"This is very strange, I cannot for the moment understand it," said Delapine. "Whoever would have thought that the coffee would have had such an effect?" Then after a minute of deep reflection he turned to Villebois—"Doctor, would you mind getting me a fresh cup of coffee, this result is so extraordinary that I must repeat the experiment."
So saying, Delapine calmly took the cup from Riche, and poured the remaining contents into an empty bottle, corked it, and then calmly put it in his pocket.
It was all done so quietly and naturally that Duval, although beside himself with suppressed rage, dared not put out a hand to prevent it, fearing to awaken the suspicions of the others.
Villebois, impressed with the calmness and with the queer look of determination and severity in Delapine's eyes, ran back to the summer-house, and brought a fresh cup of coffee.
"Thank you so much: it is always better to repeat an experiment, especially when the result is so unexpected," said Delapine as he poured a few drops of the fresh coffee on another sun-dew plant. "How odd," he muttered, his grey eyes lighting up with a peculiar smile of surprise, mingled with severity.
"It is very strange," he continued, "in this case nothing whatever has happened—the tentacles have not even moved."
"But look at this plant here," said Riche, pointing to the Drosera on which a drop of Delapine's coffee had been poured.
"Why, bless my soul, it is dead."
"This is very interesting," said Delapine, "I must take some of the coffee out of my first cup to a friend of mine, a very clever analyst—and find out what he thinks of it.This is just the kind of delicate experiment that delights my friend Paul Romaine."
At the sound of this name uttered so calmly and apparently so casually, Pierre Duval—already alarmed at the turn which events were taking—became deathly pale, and felt that he could not restrain himself a moment longer, nor prevent his growing agitation from betraying him. With a supreme effort, however, he pulled himself together, and it was almost with his usual every-day sang-froid that he quietly excused himself owing to a legal appointment, and hurriedly went back to the house.
"Well," said Riche as the three slowly retraced their steps towards the summer-house, "there's no doubt about it but your experiment in botany was something out of the common, and besides, it seemed to me that there was something in it which so far I cannot fathom, but it has not allowed me to forget your promise to give us an exhibition of your wonderful powers of thought-reading. When are you going to keep that promise?"
"My dear doctor," replied Delapine with a peculiar smile, half sad, half severe, "I have just now done so. Are you not satisfied?"
Riche and Villebois looked at each other for a moment, and then at Delapine as if seeking an explanation.
Then a sudden thought flashed across Riche's mind, but he said nothing.
CHAPTER IX
CÉLESTE TRIES TO FATHOM RENÉE'S SECRET
Earlyin the evening as Céleste was going upstairs to dress for dinner—a proceeding which entailed a very great expenditure of both thought and time on the part of this particular young lady—she encountered her adopted sister, Renée, on the landing.
"Oh, Renée, ma chérie," she called out, "whatever is the matter with you? I went to your room yesterday afternoon, and found you moaning and sobbing, and you were so cross with me, and asked to be left alone just because you had a headache. I know there was some other reason, now wasn't there?"
"It was quite true, I did feel upset, and really, dear, my head was aching terribly."
"Oh, but, Renée dear, you ought to tell me, your little sister; you know that I can keep a secret. I am sure that you had something horrid on your mind, because as soon as I had gone you rose and locked the door; you cannot deny it, can you?"
"Well, if I did, it was to prevent anyone from disturbing me."
"No, Renée, that won't do. People with headaches do not bury their faces in their hands and cry their eyes out, as you were doing. You have some trouble," she continued, "and I want to help you to bear it, may I? Won't you, let me?"
"Céleste, you are just a darling. If you will promise me faithfully not to let a living soul know, I will tell you my secret."
"Of course I won't, you know I always tell the truth.I never tell lies—except sometimes to mamma," she added after a pause.
"Well then, Céleste dear, Henri—I mean, Professor Delapine—has asked me to be his wife, you cannot think how happy I am," and while she spoke, a look of joy came over her face.
"Oh, Renée, I am so glad," cried Céleste, clapping her hands and throwing her arms around her sister's neck, while half sobbing and half laughing she breathlessly whispered, "I have often wondered if that would happen, I know that you two are exactly suited to each other, and Renée—he is such a clever darling. Oh, I am so delighted to hear it."
"Don't I know that he is as you say 'such a darling,'" said Renée smiling. "I have loved him from the very first moment that I met him, without being aware of it, if you can understand my meaning."
"Oh, Renée, you are so good, you deserve to be rewarded with every happiness."
"Thank you so much, Céleste, and look here, dear, when we are married you must come and stay weeks and weeks with us, won't you?"
"That would be just too lovely altogether. But you have not told me why you locked the door, and why you were sobbing and crying. Was it for joy?"
"No, dear, not for joy, but for grief," answered Renée.
"For grief! Whatever do you mean?" and as she spoke, Céleste's eyes fairly stood out with astonishment. "You are talking in riddles. What do you mean? surely you are not sorry that you accepted him?"
"Oh, you dear little goose, of course not, it was only to-day that Henri and I confessed our love for each other. You have not seen me crying to-day, have you?"
"No, certainly not, but I want to know all about yesterday's trouble."
"What an inquisitive little girl it is," said Renée smiling.
"Do please tell me," pleaded Céleste, "I am dying to find out, and you know how faithfully I can keep a secret."
Céleste's curiosity amounted almost to a mania, and this fencing on the part of Renée made the young girl fairly boil over with eagerness to probe what seemed to her some dreadful mystery.
"So can I keep a secret," replied Renée, half sadly. "But please, chérie, do not ask me any more questions. I dare not tell. And, Céleste dearie, please, please, promise me that you will not tell anybody about my engagement. You cannot understand what terrible harm it might do me if it were known. It must be kept a dead secret at present, you do not know how much I have suffered, and how frightened I am sometimes of my life and Henri's. Oh dear, oh dear, it is really too dreadful," and she threw her arms around Céleste and sobbed again.
"Renée, ma mie, it is terrible to see you like this, what can the mystery be? I must know," and in her excitement she seized her sister's hands, and pulled the girl to her and shook her.
"No, Céleste dearest," sobbed Renée, "help me with your love and sympathy to bear it, but do not ask me any more. Hush, I hear someone coming, remember not a word to anyone," and she rushed off into her own room.
"H'm," muttered Céleste to herself as she heard Renée locking the door of her room, "there's a heap of trouble brewing somewhere in all this. The mystery seems to become more and more obscure. I shall die if I don't get to the bottom of it, I know I shall. Where can I find out all about it? Let me think. There's mamma, but she's too stupid to have noticed anything. Then there's papa, but he's far too secretive and cautious, he's of no use, he will only joke with me and turn the question; that is unless I humour him properly. That is the only way to deal with him. I certainly might get it out of him by kissing him and playing on his vanity. It is worth trying, anyhow. Then there's Delapine himself. He, of course, is sure to know. But then I am rather frightened of him, I confess. He stands on his dignity a little too much for my purpose. Let me see, now what about Marcel? He is more my style, but he has not taken much notice of me.When he is not planning some new creation in waistcoats, or neckties, or composing a poem, he is trying to say something witty. I suppose the things he says are really clever, although I don't understand a word of them. No, I can't very well confide in him."
Then, as she still meditated, a soft unconscious colour flooded her face, and her voice took on a more tender tone as she continued, "Yes, he will help me. I know he will. Alphonse Riche is a real, true friend. He's more, he's what Renée called her Henri—just a darling—and besides I think he is a little bit fond of me, just a little. Yes, I will make him my confidant." And she clapped her hands, danced round the landing, and actually whistled, which worthy Madame Villebois would have considered a most incomprehensible, if not highly indelicate proceeding on the part of a young lady of nineteen.
On entering her room she stood before the long cheval mirror of the wardrobe, and surveyed herself a little more carefully than usual, then turning away as if half-ashamed of the growing admiration for her own slender but beautifully-curved figure, she murmured pensively,
"Yes, evidently the first thing to do is to make one-self look as charming as possible," and acting on the impulse, she ran across the room and rang for her maid.
In answer to her summons, the door opened and Mimi appeared.
"Mademoiselle requires that I dress her?"
"Yes, Mimi, pick out my most becoming frock as I want to look my very best this evening."
"Would mademoiselle like the blue trimmed with black velvet? Or perhaps the lovely pink gown that Madame Louise said fitted you à merveille?"
"Wait, let me think a moment. Yes, I remember now, Dr. Riche said that his favourite flower was the rose,"—this softly to herself—"Yes, Mimi, let me have the pink by all means; and oh, Mimi, do you think you could get me some dark red roses to match it?"
A few minutes later Mimi returned bearing some freshly cut damask roses.
"Oh, how lovely they are," cried Céleste, "I am sure the doctor cannot refuse to tell me anything I like to askhim when he sees me in this dress. Now, Mimi, a few drops of Parma Violet—so, that will do."
At the foot of the stair-case, just as she was about to enter the drawing-room, she caught sight of Dr. Riche.
"Ah, Mademoiselle Céleste, how charming you look—just like my favourite flower, a budding rose."
Céleste blushed almost as red as the roses she was wearing, and shyly tripping up to him whispered something in his ear.
"Certainly, my dear mademoiselle. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than a little chat tête-a-tête. Let us sit cosily at the shady end of the verandah where we can talk at our ease without fear of interruption."
As soon as they were comfortably seated Céleste's impatience and curiosity could no longer be restrained.
"Oh, doctor," she began impatiently, "I do so want you to find out for me whatever is the matter with Renée. She was weeping her heart out yesterday, and when I asked her what was the matter she put me off with some lame excuse about a headache, and then the moment that I left her she jumped up from her bed and locked the door. Of course she may have had a real headache, but people don't go into violent fits of weeping on that account, do they?"—and Céleste looked very wise (and very, very sweet, as Riche thought) while putting her question.
"Perhaps we might be able to look for some other cause," began Riche, when his companion broke in—
"I cannot help thinking that young Duval is mixed up in it, but then again what has it to do with Renée?"
Riche tapped the arm of the long verandah chair in which he was reclining, and remained in deep thought for a moment.
"Yes, I have it. Do you remember pinning the orchid in my button-hole to-day?" he asked at length.
"You know very well I do," replied Céleste, blushing in spite of herself.
"Did you notice anything peculiar about Pierre Duval's manner?"
"Let me see," said Céleste, trying to recall the events of the morning. "Yes, I remember seeing him put something in a cup of coffee, I think it was sugar or cream, butI was too excited over the race to notice exactly what it was he did."
"Was he finishing his coffee, or what?" asked Riche, watching her face carefully.
"No, it was not that. I am certain that he was not drinking it, as he certainly did not raise the cup to his lips."
"Are you perfectly sure of that?"
"Certain," said Céleste convincingly, "I told you that I was not observing him very carefully, but I feel sure I should have noticed if he had been drinking it, because he stood right in front of me at the other end of the lawn."
"Oh! Oh!" said Riche, "Please stay here, mademoiselle, I will be back in a few minutes. In the meantime please do not breathe a word of our conversation to anyone."
"Is it so serious then?" asked Céleste.
"I can't say yet, but please do as I ask you."
Riche looked very grave, and without another word to his companion walked slowly away into the house, with his hands clasped behind his back.
Meeting one of the servants, Riche enquired if he could tell him where his master was to be found.
"Yes, sir, he has just gone into the library."
"Ah, here you are, Villebois. I have been looking for you in order to have a little serious talk before dinner."
"Certainly, my dear fellow, but why the word 'serious'?"
"Well, as a matter of fact," said Riche gravely, "there are several mysterious things happening here, and I thought that a talk about them between us alone might help to clear them up."
"For example?"
"In the first place something has happened to Renée."
"What, something happened to Renée?" ejaculated Villebois.
"No, no, there is no need for anxiety. I do not mean there is anything physically the matter. But Céleste has been confiding in me, and has told me that she found Renée weeping violently, and when Céleste asked the cause of such intense grief, it seems that Renée refused to give any explanation or even reply, and immediately locked herself in her room."
"Oh, you are referring to her not coming down to dinner?"
"Yes, I cannot imagine what is the reason for it all, but there is more besides. Young Duval's conduct has been so peculiar. Of course I have no right to criticise your guest, but I am rather uneasy in my mind. It seems to me that there is some mystery or some plot on foot. I have no proof of anything definite, but I confess that I do not like the present state of affairs."
"Tut, tut, my dear Riche, something has evidently upset your digestion. All you want is a good dinner, and then you will regard the world through less jaundiced spectacles. I saw Renée myself about an hour ago, and she was as happy as possible."
"My dear Villebois," replied Riche, "we are both clear-headed professional men, and we know that when the thermometer rises to 40 C. our patient is in danger, and so we at once set to work to discover the seat of the mischief."
"Quite so, my dear Riche."
"Now, please, just come along with me and have a talk with your daughter."
So saying, Riche placed his arm in that of his friend, and together they strolled out on to the verandah where they found Céleste patiently waiting for the return of Riche.
"Oh, papa, I am so glad that you are here, come and sit down and do tell me what has come over Renée."
"My dear child, there is nothing the matter with your sister that I know of," said Villebois with surprise. "Why do you ask?"
"Now, papa, there is something wrong with her. She was crying all yesterday afternoon, and refused to give me any reason for it. Is it possible that her father or young Pierre could have said anything to her?"
"My dear little girl, why do you worry your pretty head over such things? Renée is as happy as she can be."
"She may be now, papa; but she certainly was not so yesterday."
"Do not trouble yourself about what happened yesterday. Sufficient for the day is the—you know—headache thereof, as our friend Marcel would say."
"Oh, papa, it is nothing to joke about and make fun of" replied Céleste pouting.
"I am not joking, my child, I assure you I have not been so deadly serious since my last evening at one of the English comic theatres. Now, Riche, I have something important to write, so I will leave this child in your care till dinner; just see that she gets some of those silly ideas about Renée out of her head."
So saying he leaned over and gently kissed his daughter on the forehead, and smilingly excusing himself, walked off to the library. As soon as her father had left, Céleste feeling that she had been treated as if she were still a child, turned to her companion.
"Now, Dr. Riche, you can see for yourself that papa will not tell me anything, and is only trifling with me. I want your confidence. I am sure that there is some trouble brewing for Renée. Is not that your opinion?"
"I must confess that it is, mademoiselle, now that you ask me in confidence, but I have no evidence, nothing definite to go on."
"But what can have upset Renée so much as to make her cry like that?"
"What time was it when you found her crying?" asked Riche.
"About half-past five in the afternoon."
"Do you know if anyone called to see her before that hour?"
"Yes, her father called. I remember her maid saying that M. Payot had been to see her and had stayed quite a long time."
"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Riche as a sudden thought flashed through his mind. "Now we are getting at facts. I wonder whether Renée's strange conduct had anything to do with his coming? But no, I confess that for the moment I cannot see any connection. Still, who knows?"
"Oh, please, doctor, do keep an eye on Pierre. I do not really know why I ask this, but I feel sure that he means mischief."
"I can't help thinking that you may be right after all. Let us be allies in ferreting out this mystery. Will youhelp me, Mademoiselle Céleste? Only mind, you must be very discreet."
"Can I depend on you?" asked Céleste, looking up eagerly into his face.
"Like my own soul, mademoiselle," answered Riche solemnly. "We will both keep a watch on Pierre Duval, and on M. Payot as well."
"Oh, thank you, thank you ever so much. It will be just lovely if we can work together. I will do everything you ask me."
After this compact Céleste felt more at ease than she had done for some time previously, for she knew that Riche was a strong man who went to work and did everything calmly, and would not allow himself to be hurried or put out in the least, and that he would carry out religiously whatever he undertook.
The doctor smiled at her impetuosity, and kissing her hand put his fingers to his lips with a wink.
"Allies and silence," said Riche.
"That is agreed," replied Céleste as she walked quietly away towards the drawing-room to join the others.
Céleste now felt herself in the seventh heaven of delight at the thought that she had become a joint partner with so great a man as Dr. Riche, and she accordingly felt herself bursting with pride and importance.
After his companion had left him, Riche remained thoughtful for a moment or two, and then slowly walked to the drawing-room.
"I am quite looking forward to the treat Delapine is going to give us this evening," said Villebois to Riche as the latter joined the group.
"Ah, I am very sorry, mon cher Villebois, to be compelled to disappoint you, but I shall have to postpone the séance until another occasion," said Delapine.
"Oh, professor, what a pity. We shall all be so disappointed, as we were looking forward to the treat. But why have you changed your mind at the last moment?"
"I assure you, mon cher docteur, I am as anxious as anyone to please the guests, but it is impossible for me to succeed unless all the members of the circle are in complete harmony with each other. If you turn to the Acts of theApostles you will read that when the disciples were met together in an upper room to witness certain spiritualistic phenomena, that the narrator was careful to mention that they were all of one accord. This was the essential condition for the success of all the wonderful phenomena which followed. Spiritualism is governed by precisely the same laws now as obtained in those days. Do you remember the passage I have just quoted?"
"Perfectly," answered Riche, who in reality knew as much about the Acts of the Apostles as he did about Chinese. "I am quite as disappointed as Villebois that our séance has to be postponed."
At this moment a servant entered the room and handed a note on a silver tray to Villebois.
"Excuse me a moment, professor, while I read this."
"I am pleased to say," interrupted Delapine, as Villebois took the letter off the tray, "that I have changed my mind. The obstruction is now removed, and our séance will be conducted in perfect harmony."
"What has made you change your mind so quickly?" said Villebois.
"The note you have in your hand, of course."
"But I have not opened it yet."
"That is immaterial. Let me read it to you before you open it," said Delapine smiling:—
"Mon cher Docteur,"Pray give my best compliments to Madame, and apologise for me, as I just recollect I have a very important meeting to attend to in town, which had quite escaped my memory. If I can possibly return later in the evening, it will afford me infinite pleasure to join your circle, but pray do not wait for me."Accept, my dear doctor, the expressions of my most sincere friendship."Toujours à vous,"PIERRE."
"Mon cher Docteur,
"Pray give my best compliments to Madame, and apologise for me, as I just recollect I have a very important meeting to attend to in town, which had quite escaped my memory. If I can possibly return later in the evening, it will afford me infinite pleasure to join your circle, but pray do not wait for me.
"Accept, my dear doctor, the expressions of my most sincere friendship.
"Toujours à vous,"PIERRE."
"It is word for word correct," said Villebois as he handed the note to Riche after reading it.
"Professor, you are a wonder, but how in the name of all that is marvellous did you manage to read it? Do you seewith Röntgen Rays?" they both exclaimed almost in the same breath.
"It is quite simple. My mind's eye penetrates every kind of substance where neither light nor "X" rays can find an entrance. But you will agree with me that a thing ceases to be wonderful the moment one learns how it is done."
"But tell us how you manage to do it," they both exclaimed.
"It is a power which is only vouchsafed to a few," replied Delapine. "I cannot explain it to you, and if I were able to do so perhaps you would be none the wiser. Some day one or other of you may receive the power."
"How do you do, Payot?" said Villebois, as the former gentleman entered the room and joined the group.
"Eh, what was that I heard about a letter that the professor managed to read without seeing it?" said Payot in a tone of command, as if he were questioning a prisoner at a court martial.
"It was merely a note from your comrade's son, Pierre, regretting that he has been suddenly called away on urgent business," and Villebois showed him the letter.
"Urgent business! urgent fiddlesticks I should say. And what, pray, is the nature of this urgent business that calls him away at this time of day I should like to know?"
As no one ventured to supply that information, the financier cleared his throat and replied for the doctor.
"These young men are beginning to assume airs that their fathers would never dream of doing. They have lost all sense of discipline, sir. If I had written a letter like that to my chief when I was a lieutenant in the army I should have been put in the cells—put in the cells, sir; do you hear me?—for fourteen days on bread and water, and by God, sir, I should have deserved it. I must see Pierre, and look into this matter. By the way, Villebois, how is the General getting on?"
"Oh, quite as well as can be expected. I sewed the ends of the nerve together some days ago, and he is already out of bed. He should be able to go out soon."
CHAPTER X
DELAPINE INTERRUPTS A FIGHT
MadameVillebois had been brought up in a small country town, and as her parents had always lacked both the energy and the desire to travel a yard beyond Paris or Berck-sur-Mer, these were the only places outside her home that she had ever visited in her life. Of the rest of France she knew practically nothing, and as for England she only had an idea that it was a country of fogs and shopkeepers, where it was perpetually raining.
Her parents were profoundly ignorant of everything outside their own home-circle, and considered they had carried out their duty to the full by confiding the education of their only child after she left the convent to the tender mercies of the parish priest. This worthy gentleman had a sort of moral Index Purgatorius by which he regulated the conduct and instruction of all the children committed to his care, and, like Pope Paul IV., he not only forbade any thought or action which was forbidden in his index, but even prohibited everything that was not entered there-in as permissible. The result of this training was that Madame Villebois up to the end of her days considered everything absolutely wicked which had not been expressly sanctioned by her ghostly confessor. Still, with all her short-comings, she had a fair share of every-day common-sense, and her knowledge of dress and of cookery went a long way to make up for her dearth of mental qualifications. Dinner at the house of the Villebois was always a function of vast importance in the eyes of madame. The cuisine and wines were certainly above criticism, consequently an invitation to dine "chez les Villebois" was greatly prizedby their large circle of friends, and the well-known bonhommie of the good-natured doctor made him an ideal host.
As for madame herself, that worthy dame was absolutely certain that her husband's extensive practice was entirely due to her own smart attire and her unflagging devotion to the culinary art, and from early morn till the afternoon, madame spent the most of her time between bargaining with the tradesmen over the details of purchases for the larder, and superintending the important culinary operations in the kitchen itself.
"A good cook," she used to say, "makes a good wife," and she was firmly convinced that the seat of her husband's affections was located somewhere in that portly and rotund region of his anatomy which was discreetly covered by the lower part of his waistcoat.
"Man is merely a civilised animal," she would remark to certain of her intimate female friends, "and if you feed the creature well, you can do almost anything with him."
As the guests took their places at the table, the sharp eyes of the hostess noticed a vacant seat—
"François," she asked, turning to the butler standing behind her, "who was that chair placed for?"
"Monsieur Pierre Duval, madame."
"Compose yourself, ma mie," said Villebois, "our learned friend left a note of apology stating that he had to return to his office, but that we might possibly see him later."
Doctor Riche gave an almost imperceptible glance at Céleste, who at once caught his eye and nodded significantly.
"If Pierre only knew what he is missing," said Riche, tasting the turtle soup, "no amount of business would prevent him from being at this dinner, eh, Marcel?"
"Oh, don't interrupt me, I beg of you, doctor, I have just swallowed a lovely piece of fat without tasting its flavour."
"Marcel, you are incorrigible, you ought to be made to stand up and say fifty paternosters before each meal. By the way, Delapine, we are very anxious for you to tellus your opinion on some of the fundamental points relating to spiritualism."
"Don't you answer him, professor," said Marcel, with his mouth half full of caviar sandwich. "Just try my recipe for eating caviar. It is positively entrancing, and consists of spreading it between this slice of brown bread and butter (it must be brown), with a trace of cayenne pepper and a few drops of vinegar, and then laying it on a rich green carpet of mustard and cress. By Jove, it is food for the gods. I consider a man who discovers a new dish renders a far greater service to mankind than one who discovers a new planet. We have planets enough already, but we can never have good dishes enough. If I were sufficiently rich I should select all my servants from chefs of renown. My valets, pages, butler, coachman, courier, and footman should all be cooks of the highest reputation, and each should be a specialist in some particular dish or entrée. For example, I should be undressed by an expert in curries, bathed by my connoisseur of wines, put to bed by a specialist in soups, and waited on by a man who had won eternal fame by his profound knowledge of Riz de veau à la Financière."
"What does that mean?" asked Céleste.
"A smile of a calf to the banker's wife, mademoiselle," replied Marcel, helping himself to some blue trout with sauce Madeire.
Renée looked up and smiled at Delapine who slipped his hand into hers under the table-cloth. She felt indescribably happy, but a glance at her father, who was looking directly at her, brought her eyes down, and her heart thumped violently as she let go her lover's hand. Had Payot seen her smile? She dared not look at Delapine again, much as she wanted to, and although a moment earlier she had been so happy, she now felt crushed like a wounded bird. "Oh, this cruel, cruel world," she said to herself, "why cannot they leave people alone to enjoy themselves?" And her appetite seemed to leave her all in a moment.
"Please do not pay any attention to me, or even notice me," she said sotto voce to Delapine. "I am so afraid you will betray our secret."
Delapine listened quietly while gazing vacantly at a stream bordered by very fuzzy willow trees in the Corot which was hanging on the wall opposite, and made some irrelevant remark to his right-hand neighbour (who happened to be Madame Villebois) about the way in which pigs are trained to dig up truffles. "Large iron rings are inserted through their noses," he said, "so that when the pigs dig up the truffles the rings prevent their eating them, and so the keeper is able to rescue the dainty morsels, and toss them into his basket."
"But is the poor pig never allowed to have any of them?" she enquired. "One would think he would soon get disheartened at this treatment, and refuse to dig any more. I know I should if I were a pig."
"That you certainly never will be," he answered gallantly. "But I assure you, madame, that piggy is allowed to have all the broken and spoilt tubers as his reward as soon as the task is finished."
"Well, I am very glad for piggy's sake that it is so," interposed Céleste. "It would be very unfair to let him be good for nothing," and she suddenly laughed at the little joke which she had unconsciously uttered.
"Have you been to see 'Les Fiançailles Forcées' which has just been put on at the Vaudeville?" said Riche to Payot.
"No, I confess I have not. What is the plot?"
"Oh, it is quite an amusing play. There is a man named Boucher who has a son, and another fellow named Vauban who possesses a charming daughter. Well, Boucher promises to give Vauban a very valuable railway concession if the latter will persuade his daughter to marry the other fellow's son. Of course the daughter is secretly in love with another chap, and when Vauban tries to persuade his daughter to marry young Boucher, there is a tremendous row. Oh, I forgot to add that Vauban is very wealthy, and of course his money is the chief attraction in Boucher's eyes, and the way these two old boys haggle over the amount of coin that is to change hands when the marriage comes off is a caution, I can tell you."
"Stop, father. Father, what are you doing? Oh, Henri, stop him," cried Renée. But Payot, blind to all reason and remonstrance, rushed again at the young man.
Payot's eyes flashed at the speaker with an angry look, as he poured out a large glass of champagne cup and drank it off with a shaky hand at a gulp.
"How stupid these plays are becoming," he said, trying to hide his embarrassment and fear lest the doctor should read what was passing through his mind. "I wonder how people can listen to such nonsense. Such plots can only happen in the morbid imagination of the playwright."
Payot was visibly working himself up into a terrible state of excitement, and in order to steady his nerves tossed off one glass of wine after another.
"I cannot altogether agree with you, sir," said Marcel. "I went to the play on the first night, and I thought it 'ripping.' The whole plot was so well carried out and so natural that I felt it must have been copied from real life."
Payot frowned at the speaker for daring to differ from him, while Céleste and Riche simultaneously looked at each other and smiled significantly.
The financier caught the glance and began working himself into a rage. At first he tried to turn the conversation, and muttered something incoherently, much to the amusement of Marcel who was watching him.
"The best of the joke was," continued Marcel, with a wink, "that young Mademoiselle Vauban's lover naturally objected to being discarded for another man, and endeavoured to stop the marriage by hook or by crook. Both father and son on their side try to get rid of Mademoiselle's lover, but reckon without their host, and find it a more difficult job than they imagine to get this lover out of the way."
This was too much for Payot; what with the wine getting into his head, and the extraordinary resemblance between Marcel's account of the plot and his own dastardly schemes, the financier, feeling his crime being brought home to him, lost all control of himself.
"Damn you!" he yelled, "how dare you insult me in this way," and upsetting his chair in his rage he clenched his fist, and rushing at Marcel aimed a tremendous blow at his face. Marcel, although by no means as powerful as his adversary, was as agile as a tiger-cat, and easily parried the blow.
"You villain," he cried, "this is a dastardly plot between you, the professor and Villebois to ruin me. Je suis un vieux, but I will show you I have not forgotten how to fight," and seizing Marcel by the throat he attempted to strangle him.
Madame Villebois screamed and fainted, and Céleste went to her assistance.
"Stop, father, stop, you'll kill him," cried Renée wringing her hand in terror, but Payot lent a deaf ear to her entreaties.
Meanwhile Marcel slipped on the polished floor, and the two combatants rolled over on the ground, locked together in a tight embrace. Marcel, with a sudden twist, managed to disentangle himself, and by means of a half-turn, rolled over, and springing up, stepped back flushed and panting, with his collar torn half off. Almost at the same instant Payot got up and made a rush at Marcel who stood on his guard. The financier lunged at him with his left, but the poet ducked under his right arm like a bantam cock, and caught Payot one on the right ear. Before he could recover Marcel was at him again. His blows were feeble compared with Payot's tremendous slogging ones. The latter rushed at him again, but Marcel danced and dodged and ducked, delivering a rain of small but effective blows, like a stream of shots from a three-inch quick-firer replying to the ponderous twelve-inch gun of a dreadnought. Payot drove him against the wall, and seized him by the throat with a deadly grip, which caused Marcel to turn livid, and he struggled to unclasp the financier's hold of his throat.
All this happened so quickly, and the guests were so petrified with amazement, that they had had barely time to interfere.
Payot was about to give Marcel the coup de grace, but Delapine was too quick for him. Stepping up he made a pass with his hand in front of Payot's face, and hypnotised him with a long steady gaze in his eyes. "Sleep," he said in a calm and penetrating voice. "Sleep on and banish all recollection of this deed from your mind for ever. Henceforth be friends with Marcel, control your temper, and devote yourself to your daughter whom you have so long neglected."
Immediately Payot dropped down as if he had been struck by lightning. When the other gentlemen bent over him, as they did an instant later, they found him fast asleep and snoring loudly.
"You may shake him as much as you please, gentlemen, but I defy you to wake him. Just try and do it, if it amuses you."
They all three shook him, and thumped him with their fists as hard as they could, but they might as well have tried to revive a corpse. Not a sign of life did he show beyond his rythmic stertorous breathing.
Villebois, Riche, and Marcel looked at one another in amazement.
"Now will two of you gentlemen kindly carry him into the next room and lay him on the sofa. You need not have the least anxiety about him, as he cannot wake up until I give him permission."
"And what will happen then?" asked Riche.
"Then he will wake up the moment I give the word."
"Do you have to shake him, or what do you do?" asked Marcel.
"I don't even need to be in the house," replied the professor. "He will be obliged to obey me wherever I may happen to be at the time. Even if I am a thousand miles away it will not make the slightest difference as regards the result."
"Great Scott!" replied Marcel, looking at Delapine in astonishment.
"I must ask you as a favour, gentlemen, not to speak of this painful incident to anyone again," said the professor, "as Monsieur Payot will not have the slightest inkling of it when he wakes up."
"Now," said Delapine, as Riche and Villebois returned from the adjoining room, "let us attend to the ladies."
By repeated applications of smelling salts Madame Villebois was soon brought round, and she was conveyed to her room by her husband.
During their absence the poet went to his room, and with Villebois' assistance, removed all traces of his recent fight, and putting on a fresh collar made himself presentable once more.
"I feel as fresh as a fiddle now, thanks to my wash and brush down."
"If you will not mind waiting for me in the library until I have fixed things up I should be awfully obliged," said Delapine, "as I must see after the two young ladies."
The professor went downstairs and proceeded to pacify Renée by assuring her that her father would wake up perfectly calm, and utterly oblivious of his terrible outburst of temper.
"Are you quite sure he will not remember what has occurred?" she asked.
"Perfectly," he replied.
Renée was by this time so accustomed to finding Delapine's forecasts prove correct, that she felt quite at ease, and even happy.
"Oh, how can I thank you, Henri, for what you have done," said Renée, smiling through her tears.
"By not referring to the incident to anybody," replied Delapine with a significant look which she thoroughly understood.
"And now, my dear mademoiselle," he said to Céleste, "go upstairs and stay with your mother; and you, Renée, go and tell her as soon as she has calmed down and is able to listen to you, that Monsieur Payot's outburst was entirely the result of the unexpected return of his hallucinations and delusions which he contracted when fighting the cannibals in Cochin-China."
"But, professor, father never was in Cochin-China, and he never suffered from hallucinations or delusions."
"My dear child, what does that matter? I am perfectly aware that your father was never in the East, that there are no cannibals there, and that he never had any delusions. My chief reason for asking you to tell the good lady that your father contracted the mental disease when he was in Cochin-China is because I am perfectly certain that she has not the remotest idea where that country is. I wish to convince her that Payot imagined he was fighting the cannibals when he was fighting Marcel. But now, owing to the treatment I have subjected him to, the delusions have entirely vanished, and he will wake up quite normal. So you must persuade her that she need nothave the least fear that such a painful scene will ever happen again. Now you understand why I want you and Céleste to tell her this story, so that she may welcome Monsieur Payot with open arms next time. Besides, a man like Monsieur Payot will be a most useful addition to the circle as soon as I have convinced him of the reality of my powers, and made him believe in me implicitly. For, as I have already told you, until harmony and faith in my ability have been established among all the members of the circle, I shall not be able to obtain the necessary conditions for producing psychic phenomena. Do not imagine that what I say is a mere trifle. Even the Master did not many mighty works in Galilee because of their unbelief."
Delapine, Riche and Villebois left the unfinished dinner and joined Marcel in the library, where coffee had been ordered by Villebois.
"Now that the ladies have all been attended to," said Villebois, "we may as well make ourselves comfortable, but we have to thank you, professor, for causing the fracas to end so peacefully. Mon Dieu, but it was a narrow escape; if you had not stopped it as you did I tremble to think what would have happened to Marcel."
"I thank you for the compliment, doctor, but you will all be pleased to hear that I have so arranged things that the affair is ended so far as the ladies and our absent friends are concerned."
"How did you manage it, professor?" asked Marcel.
"That is my affair," said Delapine, "but you may rest assured that I have told you the truth."
"And my wife? Do you mean to say that you have pacified her?" asked Villebois.
"Perfectly," answered Delapine, "she has quite forgiven Payot, and will welcome him again most cordially."
"What?" cried Villebois, "Is it really a fact that you have succeeded in twisting her round your little finger as well?"
"Why not? It was the easiest thing in the world."
"Well, ma foi, I never could all the years I have been married. You are a marvel, professor, that's all I can say."
CHAPTER XI
A REMARKABLE CONVERSATION
"Whowill absolve you bad Christians? 'Study,' I replied, 'and Knowledge.'"Conrade Muth in a letter to Peter Eberdach, 1510.
"Whowill absolve you bad Christians? 'Study,' I replied, 'and Knowledge.'"
Conrade Muth in a letter to Peter Eberdach, 1510.
Sempre di verita non è convintoChi di parole è vintoGuarini(Il Pastor Fido, Act v., Sc. v.)
"I do not doubt the probability of a future life even for a moment. This life is too sad, too incomplete to satisfy our highest aspirations and desires. It is meant to be a struggle to ennoble us. Can that struggle be in vain? I think not! Final perfection, I believe in; a perfection which God has in the end in store for us."—Bismarck.Conversations with Prince Bismarck,byW.B. Richmond,North American Review, Sept., 1914.
"I do not doubt the probability of a future life even for a moment. This life is too sad, too incomplete to satisfy our highest aspirations and desires. It is meant to be a struggle to ennoble us. Can that struggle be in vain? I think not! Final perfection, I believe in; a perfection which God has in the end in store for us."—Bismarck.
Conversations with Prince Bismarck,byW.B. Richmond,North American Review, Sept., 1914.
"At last, gentlemen," said Villebois to his three guests, "we can take our coffee in peace. By the way, professor, I want you to explain why it is that the vast majority of mankind pooh-pooh all spiritualistic phenomena, and declare them to be either fraudulent or impossible?"
"If you will listen to me, gentlemen, I think I can give you an answer, but I warn you it will be a long one.
"In the first place there are very few men in the world who will accept, or even admit a new or unexplained fact. People will only believe in phenomena which are in strict accordance with what they have been accustomed to see or hear. In other words, they have a sort of mental antipathy against believing anything which is not in perfect harmony with known and universally accepted laws. They follow one another like a flock of sheep.
"As a teacher of physics I have rarely found a single one among all my students who possessed an absolutely independent judgment. Nay, I will go further, I havemet with only one or two men during the whole course of my career who were capable of recording a new observation or impression without any preconceived notions, or with even a tithe of the accuracy of a photographic camera. People even equipped with all the acumen that a scientific training can give them, absolutely refuse to believe their senses when they see a phenomenon which appears to run contrary to any of the laws of physics which have been instilled into them by their teachers. Even if the phenomena are in accordance with established laws, unless they can be explained, they doubt, or even reject them, and will much sooner believe that they are mistaken, or that their judgment is at fault, than accept the phenomena they have witnessed.
"Take a familiar instance: In the eighteenth century a savant brought a large stone to the Academy of Sciences in France which he declared he had seen fall from the sky. The Academy set him down as a lunatic, and Laplace, one of the members, declared it to be impossible. They all pooh-poohed the fact as ridiculous. There were no stones in the sky—therefore none could tumble down from it. Meteorites, which are merely stones which once belonged to some other planet, rush along through space until they fall into the sphere of the earth's attraction and down they tumble. You will find specimens (some of them a ton or more in weight) in every geological museum in Europe. Now everyone believes in them. I remember well when it was first declared by Röntgen that objects wrapped round with several layers of black paper and enclosed in a thick cardboard or wooden box could be accurately photographed. Scientists laughed at the idea and declared it to be impossible. 'How could light penetrate opaque screens?' they asked. But to-day every hospital in Europe is equipped with an X-ray photographic outfit. If a jar be filled with equal volumes of chlorine and hydrogen gases, so long as it is left in the dark nothing happens, but the moment a beam of light is directed on to it, the contents will explode with a loud report, and hydrochloric acid gas is formed. How? We do not know. Therefore, they say it is impossible. A lump of sugar is dropped into a glass of water. Itdissolves. How? We cannot tell you. Hence they say it cannot occur, and we ought to reject these facts as impossible. A human being is formed in a pitch-dark cavity from an egg almost too small to be seen by the naked eye. How? We cannot explain it. Therefore they say we should dismiss the statement as a chimera. Hypnotism, or mesmerism as it is called, was first publicly practised in England seventy years ago by Dr. Braid. His medical brethren not only jeered at him but positively ostracised him, and so persecuted the poor man for what they in their ignorance called quackery and charlatanism, that he became socially and financially ruined. And yet to-day it is practised by hundreds of medical men, and schools of hypnotism have been established both at Nancy and here in Paris which are recognised by all the medical colleges, and yet it lies on the borderland, as it were, of spiritualism and the occult sciences. Spiritualistic phenomena are rejected on precisely the same lines of reasoning. A medium lays his hands on a heavy table. It rises bodily from the ground, or raps in answer to questions, or rocks. It appears to be endowed with life since it acts contrary to the laws of inertia. Therefore it is said that the medium is a fraud, and the phenomenon a mere piece of deception or conjuring. Another medium goes into a trance, and hands are seen to project from his body which we can feel and handle; or a cloud appears which rapidly condenses into a perfect human form identical in all respects with a real person. We can feel and handle it. It walks about the room. Often it can converse with the people in the room. It has ears and eyes and teeth just as we have. If we prick this materialised body, blood flows. We can even photograph it. It is clothed in a garment which we are able to handle with our fingers. We can even cut pieces out of it and examine the texture under the microscope. It is entirely contrary to our experience, therefore it must be due to trickery, or else our senses have deceived us and we have been hypnotised into believing it. Nevertheless these phenomena are attested by hundreds of the most clear-headed and sober-minded observers in the world—members of the academy or royal societies of Europe, physicists, doctors, chemists, astronomers, etc., etc. Afully developed human being takes twenty years to form—a fully developed psychic being only twenty seconds. If the one can be formed in twenty years, why not the other in twenty seconds? It is merely a question of time.
"Until a few years ago, the indestructibility of matter was taught in every university and college as one of the most solidly established of all facts. I remember when I was a student of chemistry," said Delapine, "that the professor carefully weighed a small candle and then burnt it away. He collected the products of combustion and demonstrated that the elements of which the candle was composed were only separated, and recombined again with the oxygen of the air. They weighed exactly the same as the candle (after deducting the oxygen which had united with them during combustion), nothing was lost. Nothing could be destroyed. We were further taught as an indisputable fact that all substances, solid, liquid or gaseous consisted of atoms—the smallest particles of matter which exist, which were indestructible and indivisible—and that there were just as many different kinds of atoms as there were elementary bodies, about eighty kinds in all. The discovery of Radium has swept all these 'facts' to the winds. So far from atoms being the smallest things in existence, they are found to contain, or perhaps consist of 'corpuscles' or 'electrons' as they are now called, which are a hundred million times smaller, and these are merely electrified vortex rings, or forms of energy. Hence matter is merely a form of electricity, and electricity, magnetism, light and heat are only varieties of energy in the form of minute waves induced by electrons which agitate the ether. The world is merely a mass of stored-up Force (energy), and this is derived from the Mind of the Eternal. We always come back to the same thought of Virgil's:—'Mens agitat molem.' Only the two thousand two hundred millionth part of the heat and light which issue from the sun—in other words an inconceivably small fraction of the whole of its energy—ever reaches our earth; and only the one hundred millionth part ever reaches the planets of our solar system. What then becomes of the remaining stupendous energy? Is it dissipated into illimitable space and lost for ever? Not at all. The Eternal Mind makes use of everything, and loses nothing. All this vast amount of heat, light, and electricity which emerges from the sun collects in different parts of the universe, and acts on prodigious swarms of cosmic dust and meteoric matter, converting them into vast nebulous accretions filled with potential energy. These mighty forces ultimately form the parents of fresh solar systems, which in their turn team with life."
"My dear professor," exclaimed Villebois, charmed at his friend's words, "you have certainly given us an entirely new view of the universe. But tell me, are these psychic forces part of the same system?"
"Psychic phenomena," answered Delapine, "and psychic forces are every whit as real as chemical and physical phenomena, and are subject to just the same unalterable laws. To quote a great American poet:—
"The Spirit World around this world of SenseFloats like an atmosphere, and everywhereWafts through these earthly mists and vapours denseA vital breath of more ethereal air."
"But how are we to be sure that the mediums do not cheat?" asked Riche.
"They all do," replied Delapine, "not always of course, but very frequently. The reasons are two-fold. In the case of paid mediums they naturally are anxious to show something for their money, and if the phenomena do not come off, there is a great inducement for them to cheat if they can do so without being detected, as it is so much less fatiguing than the real thing. Again there is also a great tendency to cheat unconsciously when in the hypnotic condition (as they usually are), and in such cases no blame can be attached to them. Still, many mediums do all they can to help the observers, and many of the phenomena are perfectly genuine, and all good experimenters take care that the mediums are under conditions in which trickery is impossible."
"To me," said Riche, "what you say is perfectly reasonable, but I would like to ask you one question. What is life? When a man dies, will he live again? Is his soul destroyed outright or does it escape unaltered and manifest itself in other surroundings? Is the soul toosubtle for the senses to perceive, or is it only seen when it acts through our bodies?"
"I will endeavour to answer your question," said Delapine, "but my knowledge is too limited to give you really satisfactory answers. All attempts to explain life by experiments in the laboratory, by chemistry, or by physics are equally futile. Bastian, Tyndall, Büchner, Stokes, Haeckel, Kelvin, Butler-Burke, Schaefer, and a host of others have essayed to explain life, and all have failed utterly. The hypothesis of Arrhenius that life in the first instance was brought to this planet from some other world by the pressure of radiation, or the theory of Lord Kelvin that the primeval germ travelled here on the back of a meteorite can only be received with an incredulous smile as being more suited for a romance of the Jules Verne type than a topic for serious consideration.
"The relation between life and energy, or between life and electricity or magnetism has never been established. I will even go further, I maintain that no such relation ever will be established. Nor will it ever be possible for the chemist to manufacture life out of any substance be it simple or compound. Life, I contend, is eternal, and consequently uncreated, for what has an end must of necessity have had a beginning. Life seems to be independent of energy, and consequently it will never be manufactured in the laboratory by any process, nor can Nature produce it 'de novo.' All efforts to describe it are futile. We only know that it is a mysterious 'something' which, acting through protoplasm, enables an organised substance or 'body' to overcome inertia and resist decay. The proof that life is akin to mind lies in the fact that as soon as the organized substance is endowed with life, it not only transforms other substances outside its body into its own substance, but it does more—it even exercises a power of selection or choice. It refuses one substance which may be unsuitable to its well being, and accepts another which it prefers for private reasons. In a word it endows the speck of protoplasm which constitutes the organism with a will of its own. It is as if it would say to the organism 'Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum.' Is not that a proof of mind, eh? One thingis certain, wherever and whenever the conditions are such as to render life possible, life will immediately begin to assert itself, not by any ultra-scientific process, but through the eternal and unchangeable laws by and through which Nature has ever worked."
"Is there any purpose in our being born in a frail body like this?" asked Riche. "In fact why should we have a body at all?"
"According to my view," replied Delapine after a moment's reflection, "the object is to enable a minute particle of the infinite Spirit or Mind, which we call a soul, to be detached from our parent, and become a separate unit. The moment self-consciousness, or the 'ego,' as it is sometimes called, is established during the course of the development of the body, it becomes a thinking soul, and is then endowed with its own individuality modified by countless ancestral traits which it has inherited through an infinitely long series of transformations extending throughout the entire animal kingdom. Only in this way can a fraction of the Eternal Spirit which is passed on from generation to generation become isolated and individualized as a self-conscious immortal entity. And the only conceivable use of the body is to allow of its faculties becoming formed and developed in its 'ego' or 'self.' It is the growth of the body that permits of the soul acquiring the experience, knowledge, and attributes which together contribute to mould and create our human personality, and which form an essential step in the progress of the soul to higher planes of existence.
"These appear to me to be some of the reasons why it is essential that the soul should be clothed in a bodily envelope as a preparation for a higher existence, and as soon as the soul has acquired these qualities, and its vitality has been transmitted to the offspring, the body has no further raison d'etre for existing, and therefore remains a mere useless shell whose future is but to die. We find the same scheme (although I admit it is a very imperfect simile) in the pupa stage of many of the insects, which is the necessary prelude to its emergence as the Imago, or perfect insect.
"Life is so bound up with, and inseparable from Mind,that it is impossible for us in the present state of our knowledge to say whether Life is the product of Mind, or whether Mind is the product of Life. Our knowledge is so limited that we can hardly explain anything. For instance, you may ask me what is light, or electricity, or magnetism, or gravity, or matter even? What originates force or energy? You see how ignorant I am, I cannot even answer the simplest of these questions. You may remember that the great naturalist Ernst Haeckel wrote a book entitledThe Riddles of the Universe. In that book he attempted to explain these riddles which I have just asked you. These riddles remain exactly as they were before—unanswered."
"But one thing you have not answered yet," interrupted Riche. "Is there any absolute proof that we retain our individuality and self-consciousness after death, or in other words, shall we not only survive death but become aware of the fact."
"All the researches which I and hundreds of other investigators have made, point without a shadow of doubt to a reply in the affirmative," answered Delapine, "and yet, on the other hand, we have no absolute proof that the communications which mediums deliver in a trance really come from those who have died. By absolute proof, I mean proof of the same convincing nature as a demonstration in mathematics or physics. But if you will have a little patience I will afford you all an opportunity of judging for yourselves, gentlemen."
"But how are we to obtain the convincing proof which you seek?" interposed Villebois.
"By experiment, by patient research, and by reflection; not in the realm of physics, for that only deals with material forces, but by employing the utmost care and vigilance to counteract fraud and deception of every kind, and only by the accumulation of evidence shall we find the solution of the problem. There alone is to be found the key which will unlock the door behind which lie at present all these mysteries. Ah," he continued, and his eyes flashed with enthusiasm, "I can see it coming, I feel it in the air. The day of our salvation is drawing near. The Sphinx that has been silent all these centuries is at lastbeginning to move its lips. All our creeds are dead, and all our old faiths are dying out. A new revelation is at hand in the world of Spiritualism. I am fully convinced that there will be no miracles in the world beyond the grave, any more than there are, or (in my opinion) ever have been in this world, and I am further convinced that we shall have all these questions answered in the future life which I know persists beyond the grave. As the poet says:—
"'There is no death, what seems so is transition,This life of mortal breath is but a suburb of the life ElysianWhose portal we call death.'
"The saying of the ancients, 'Mors janua vitae' (Death is the gate of Life) is a solemn truth which runs like a golden thread through the entire creative fabric. He that loseth his life shall save it, is not a paradox but an eternal fact. 'Follow me,' said the Master, 'and I will point out the way of life. I will lead you through the valley of death to victory.' 'Death ends all' cries a despairing world, but the Spirit throughout the ages answers 'Nay, it ends nothing, for thou, O Nazarene, hast conquered death for evermore.'
"Wonders upon wonders will unfold themselves before us, this world cannot hold our spirits prisoners, and other worlds will become as accessible to us then as the suburbs of this town are at present."
So striking was the personality of the professor, and the conviction which his words carried, that the effect on his hearers was electric, and for a brief space of time each one held his breath.
"Don't you believe in a hell and eternal damnation?" asked Riche, who never believed in anything outside his own profession.
"There is neither hell nor damnation for anyone—there never was, and there never will be," Delapine answered. "The only hell that exists is the one that man creates for himself, and he can create a heaven just as easily as a hell. There are no limitations in the future life. Life was meant to be enjoyed, not endured, both in this world and the next."
"And what is your opinion about it all?" said Riche to Marcel.
"Oh, for my part I agree with the fellow who said that life was just one damn thing after another."
Villebois burst into a hearty laugh, in which he was joined by Delapine.
"I think," said the professor, "that it is about time we woke up our esteemed friend Payot. It is now five minutes to ten. Will you set your watches to agree with mine, and then all three of you go and stand beside his couch while I stay here. Precisely at ten o'clock I will tell him to wake up. But mind it must be distinctly understood, and you must promise me, that you will do nothing except carefully look at your watches."
All three left the room and crept quietly up to where Payot lay in a deep sleep, and took their stand around the insensible figure in front of them, each with his watch in his hand.
"Mon Dieu," whispered Marcel to Riche, "this is like 'waking' a corpse, as they say in Ireland. It is positively creepy."
They looked at their watches—it was two minutes to the hour.
"Well, the old boy is fast enough asleep now at any-rate," said Riche in a half whisper. "I wonder whether Delapine will be able to do it? Hadn't we better rouse him up?" and as he spoke he leaned over the prostrate figure.
"No, for God's sake, no," said Villebois in a hoarse whisper. "Remember what Delapine said, and our promise not to touch him."
Silently the three men stood round the couch watching the second hands of their time-pieces rotating in the little circles.
"Half a minute yet," whispered Villebois. Twenty seconds. Fifteen seconds. The suspense was beginning to tell upon their nerves. The silence in the large room was so great that even the ticking of the watches could be heard in the furthest corner.
Ten seconds. Five seconds. Two seconds. And then—the financier gave a violent sneeze. One second and he opened his eyes. A moment later and all thewatches pointed exactly to the hour. Ten o'clock had at last arrived.
Payot sat up on the couch and stared round him.
"Where am I?" he exclaimed. "What are you gentlemen doing here, you, Villebois, and you, Riche? Tell me what does it all mean, and what am I doing here? I cannot remember anything; have I been ill, or what has happened?"
"Oh, no, my dear sir," replied Villebois, "you are quite well. Don't you remember you said that you felt sleepy. You must have had a little too much wine, which no doubt made you drowsy, eh?"
"Hullo, Marcel, you there too. Give me your hand. My dear fellow I am delighted to meet you again," said Payot. "I suppose I must have supped a little too freely," he continued; "I remember having dinner—a very good one it was, Villebois, but what happened afterwards I have not the remotest recollection. Well, anyhow, I feel quite refreshed. If you do not mind, I will get ready to come downstairs."
The three watchers then left after shaking hands with him, and returned to the library.
"Well," said Delapine, "and did our friend wake up?"
"Precisely on the stroke of ten," they all replied together.
"And did he say anything to you, Marcel?"
"Oh, he shook me by the hand and said he was delighted to meet me again."
"Did he refer in any way to his fight with you?"