my striped and hungry kind.THE LIGHT OF ASIA.

For while the wheel of birth and death turns round,

Past things and thoughts, and buried lives come back,

I now remember, myriad rains ago,

What time I roamed Himâla's hanging woods,

A tiger, with my striped and hungry kind.

THE LIGHT OF ASIA.

CLARISSA'S TROUBLESOME BABY.

CHAPTER I.

MY LATE HUSBAND.

And while the wheel of birth and death turns roundThat which hath been must be between us two.--Sir Edwin Arnold.

And while the wheel of birth and death turns round

That which hath been must be between us two.

--Sir Edwin Arnold.

I was alone in the nursery with the baby, a chubby boy whose eight months of life had amazingly increased his weight and vigor, when I heard the crack of doom issuing from his miniature mouth!

I wonder if your imagination is strong enough to put you, for a moment, in my place. Suppose that you had dismissed the nurse for a time that you might have a mother's frolic in the twilight with your only child, the blessing that had come to you as a reward for marrying again after five years of widowhood. Suppose that the baby, opening his little eyes to their widest extent, had said to you, as my baby said to me:

"You don't seem to recognize me, my dear, but I've come back to you."

Wedded to Tom, already jealous of your maternal fondness for the boy, what effect would Jack's voice, silenced five years ago by death, have had upon you, rising in gruff maturity from a baby's tiny throat? Was it strange that I came within a hair's breadth of dropping the uncanny child to the floor? Mechanically I glanced over my shoulder, in cold dread lest the nurse might return at any moment. Then I found courage to glance down into the baby's upturned face. There was something in the child's eyes so old and wise that I realized my ears had not deceived me--I had not been the victim of an hallucination resulting from the strain of an afternoon of calls and teas. The conviction came to me, like an icy douche, that I was standing there in a stunning afternoon costume, holding my first husband in my arms, and liable to let him fall if our weirdtête-à-têteshould be sharply interrupted.

"You aren't glad to see me," grumbled Jack, wiggling uneasily against my gloves and coat. "But it isn't my fault that I'm here, Clarissa. There's a lot of reincarnation going on, you know, and a fellow has to take his chances."

Softly, I stole to a chair and seated myself, holding the baby on my trembling knees.

"Are you--are you--comfortable, Jack?" I managed to whisper, falteringly, the thought flashing through my mind that I had gone suddenly insane.

"Keep quiet, can't you?" he pleaded. "Don't shake so! I'm not a rattle-box. I wish you'd tell the nurse, Clarissa, to put a stick in my milk, will you? There's a horrible sameness to my present diet that is absolutely cloying. Will you stop shaking? I can't stand it."

By a strong effort of will I controlled my nervous tremors, glancing apprehensively at the door through which the nurse must presently return.

"There, that's better," commented Jack, contentedly. "You don't know much about us, do you, Clarissa?"

"About--about--who?" I gasped, wondering if he meant spirits.

"About babies," he said, with a wiggle and a chuckle that both attracted and repelled me. "Where's your handkerchief? Wipe my nose--pardon me, Clarissa, that sounds vulgar, doesn't it? But what the deuce am I to do? I'm absolutely helpless, don't you know?"

I could feel the tears near my eyes, as I gently touched the puckered baby face with a bit of lace.

"There was only one chance in ten thousand millions that I should come here," went on Jack, apologetically. "It's tough on you, Clarissa. Do you think that you can stand it? I've heard the nurse say that I make a pretty good baby."

I sat speechless for a time, trying to adapt myself to new conditions so startling and fantastic that I expected to waken presently from a dream--a dream that promised to become a nightmare. But there was an infernal realism about the whole affair that had impressed me from the first. Jack's matter-of-fact way of accepting the situation was so strikingly characteristic of him that I had felt, at once, a strong temptation to laugh aloud.

"I want you to make me a promise, Clarissa," he said, presently, seizing one of my gloved fingers with his fat little dimpled hand and making queer mouths, as if he were trying to whistle. "You won't tell--ah--Tom, will you? He wouldn't understand it at all. I don't myself, and I've been through it, don't you see? In a way, of course, it's mighty bad form. I know that. I feel it deeply. But I was powerless, Clarissa. You know I never took any stock in those Oriental philosophies. I was always laughing at Buddhism, metempsychosis, and that kind of thing. But there's really something in it, don't you think? Keep quiet, will you? You're shaking me up again."

"There's more in it than I had ever imagined, Jack," I remarked, gloomily. "Of course, I'll say nothing to Tom about it. It'll have to be our secret. I understand that."

"You'll have to be very careful about what you call me before people, Clarissa," said the baby, presently. "My name's Horatio, isn't it? What the dickens did you call me that for? I always hated the name Horatio."

"It was Tom's choice," I murmured. "I'm sorry you don't like it--Jack."

"If you called me 'Jack' for short--no, that wouldn't do. Tom wouldn't like it, would he? Your handkerchief again, please. Thank you, my dear. By the way, Clarissa, I wish you'd tell the nurse that she gets my bath too hot in the morning. I'd like a cold shower, if she doesn't mind."

"You'll have to adapt yourself to circumstances, my child," I remarked, wearily, wondering if this horrible ordeal would never come to an end. I longed to get away by myself, to think it all over and quiet my nerves, if possible, before I should be forced to meet Tom at dinner.

"Adapt myself to circumstances!" exclaimed Jack, bitterly, kicking savagely with his tiny feet at his long white gown. "Don't get sarcastic, Clarissa, or I'll yell. If I told the nurse the truth, where'd you be?"

"Jack!" I cried, in consternation. There seemed to be a hideous threat in his words.

"You'd better call me Horatio, for practice," he said, calmly, but I could feel him chuckling against my arm. "I'll get used to it after a time. But it's a fool name, just the same. How about the cold shower?"

"Jack," I said, angrily, "I'll put you in your crib and leave you alone in the dark if you annoy me. You must be good! Your nurse knows what kind of a bath you should have."

"And she'll know who I am, if you leave me here alone, Clarissa," he exclaimed, doubling up his funny little fists and shaking them in the air. "I've got the whip-hand of you, my dear, even if I am only a baby. By the way, Clarissa, how old am I?"

"Eight months, Jack," I managed to answer, a chill sensation creeping over me, as the shadows deepened in the room and a mysterious horror clutched at my heart. I am not a dreamer by temperament; I am, in fact, rather practical and commonplace in my mental tendencies, but there was something awful in the revelation made to me which seemed to change my whole attitude toward the universe and filled me, for the moment, with a novel dread of my surroundings. I was recalled sharply to a less fantastic mood by Jack's querulous voice:

"Will you stop shaking, Clarissa?" he cried, petulantly. "You make me feel like a milk-bottle with delirium tremens. Call the nurse, will you? She hasn't got palsy in her knees. I want to go to sleep."

At that instant the nurse bustled into the room, apologizing for her long absence.

"I'm going to make a slight change in his diet, Mrs. Minturn," she explained, taking Jack from my arms and gazing down with professional satisfaction at his cherubic face. "He's in fine condition--aren't you, you tunnin' 'ittle baby boy? But he's old enough to have a bit of variety now and then. There are several preparations that I've found very satisfactory in other cases, and I've ordered one of them for--there, there, 'ittle Horatio! Don't 'oo cry! Kiss 'oo mamma, and then 'oo'll go seepy-bye."

As I bent down to press my lips against the baby's fat cheeks, I caught a gleam in his eyes that the nurse could not see, and, unless my ears deceived me, Jack whispered "Damn!" under his breath.

CHAPTER II.

A FOND FATHER.

As in the world of dream whose mystic shadesAre cast by still more mystic substances,We ofttimes have an unreflecting sense,A silent consciousness of some things past.--Richard Monckton Milnes.

As in the world of dream whose mystic shades

Are cast by still more mystic substances,

We ofttimes have an unreflecting sense,

A silent consciousness of some things past.

--Richard Monckton Milnes.

I remember that Tom impressed me as an extremely handsome man, as he faced me across the dinner-table and smilingly congratulated me on my appearance.

"You must have had an interesting day, Clare. You look very animated. I am so glad that you are beginning to get around a bit. There's a golden mean, you know. A woman should become a slave to neither society nor the nursery."

I realized that there was an abnormal vivacity in my manner as I added: "Nor to her husband, Tom. Do you accept the amendment?"

"Do you imply that I am inclined to be tyrannical, my dear?" he asked, laughingly. "It's not that, Clare. But I can't help being jealous of you. How's the baby?"

My wine-glass trembled in my hand, and I replaced it on the table, not daring to raise it to my lips. "He grows more interesting every day, Tom," I answered, truthfully. "You don't appreciate him." I wanted to laugh hysterically, but managed to control myself.

"Don't I, though?" cried Tom, protestingly. "He's the finest boy that ever happened, Clare, and I'm the proudest father. But I don't believe in a man's making an ass of himself all over the place because there's a baby in the house. After all, it's hereditary, so to speak, and quite common."

I glanced at the butler, but his wooden face showed no comprehension of the bad taste of Tom's remarks. I was glad of that, for Tom has earned a reputation among all classes for always saying and doing the right thing at the right time. I could not help wondering how he would act if I should tell him over our coffee that my first husband was in the nursery, doomed to another round of earthly experience in the outward seeming of Horatio Minturn.

"Forgive me, Clare," implored Tom, misinterpreting the expression of my face. "I didn't intend to hurt your feelings, my dear. And you mustn't do me an injustice. You have hinted several times of late that I am not as fond of the baby as I should be. Now, I know exactly what you mean, and I--"

"Suppose, Tom, that we defer further discussion of the subject until later on," I suggested, realizing that I was losing rapidly my grip on my nerves. "Tell me about your day. Where have you been? What have you done? Whom have you seen?"

It was not until we were seated in the smoking-room and Tom had lighted a long black cigar that he returned to a topic I had learned to dread. Heretofore, Tom's interest in the baby had seemed to me to be intermittent and never very intense. To-night is struck me as persistent and painfully strong.

"What I was going to say, Clare, when you interrupted me at the table," he recommenced, gazing at me thoughtfully through a nimbus of tobacco smoke, "was this: Theoretically, I am a fond and enthusiastic father; practically, I haven't seen the baby more than a dozen times--and he has always yelled at sight of me."

I laughed aloud, nervously, and Tom's glance had in it much astonishment and a little annoyance.

"It's hardly a subject for merriment, is it?" he queried, coldly. "You accuse me of not appreciating Horatio. May I ask you, my dear, when I have had an opportunity of observing his--ah--good points, so to speak? To be frank with you, Clare, and to paraphrase a popular song, 'all babies look alike to me.'"

"But there are great differences among them, Tom," I cried, impulsively; and again a touch of hysteria got into my voice.

"And ours, of course, is the finest in the world," he remarked, good-naturedly. "But what I was getting at, Clara, is this: I want to become better acquainted with the boy. He's old enough now, isn't he, to begin to--what is it they call it?--take notice?"

"Oh, yes." I managed to answer, without breaking down. If Tom would only change the subject! But how could I lead his mind to other things? Surely, I couldn't tell him flatly that hereafter the baby must be a tabooed topic between us, that there really was not any Horatio, that the law of psychic evolution through repeated reincarnations was making in our nursery a demonstration unprecedented in our knowledge of the race. All that I could do was to sit silent, pressing my cold hands together, and endeavor to prevent Tom from observing my increasing agitation.

"He sits up and takes notice," repeated Tom, as if proud of his old nurse's phrase. "Well, it's about time that Horatio ceased to treat me with that antagonistic uproariousness that has characterized his demeanor hitherto in my presence. I have decided to cultivate his acquaintance, Clare, and I need your help."

"He's--he's very young, Tom," I remarked, catching at a straw as I sank.

"I actually believe that you're jealous of the boy, my dear," cried Tom, laughingly. "Frankly, I'm greatly disappointed at your reception of my suggestion. You're so illogical, Clare! In one breath you charge me with lack of appreciation of the baby, and in the next you intimate that he's too young to endure my society. You place me in a very awkward position. I had honestly thought to please you, but I seem to have made a mess of it."

I was sorry for Tom, and realized that the accusation he had made against me was just. For a moment the mad project flashed through my mind of telling him the whole truth, the weird, absurd, unprecedented fact that lay at the bottom of my apparent inconsistency. But the instant that the thought took shape in unspoken words I rejected it as wildly impracticable. Furthermore, there had come to me, under the matter-of-fact influences surrounding me, a possibility that appealed to me as founded on common sense. Was it not reasonable to suppose that I had been the victim before dinner of overwrought nerves, of an hallucination that could be readily explained by purely scientific methods? I had gone to the nursery worn out by social exertions to which I had not been recently accustomed. Alone with the baby in the twilight, would it have been strange if I had fallen asleep for a moment and had dreamed that the child was talking to me? As I looked back upon the episode at this moment, it appeared to me more like the vagary of a transient doze than an actual occurrence. Even the "Damn!" that had seemed to issue from Horatio's tiny mouth as I had kissed his cheek might have been merely the tag-end of an interrupted nightmare, the reflex action of my disordered nervous system.

"You haven't made a mess of it, Tom," I said, presently, "and you have pleased me. The baby's old enough to--to--"

"To find my companionship bracing and enlightening?" suggested Tom, merrily.

"Yes, he's old enough for that," I answered, lightly, glad to feel the fog of my uncanny impressions disappearing before the sunlight of a rising conviction. With every minute that passed thus gaily in Tom's companionship, the certainty grew on me that in the nursery I had been the prey of nervous exhaustion, not the helpless protagonist of a startling psychic drama.

"I'll tell you what we'll do, Clare," remarked Tom, toward the close of an evening that had grown constantly more enjoyable to me as time passed, for, as I playfully misquoted to myself, Horatio was himself again, "I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll come home to luncheon to-morrow and we'll have the baby down from the nursery. I suppose we're all out of high chairs; but you can telephone for one in the morning, my dear."

"But, Tom, Horatio is--is only eight months old," I protested. "He--he doesn't know how to act at the table."

"Well, I'll teach him, then," cried Tom, paternally. "He needs a few lessons in manners, Clare. He has always treated me with the most astounding rudeness. It's really time for him to come under my influence, don't you think? Of course, I may be wrong. I don't know much about these matters, but I can learn a thing or two by experimenting with Horatio."

"He doesn't like his--" I began, impulsively, and then laughed, rather foolishly. The influence of my dream, it appeared, was still upon me.

"Doesn't like what?" asked Tom, eying me searchingly, evidently surprised at my untimely hilarity.

"Game and salads and other luncheon things," I explained, adroitly, suddenly glad that the evening was at an end and that I could soon quiet my throbbing nerves by sleep.

"We'll have some bread and milk for him," suggested Tom, hospitably. "Maybe he won't yell at me if we give him something to eat--something in his line, you know."

Again I succumbed to temptation and laughed aloud. "How little you know about babies, Tom," I remarked, in my most superior way; but even as I spoke the horrible suspicion crept over me again that I, also, might have much to learn about my own little boy.

CHAPTER III.

MY FIRST AND SECOND.

Sometimes a breath floats by me,An odor from Dreamland sent,Which makes the ghost seem nigh meOf a something that came and went.--James Russell Lowell.

Sometimes a breath floats by me,

An odor from Dreamland sent,

Which makes the ghost seem nigh me

Of a something that came and went.--James Russell Lowell.

Of a something that came and went.

--James Russell Lowell.

I lunched with Tom and Jack the next day. It was an appalling function, driving me to the very verge of hysteria and destroying forever my belief in my dream theory. My first husband sat in his new high chair, pounding the table with a spoon, as if calling the meeting to order, while my second husband sat gazing at the baby with a fatuous smile on his handsome face that testified to his inability to rise to the situation. Behind the baby's chair stood his nurse, evidently prepared to defend her prerogatives as the protector of the child's health. Lurking in the background was the phlegmatic butler, no better pleased than the nurse at this experiment of Tom's.

"That's it! Go it, Horatio!" cried Tom, nervously. "Hit the table again, my boy. That's what it's for."

"I thought that your idea, Tom, was to teach Horatio how to behave in public," I suggested, playfully, still calm in the belief that I had been deceived in the nursery by a dream.

"But as you said, Clare," argued Tom, "he's very young. It's really not bad form, you know, for a baby to pound a table with a spoon. Is it, nurse?"

"I think not, sir," answered the nurse, pushing the high chair back to its place. The baby had kicked it away from the table while Tom was speaking.

"Isn't he--isn't he rather--ah--nervous, my dear?" asked Tom, glancing at me with paternal solicitude. "It's quite normal, this--ah--tendency to bang things--and kick?"

"Perhaps he's hungry, Tom," I suggested, lightly. My spirits were rising. In the presence of the baby, whose appearance and manner were those of a healthy child something under a year in age, the absurdity of my recent incipient nightmare was so evident that I blushed at the recollection of my nonsensical panic. Reincarnation? Bah! what silly rubbish we do get from the far East!

"Of course he's hungry," assented Tom, glancing down at a bird the butler had put before him. "With your permission, nurse, I'll give the youngster a square meal. How would a bit of the breast from this partridge do? It's very tender and digestible--"

"How absurd, Tom!" I cried. "He'd choke!"

"He's choking as it is!" exclaimed Tom, half rising from his chair. "Pat him on the back, nurse!"

"He's all right, sir," said the nurse, calmly as Horatio's cheeks lost their sudden flush and he opened his pretty little eyes again. "You needn't worry, Mr. Minturn. He's in perfect health, sir."

"Aren't they queer?" exclaimed Tom, glancing at me, laughingly.

"Sir?" cried the nurse in pained amazement.

"I meant babies, nurse," explained Tom, soothingly, motioning to the disaffected butler to refill his wine-glass. "But look here, Clare; you and I are eating and drinking heartily, but poor little Horatio is still the hungry victim of a dietary debate. What is he to have?--milk?"

The baby leaned forward in his chair, seized his empty silver bowl with a chubby hand, and hurled it to the floor.

"Horatio!" Tom's voice was stern as he scowled at the mischievous youngster. I could not refrain from laughing aloud.

"Is that bad form, Tom, for a little baby?" I asked, mischievously.

"No," answered Tom, repentantly. "I don't blame you at all, Horatio. Your prejudice, my boy, against an empty bowl when you are both hungry and thirsty is not unnatural. Give him some bread and milk, nurse, or he'll overturn the table. What a wonderful study it is, Clare, to watch a baby develop! Do you know, Horatio is actually able to grasp a syllogism!"

"Or a milk-bowl," I added.

"Don't interrupt my scientific train of thought," protested Tom, gazing musingly at the child. "I saw his mind at work just now. 'I'm hungry,' thought Horatio. 'There's my silver bowl. The bowl is empty. There are bread and milk in the house. If I throw the empty bowl to the floor, my nurse will return it to me filled with food. So here goes! Q.E.D.' Clever baby, isn't he?"

It was at that moment I met the baby's eyes, and a sharp chill ran down my back and found its way to my finger-tips. There was an expression in the child's troubled gaze so eloquent that its meaning flashed upon me at once. If the baby had cried aloud, "What an amazing fool that man is!" I could not have been more sure than I was of the thought that had passed through his infantile mind.

"What's the matter, Clare?" I heard Tom asking me, apprehensively. "Do you feel faint?"

"Not at all," I hastened to say, turning my eyes from my first to my second husband. The former was eating bread and milk--reluctantly, it seemed to me--from a spoon manipulated by his nurse. That it was really Jack who was sitting there in a high chair, doomed to swallow baby food while he craved partridge and Burgundy was a conviction that had come to me for a fleeting moment, to be followed by a return to conventional common sense and a renewed satisfaction in my environment. Tom sat opposite me, smiling contentedly, while between us, at a side of the table, the baby perfunctorily absorbed a simple but nutritious diet, deftly presented to his tiny mouth by his attentive nurse. It was a charming scene of domestic bliss at that moment, and I realized clearly how much I had to lose by giving way, even intermittently, to the wretched hallucinations that my overwrought nerves begot.

"Just look at him, Clare!" exclaimed Tom, presently. "I tell you it's an interesting study. It's elevating and enlightening, my dear. To an evolutionist there's a world of meaning in that baby's enthusiasm for bread and milk. Here he sits at the table covered with gastronomic luxuries and actually rejoices in the simplest kind of food. You see, Clare, how well the difference between Horatio and myself in regard to diet illustrates Spencer's definition of evolution as a continuous change from indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to definite, coherent heterogeneity through successive differentiations and integrations. Great Scott, nurse! What's the matter with him? He's choking again!"

"It's nothing, sir," remarked the nurse, quietly, as the baby recovered from a fit of coughing and resumed his meal. "But, if you'll pardon the remark, sir, I think that he's much better off in the nursery."

It was not a tactful suggestion, and I knew that Tom felt hurt; but he maintained his self-control and made no further comment, merely glancing at me with a smile in his eyes. I realized, with a vague uneasiness, that open and active hostilities between baby's nurse and Tom were among the possibilities of the near future, and it was not a pleasing thought.

"What does he top off with?" asked Tom, presently, grinning at Horatio, who had emptied his bowl and had stuck a fist into his rosebud mouth, as if still hungry. "Have you got an ice for him, James?"

The butler stood motionless, gazing fixedly at the nurse.

"What queer ideas you have, Tom!" I cried, to break the strain of an uncomfortable situation. "An ice would give him an awful pain."

"Perhaps he'd like a Welsh rabbit, then?" growled Tom, crossly.

The baby seized a spoon and rapped gleefully on the table.

"Isn't he cunning!" I cried, delightedly. "He's happy now, isn't he? I am inclined to think, Tom, that he'd rather have a nap than a rabbit."

"Not on your life!" came a deep, gruff voice from nowhere in particular. I looked at Tom in amazement, thinking that he had playfully disguised his tones and was poking fun at me and the baby. But Tom's expression of wonderment was as genuine as my own, while the nurse was gazing over her shoulder at the butler, who was eying us all in a bewildered way. Tom glanced at the nurse.

"Leave the room, James," he said hotly. "I'll see you later in the smoking-room." Then, to the nurse: "Remove the baby, will you, please? Thank you for letting us have him for an hour."

As soon as we were alone in the dining-room, Tom leaned toward me and said: "Shall I discharge James, my dear? He was most infernally impudent, to put it mildly."

But the frightful certainty had come to me that the butler was innocent of any wrong-doing. Absurd as the bald statement of fact seemed to be, my first husband was the guilty man, and, struggle as I might against the conviction, I knew it.

"Give him another chance, Tom." I managed to say, my voice unsteady and my tongue parched. "James was not quite himself, I imagine. I'm not well, Tom. Give me a swallow of cognac, will you, please?"

Tom, alarmed at my voice and face, hastily handed me a stimulant, and presently I felt my courage and my color coming back to me.

CHAPTER IV.

NURSERY CONFESSIONS.

The priceless sightSprings to its curious organ, and the earLearns strangely to detect the articulate airIn its unseen divisions, and the tongueGets its miraculous lesson with the rest.--N. P. Willis.

The priceless sight

Springs to its curious organ, and the ear

Learns strangely to detect the articulate air

In its unseen divisions, and the tongue

Gets its miraculous lesson with the rest.

--N. P. Willis.

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