Letter from Professor Hamilton Spence to his friend, John Rogers, M.D.
DEAR Bones: Chortle if you want to—your worst prognostications have come true. The unexpectedness of the sciatic nerve, as set forth in your parting discourse, has amply proved itself. The dashed thing is all that you said of it—and more. It did not even permit me to collapse gracefully—or to choose my public. Your other man had a policeman, hadn't he?
Here I am, stranded upon a sofa from which I cannot get up and detained indefinitely upon a mountain from which I cannot get down. My nurse (I have a nurse) refuses to admit the mountain. She insists upon referring to this dizzy height as "just above sea-level" and declares that the precipitous ascent thereto is "a slight grade." Otherwise she is quite sane.
But sanity is more than I feel justified in claiming for anyone else in this household. There is Li Ho, for instance. Well, I'm not certain about Li Ho. He may be Chinese-sane. My nurse says he is. But I have no doubts at all about my host. He is so queer that I sometimes wonder if he is not a figment. Perhaps I imagine him. If so, my imagination is going strong. What I seem to see is a little old man in a frock coat so long that his legs (like those of the Queen of Spain) are negligible. He has a putty colored face (so blurred that I keep expecting him to rub it out altogether), white hair, pale blue eyes—and an umbrella.
Yesterday, attempting to establish cordial relations, I asked him why the umbrella. He had a fit right on the spot?
Let me explain about the fits. When his daughter just said, "Father will have a fit," I thought she spoke in a Pickwickian sense, meaning, "Father will experience annoyance." But when I heard him having it, I realized that she had probably been quite literal. When father has a fit he bangs his umbrella to the floor and jumps on it. Also he tears his hair. I have seen the pieces.
I said to my nurse: "The mention of his umbrella seems to agitate your father." She turned quite pale. "It does," she said. "I hope you haven't mentioned it." I said that I had merely asked for information. "And did you get it?" asked she. I said that I had—since it was apparent that one has to carry an umbrella if one wishes to have it handy to jump upon. She didn't laugh at all, and looked so withdrawn that it was quite plain I need expect no elucidation from her.
I had to dismiss the subject altogether. But, later on, Li Ho (who appears to partially approve of me) gave a curious side light on the matter. At night as he was tucking me up safely (the sofa is slippery), he said, "Honorable Boss got hole in head-top. Sun velly bad. Umblella keep him off."
"But he carries it at night, too," I objected.
Li Ho wagged his parchment head. "Keep moon off all same. Moon muchy more bad. Full moon find urn hole. Make Honorable Boss much klasy."
Remarkably lucid explanation—don't you think so? The "hole in head top" is evidently Li Ho's picturesque figure for "mental vacuum." Therefore I gather that our yellow brother suspects his honorable boss of being weak-headed, a condition aggravated by the direct rays of the sun and especially by the full moon. He may be right—though the old man seems harmless enough. "Childlike and bland" describes him usually. Though there are times when he looks at me with those pale eyes—and I wish that I were not quite so helpless! He dislikes me. But I have known quite sane people do that.
I am writing nonsense. One has to, with sciatica. I hope this confounded leg lets me get some sleep tonight.
Yours,B.
P.S.: Not exactly an ideal home for a young girl—is it?
It had rained all night. It had rained all yesterday. It had rained all the day before. It was raining still. Apparently it could go on raining indefinitely.
Miss Farr said not. She said that it would be certain to clear up in a day or two. "And then," she said, "you will forget that it ever rained."
Professor Spence doubted it. He had a good memory.
"You look much better this morning," his nurse went on. "Have you tried to move your leg yet?"
"I am thinking of trying it."
This was not exactly a fib on the part of the professor because he was thinking of it. But it did not include the whole truth, because he had already tried it, tried it very successfully only a few moments before. First he had made sure that he was alone in the room and then he had proceeded with the trial. Very cautiously he had drawn his lame leg up, and tenderly stretched it out. He had turned over and back again. He had wiggled his toes to see how many of them were present—only the littlest toe was still numb. He had realized that he was much better. If the improvement kept on, he knew that in a day or so he would be able to walk with the aid of a cane. And he also knew that, with his walking, his status as an invalid guest would vanish. Luckily, no one but himself could say when the walking stage was reached—hence the strict privacy of his experiments.
"Father thinks that you should be able to walk in about three days," said Miss Farr cheerfully.
Spence said he hoped that Dr. Farr was right. But the rain, he feared, might keep him back a bit, "I am really sorry," he added, "that my presence is so distasteful to the doctor. I have been here almost two weeks and I have seen so little of him that I'm afraid I am keeping him out of his own house."
"No, you are not doing that," the girl's reassurance was cordial enough, "Father is having an outside spell just now. He quite often does. Sometimes for weeks together he spends most of his time out of doors. Then, quite suddenly, he will settle down and be more like—other people."
It was her way, the professor noticed, to state facts, not to explain them.
"Then he has what I call an 'inside spell,'" she went on. "That is when he does most of his writing. He does some quite good things, you know. And a few of them get published."
"Scientific articles?" asked Spence.
"Well—articles. You might not call them scientific. Science is very exact, isn't it? Father would rather be interesting than exact any day."
Her hearer found no difficulty in believing this.
"His folk-lore stories are the best—and the least exact," continued she, heedless of the shock inflicted upon the professorial mind. "He knows exactly the kind of things Indians tell, and tells it very much better."
"You mean he—he fakes it?"
"Well—he calls it 'editing.'"
"But, my dear girl, you can't edit folk-lore!"
"Father can."
"But—but it isn't done! Such material loses all value if not authentic."
"Does it?"
The question was indifferent. So indifferent, in the face of a matter of such moment, that Hamilton Spence writhed upon his couch. Here at least there was room for genuine missionary work. He cleared his throat.
"I will tell you just how much it matters," he began firmly. But the fates were not with him, neither was his audience. Attracted by some movement which he had missed she, the audience, had slipped to the door, and was opening it cautiously.
"What is it?" asked the baffled lecturer crossly.
"S-ssh! I think it's Sami."
"A tame bear?"
"No. Wait. I'll prop you up so you can see him. Look, behind the veranda post."
The professor looked and forgot about the value of authenticity; for from behind the veranda post a most curious face was peeping—a round, solemn baby face of cafe au lait with squat, wide nose and flat-set eyes.
"A Jap?" exclaimed Spence in surprise.
"No. He's Indian. Some of the babies are so Japaneesy that it's hard to tell the difference. Father says it's a strain of the same blood. But they are not all as pretty as Sami. Isn't he a duck?"
"He is at home in the rain, anyway. Why doesn't he come in?"
"He's afraid of you."
"That's unusual—until one has seen me."
"Sami doesn't need to see a stranger."
"Well, that's primitive enough, surely! Let's call him in."
"I'd like to, but Sami won't come for calling."
"Oh, won't he? Leave the door open and watch him."
As absorbed now as the girl herself, the professor put his finger to his lips and whistled—a low, clear whistle, rather like the calling of a meditative bird. Several times he whistled so, on different notes; and then, to her surprise, the watching girl saw the little wild thing outside stir in answer to the call. Sami came out from behind the post and stood listening, for all the world like an inquiring squirrel. The whistle sounded again, a plaintive, seeking sound, infinitely alluring. It seemed to draw the heart like a living thing. Slowly at first and then with the swift, gliding motion of the woods, the wide-eyed youngster approached the open door and stood there waiting, poised and ready for advance or flight. Again the whistle came, and to it came Sami, straight as a bird to its calling mate.
"Tamed!" said the professor softly. "See, he is not a bit afraid."
"How on earth did you do it?" asked Miss Farr when the shy, brown baby had been duly welcomed. The whistler was visibly vain.
"Oh, it's quite simple. I merely talked to him in his own language."
"I see that. But where did you learn the language?"
"Well, a fellow taught me that—man I met at Ypres. He could have whistled back the dodo, I think. He knew all kinds of calls—said all the wild things answered to them."
"Was he a great naturalist?"
The cheerful vanity faded from Spence's face, leaving it sombre.
"He—would have been," he said briefly.
Miss Farr asked no more questions. It was a restful way she had. And perhaps because she did not ask, the professor felt an unaccustomed impulse. "He was a wonderful chap," he volunteered. "There are few like him in a generation. It seemed—rather a waste."
The girl nodded. "Used or wasted—it's as it happens," she said. "There is no plan."
"That's a heathen sentiment!" The professor recovered his cheerfulness. "A sentiment not at all suited for the contemplation of extreme youth."
"I am not extremely young."
"You? I was referring to our brown brother. He is becoming uneasy again. What's the matter with him?"
Whatever was the matter, it reached, at that moment, an acute stage and Sami disappeared through the door into the kitchen. Perhaps his ears were sharper than theirs and his eyes keener. He may have seen a large umbrella coming across the clearing.
Miss Farr frowned. "Sami is afraid of father," she explained briefly. The door opened as she added, "I wonder why?"
"A caprice of childhood, my daughter," said the old doctor mildly. "Who indeed can account for the vagaries of the young?"
"They are usually quite easy to account for," replied his daughter coldly. "You must have frightened the child some time."
"Tut, tut, my dear. How could an old fogey like myself frighten anyone?"
"I don't know. But I should like to."
Father and daughter looked at each other for a moment. And again the captive on the sofa found himself disliking intensely the glance of the old man's pale blue eyes. He was glad to see that they fell before the grey eyes of the girl.
"Well, well!" murmured Dr. Farr vaguely, looking away. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Tut, tut, a trifle!"
"I don't think so," said she. And abruptly she went out after the child.
"Fanciful, very fanciful," murmured the old man, looking after her. "And stubborn, very stubborn. A bad fault in one so young. But," beaming benevolently upon his guest, "we must not trouble you with our small domestic discords. You are much better, I see, much better. That is good."
"Getting along very nicely, thanks," said Spence. "I was able to change position this morning without assistance."
"Only that?" The doctor's disappointment was patent. "Come, we should progress better than that. If you will allow me to prescribe—"
"Thank you—no. I feel quite satisfied with the treatment prescribed by old Bones—I mean by my friend, Dr. Rogers. He understands the case thoroughly. One must be patient."
"Quite so, quite so." The curiously blurred face of the doctor seemed for a moment to take on sharper lines. Spence had observed it do this before under stress of feeling. But as the exact feeling which caused the change was usually obscure, it seemed safest to ignore it altogether. He was growing quite expert at ignoring things. For, quite contrary to the usual trend of his character, he was reacting to the urge of a growing desire to stay where he wasn't wanted. He didn't reason about it. He did not even admit it. But it moved in his mind.
"I'm not fretting at all about being tied up here," he went on cheerfully. "I find the air quite stimulating. I believe I could work here. In fact, I have some notes with me which I may elaborate. I fancy that, as you said in your letters, Miss Farr will prove a most capable secretary. I am going to ask her to help me."
"Are you indeed?" The doctor's tone was polite but absent.
"You do not object, I hope?"
"Object—why should I object? But Desire is busy, very busy. I doubt if her duties will spare her. I doubt it very much."
"Naturally, I should wish to offer her ample remuneration."
Again the loose lines of the strange old face seemed to sharpen. There was a growing eagerness in the pale eyes ... but it died.
"Even in that case," said Dr. Farr regretfully, "I fear it will be impossible."
Spence pressed this particular point no further. He had found out what he wanted to know, namely, that his host's desire to see the last of him was stronger even than his desire for money. His own desire to see more of his host strengthened in proportion.
"Supposing we leave it to Miss Farr herself," he suggested smoothly. "Since you have personally no objection. If she is unwilling to oblige me, of course—"
"I will speak to her," promised the doctor.
Spence smiled.
"What surprises me, doctor," he went on, pushing a little further, "is how you have managed to keep so very intelligent a secretary in so restricted an environment. The stronger one's wings, the stronger the temptation to use them."
He had expected to strike fire with this, but the pale eyes looked placidly past him.
"Desire has left me, at times, but—she has always come back." The old man's voice was very gentle, almost caressing, and should certainly have provided no reason for the chill that crept up his hearer's spine.
"She has never found work suited to her, perhaps," suggested Spence. "If you will allow me,—"
"You are very kind," the velvet was off the doctor's voice now. He rose with a certain travesty of dignity. "But I may say that I desire—that I will tolerate—no interference. My daughter's future shall be her father's care."
Spence laughed. It was an insulting laugh, and he knew it. But the contrast between the grandiloquent words and the ridiculous figure which uttered them was too much for him. Besides, though the most courteous of men, he deliberately wished to be insulting. He couldn't help it. There rose up in him, suddenly, a wild and unreasoning anger that mere paternity could place anyone (and especially a young girl with cool, grey eyes) in the power of such a caricature of manhood.
"Really?" said Spence. There was everything in the word that tone could utter of challenge and derision. He raised himself upon his elbow. The doctor, who had been closely contemplating his umbrella, looked up slowly. The eyes of the two men met.... Spence had never seen eyes like that ... they dazzled him like sudden sunlight on a blade of steel ... they clung to his mind and bewildered it ... he forgot the question at issue ... he forgot—
Just then Li Ho opened the kitchen door.
"Get 'um lunch now," said Li Ho, in his toneless drawl. "Like 'um egg flied? Like 'um boiled?"
Spence sank back upon his pillow.
"Like um any old way!" he said. His voice sounded a little breathless.
The doctor, once again absorbed in the contemplation of his umbrella, went out.
Luncheon, for which Li Ho had provided eggs both boiled and fried, was eaten alone. His hostess did not honor him with her company, nor did her father return. Li Ho was attentive but silent And outside the rain still rained.
Professor Spence lay and counted the drops as they fell from a knot hole in the veranda roof—one small drop—two medium-sized drops—one big drop—as if some unseen djinn were measuring them out in ruthless monotony. He counted the drops until his brain felt soggy and he began to speculate upon what Aunt Caroline would think of fried eggs for luncheon. He wondered why there were no special dishes for special meals in Li Ho's domestic calendar; why all things, to Li Ho, were good (or bad) at all times? Would he give them porridge and bacon for dinner? Spence decided that he didn't mind. He was ready to like anything which was strikingly different from Aunt Caroline....
One small drop—two medium-sized drops—one big drop.... He wondered when he would know his young nurse well enough to call her by her first name? (Prefixed by "miss," perhaps.) "Desire"—it was a rather charming name. How old would she be, he wondered; twenty? There were times when she looked even younger than twenty. But he had to confess that she never acted like it. At least she did not act as he had believed girls of twenty are accustomed to act. Very differently indeed.... One small drop—two medium-sized—oh, bother the drops! Where was she, anyway? Did she intend to stay out all afternoon? Was that the way she treated an invalid? ... He couldn't see why people go out in the rain, anyway. People are apt to take their deaths of cold. People may get pneumonia. It would serve people right—almost.... One drop—oh, confound the drops!
The professor tried to read. The book he opened had been a famous novel, a best-seller, some five years ago. It had been thought "advanced." Advanced!—but now how inconceivably flat and stale! How on earth had anyone ever praised it, called it "epoch-marking," bought it by the thousand thousand? Why, the thing was dead—a dead book, than which there is nothing deader. This reflection gave him something to think of for a while. Instead of counting drops he amused himself by strolling back through the years, a critical stretcher-bearer, picking up literary corpses by the wayside. They were thickly strewn. He was appalled to find how faintly beat the pulse of life even in the living. Would not another generation see the burial of them all? Was there no new Immortal anywhere?
"When I write a novel," thought the professor solemnly, "which, please God, I shall never do, I will write about people and not about things. Things change always; people never." It was a wise conclusion but it did not help the afternoon to pass.
Desire, that is to say Miss Farr, had passed the window twice already. He might have called her. But he hadn't. If people forget one's very existence it is not prideful to call them. And the Spences are a prideful race. Desire (he decided it didn't matter if he called her Desire to himself, she was such a child) was wearing—an old tweed coat and was carrying wood. She wore no hat and her hair was glossy with rain.... People take such silly risks—And where was Li Ho? Why wasn't he carrying the wood? Not that the wood seemed to bother Desire in the least.
The captive on the sofa sighed. It was no use trying to hide from himself his longing to be out there with her in that heavenly Spring-pierced air, revelling in its bloomy wetness; strong and fit in muscle and nerve, carrying wood, getting his head soaked, doing all the foolish things which youth does with impunity and careless joy. The new restlessness, which he had come so far to quiet, broke over him in miserable, taunting waves.
Why was he here on the sofa instead of out there in the rain? The war? But he was too inherently honest to blame the war. It was, perhaps, responsible for the present state of his sciatic nerve but not for the selling of his birthright of sturdy youth. The causes of that lay far behind the war. Had he not refused himself to youth when youth had called? Had he not shut himself behind study doors while Spring crept in at the window? The war had come and dragged him out. Across his quiet, ordered path its red trail had stretched and to go forward it had been necessary to go through. The Spences always went through. But Nature, every inch a woman, had made him pay for scorning her. She had killed no fatted calf for her prodigal.
So here he was, at thirty-five, envying a girl who could carry wood without weariness. The envy had become acute irritation by the time the wood was stacked and the wood-carrier brought her shining hair and rain-tinted cheeks into the living-room.
"Leg bad again?" asked Desire casually.
"No—temper."
"It's time for tea. I'll see about it."
"You'll take your wet things off first. You must be wet through. Do you want to come down with pneumonia?"
The girl's eyebrows lifted. "That's silly," she said. And indeedthe remark was absurd enough addressed to one on whom the wonder and mystery of budding life rested so visibly. "I'm not wet at all," she went on. "Only my coat." She slipped out of the old tweed ulster, scattering bright drops about the room. "And my hair," she added as if by an afterthought. "I'll dry it presently. But I don't wonder you're cross. The fire is almost out. We'll have something to eat when the kettle boils. Father's gone up trail. He probably won't be back." For an instant she stood with a considering air as if intending to add something. Then turned and went into the kitchen without doing it. She came back with a handful of pine-knots with which she deftly mended the fire.
The professor moved restlessly.
"I'll be around soon now," he said, "and then you shan't do that."
"Shan't do what?"
"Carry wood."
"That's funny." Desire placed a crackling pine-knot on the apex of her pyramid and sat back on her heels to watch it blaze. Her tone was ruminative. "There's no real sense in that, you know. Why shouldn't I carry wood when I am perfectly able to do it? Your objection is purely an acquired one—a manifestation of the herd instinct."
There was a slight pause. Professor Spence was wondering if he had really heard this.
"W—what was that you said?" he asked cautiously.
Desire laughed. He had observed with wonder, amounting almost to awe, that she never giggled.
"Score one for me!" She turned grey, mirthful eyes on his. "Amn't I learned? I read it in an article in an old Sociological Review—a copy left here by a man whom father—well, we needn't bother about that part of it. But the article was wonderful. I can't remember who wrote it."
"Trotter, perhaps,—yes, it would be Trotter," murmured the professor.
Desire swung round upon her heels, regarding him a trifle wistfully.
"I should like to know all that you know," she said. "All the strange things inside our minds."
"Would you? But if you knew what I know you would only know that you knew nothing at all."
"Yes, it's all very well to say that," shrewdly, "but you don't mean it. Besides, even if you don't know anything, you have glimpses of all sorts of wonderful things which might be known. You can go on, and it's the going on that matters."
"But I can't carry wood."
A little smile curled the corners of Desire's lips. He did not see it because she had turned to the fire again and, with that deliberate unself-consciousness which characterized her, was proceeding to unpin and dry her hair. Spence had not seen it undone before and was astonished at its length and lustre. The girl shook it as a young colt shakes its mane, spreading it out to the blaze upon her hands.
"I know what you mean, though," admitted Spence, "there is nothing like the fascination of the unknown. It very nearly did for me."
Desire looked up long enough to allow her slanting brows to ask their eternal question.
"Too much inside, not enough outside," he answered. "I ought to have made myself a man first and a student afterward. Then I might have been out in the rain you."
She considered this, as she considered most things, gravely. Thenmet it in her downright way.
"There's nothing very wrong with you, is there? Nothing but what can be put right."
"No."
"Well then, you can begin again. And begin properly."
"I am thirty-five."
"In that case you have no time to waste."
It was a thoroughly sensible remark. But somehow the professor did not like it. After all, thirty-five is not so terribly old. He decided to change the subject. But there was no immediate hurry. It was pleasant to lie there in the firelight watching this enigma of girl-hood dry her hair. Perhaps she would notice his silence and ask him what he was thinking about.
"You really ought to offer me a penny for my thoughts," he observed plaintively.
"Oh, were you thinking? So was I."
"I'll give you a penny for yours!"
Desire shook her head.
"No? Then I'll give you mine for nothing. I was thinking what a pity it is that you are only an amateur nurse."
"I hate nursing."
"How unwomanly! Lots of women hate it—but few admit it. However, it wasn't a nurse's duties I was thinking of, but a patient's privileges. You see, if you were a professional nurse I could call you 'Nurse Desire.'"
"Do you mean that you want to call me by my first name?"
"Since you put it more bluntly than I should dare to,—yes. It is a charming name. But perhaps—"
"Oh, you may use it if you like," said the owner of the name indifferently. "It sounds more natural. I am not accustomed to 'Miss Fair.'"
This ought to have been satisfactory. But it wasn't. And after he had led up to it so tactfully, too! Not for the first time did it occur to our psychologist that tact was wasted upon this downright young person. He decided not to be tactful any longer.
"I'm getting well so rapidly," he said, "that I shall have to admit it soon."
The girl nodded.
"Are you glad?"
"Of course I am glad."
"I shall walk with a cane almost in no time. And when I can walk, I shall have to go away."
"Yes." There was no hesitation in her prompt agreement. Neither did she add any polite regrets. The professor felt unduly irritated. He had never become used to her ungirlish taciturnity. It always excited him. The women he had known, especially the younger women, had all been chatterers. They had talked and he had not listened. This girl said little and her silences seemed to clamour in his ears. Well, she would have to answer this time.
"Do you want me to go?" he asked plainly.
"I don't want you to go." Her tone was thoughtful. "But I know you can't stay. One has to accept things."
"One doesn't. One can make things happen."
"How?"
"By willing."
"Do you honestly believe that?" He was astonished at the depth of mockery in her tone.
"I certainly do believe it. I'll prove it if you like."
"How?"
"By staying."
Again she was silent.
He went on eagerly. "Why shouldn't I stay—for a time at least? I have plenty of work to go on with. Indeed it was with the definite intention of doing this work that I came. If you want me, I'll stay right enough. The bargain that was made with your father was a straight, fair business arrangement. I have no scruples about requiring him to carry out his part of it The trouble was that it seemed as if insistence would be unfair to you. But if you and I can arrange that—if you will agree to let me do what I can to help, chores, you know, carrying wood and so on, then I should not need to feel myself a burden."
"You have not been a burden."
"Thanks. You have been extraordinarily kind. As for the rest of it—I mentioned the matter to Dr. Farr this morning."
She was interested now. He could see her eyes, intent, through the falling shadow of her hair.
"I reminded him that he had offered me the services of a secretary and explained that I was ready to avail myself of his offer."
"And what did he say to that?"
"Well—er—we agreed to leave the decision to you."
"Was that all?"
"Practically all."
"Practically, but not quite. You quarreled, didn't you? Frankly, I do not understand father's attitude but I know what his attitude is. He does not want you here. Neither you nor anyone else. The secretarial work you offer would be—I can't tell you exactly what it would be to me. It would teach me something—and I am so hungry to know! But he will find some way to make it impossible. You will have to go."
"Nonsense! He cannot go back on his agreement."
"You mean he has accepted money? That," bitterly, "means nothing to him."
"Nevertheless it gives me ground to stand on. And you, too. You have done secretarial work before?"
"Yes. I have certain qualifications. At intervals I have tried to make myself independent. Several times I have secured office positions in Vancouver. But father has always made the holding of them impossible."
"How?"
"I would rather not go into it." There was weary disgust in her voice.
"But what reason does he give?"
"That his daughter's place is in her father's house—funny, isn't it?"
"You do not think that affection has anything to do with it?"
"Not even remotely. Whatever his reason may be for keeping me with him, it is not that. Affection is something of which one knows by instinct, don't you think? Even Li Ho—I know instinctively that Li Ho is fond of me. I am absolutely certain that my father is not."
"It is no life for a young girl."
"It has been my life."
The professor felt uncomfortable. There was that in her tone which forbade all comment. She had given him this tiny glimpse and quite evidently intended to give no more. But Spence, upon occasion, could be a persistent man.
"Miss Desire," he said gravely, "do you absolutely decline my friendship?" If she wanted directness, she was getting it now.
"How can I do otherwise?" Her face was turned from him and her low voice was muffled by her hair. But for the first time she had cast away her guard of light indifference. "Friendship is impossible for me. I thought you would see—and go away. Nothing that you can do would be any real help. I have tried before to free myself. But I could not. Nor, in the little flights of freedom which I had, did I find anything that I wanted. I am as well here as anywhere. Unless—"
She was silent, looking into the fire.
"Unless I were really free," she added softly.
He could not see her face. But she looked very young sitting there with her unbound hair and hands clasped childishly about her knees.
"You have wondered about me—in a psychological way—ever since you came." She went on, her voice taking on a harsher note. "You have been trying to 'place' me. Well, since you are curious I will tell you what I am. When I was younger and we lived in towns I used to wander off by myself down the main streets to gaze in the windows. I never went into any of the stores. The things I wanted were inside and for sale—but I could not buy them. I was just a window-gazer. That's what I am still. Life is for sale somewhere. But I cannot buy it."
The throb of her voice was like the beating of caged wings through the quiet room.
"But—" began Spence, and then he paused. It wasn't at all easy to know what to say. "You are mistaken," he went on finally. "Life isn't for sale anywhere. Life is inside, not outside. And no one ever really wants the things they see in other people's windows."
"I do," said Desire coldly.
She was certainty very young! Spence felt suddenly indulgent.
"What, then—for instance?" he asked.
The girl shook back her hair and arose.
"Freedom, money, leisure, books, travel, people!"
"I thought you were going to leave out people altogether," said Spence, whimsically. "But otherwise your wants are fairly comprehensive. You have neglected only two important things—health and love."
"I have health—and I don't want love."
"Not yet—of course—" began the professor, still fatherly indulgent. But she turned on him with a white face.
"Never!" she said. "That one thing I envy no one. You are wondering why I have never considered marriage as a possible way out? Well, it isn't a possible way—for me. Marriage is a hideous thing—hideous!"
She wasn't young now, that was certain. It was no child who stood there with a face of sick distaste. The professor's mood of indulgent maturity melted into dismay before the half-seen horror in her eyes.
But the moment of revelation passed as quickly as it had come. The girl's face settled again into its grave placidity.
"I'll get the tea," she said. "The kettle will be boiling dry."
In the form of a letter from Professor Spence to his friend, Dr. John Rogers.
No letter yet from you, Bones; Bainbridge must be having the measles. Or perhaps I am not allowing for the fact that it takes almost a fortnight to go and come across this little bit of Empire. Also Li Ho hasn't been across the Inlet for a week. He says "Tillicum too muchy hole. Li Ho long time patch um."
On still days, I can hear him doing it. Perhaps my hostess is right and we are not so far away from the beach as I fancied on the night of my arrival. I'll test this detail, and many others, soon. For today I am sitting up. I'm sure I could walk a little, if I were to try. But I am not in a hurry. Hurry is a vice of youth.
And I am actually getting some work done. Bones, old thing, I have made a discovery for the lack of which many famous men have died too soon. I have discovered the perfect secretary!
These blank lines represent all the things which I might say but which, with great moral effort, I suppress. I know what a frightful bore is the man who insists upon talking about a new discovery. Therefore I shall not indulge my natural inclination to tell you just how perfect this secretary is. I shall merely note that she is quick, accurate, silent, interested, appreciative, intelligent to a remarkable degree—Good Heavens! I'm doing it! I blush now when I remember that I engaged Miss Farr's services in the first place from motives of philanthropy. Is it possible that I was ever fatuous enough to believe that I was the party who conferred the benefit? If so, I very soon discovered my mistake. In justice to myself I must state that I saw at once what a treasure I had come upon. You remember what a quick, sure judgment my father had? Somehow I seem to be getting more like him all the time. The moment any proposition takes on a purely business aspect, I become, as it were, pure intellect. I see the exact value, business value, of the thing. Aunt Caroline never agrees with me in this. She insists upon referring to that oil property at Green Lake and that little matter of South American Mines. But those mistakes were trifles. Any man might have made them.
In this case, where I am right on the spot, there can be no possibility of a mistake. I see with my own eyes. Miss Farr is a dream of secretarial efficiency. She combines, with ease, those widely differing qualities which are so difficult to come by in a single individual. It is inspiring to work with her. I find that her co-operation actually stimulates creative thought. My notes are expanding at a most satisfactory rate. My introductory chapter already assumes form. And—by Jove! I seem to be doing it again.
But one simply does not make these discoveries every day.
The other aspects of the situation here, the non-business aspects, are not so satisfactory. The menage is certainly peculiar. I had what amounted to a bloodless duel with mine host the other day. Perhaps I was not as tactful as I might have been. But he is an irritating person. One of those people who seem to file your nerves. In fact there is something almost upsetting' about that mild old scoundrel. He gives me what the Scots call a "scunner." (You have to hear a true Scot pronounce it before you get its inner meaning.) And when, that day, he began talking about his daughter's future being her father's care, I said—I forget exactly what I said but he seemed to get the idea all right. It annoyed him. We were both annoyed. He did not put his feelings into words. He put them into his eyes instead. And horrid, nasty feelings they were. Quite murderous.
The duel was interrupted by Li Ho. Li Ho never listens but he always hears. Seems to have some quieting influence over his "honorable Boss," too.
But I wish you could have seen the old fellow's eyes, Bones. I think they might have told some tale to a medical mind. Normally, his eyes are blurry like the rest of his fatherly face. And their color, I think, is blue. But just then they looked like no eyes I have ever seen. A cold light on burnished steel is the only simile I can think of—perfect hardness, perfect coldness, lustre without depth! The description is poor, but you may get the idea better if I describe the effect of the look rather than the look itself. The warm spot in my heart froze. And it takes something fairly eerie to freeze the heart at its core.
From this, as a budding psychologist, I draw a conclusion—there was something abnormal, something not quite human in that flashing look. The conclusion seems somewhat strained now. But at the time I was undoubtedly glad to see Li Ho. Li Ho may be a Chink, but he is human.
You may gather that our "battle of the Glances" did not smooth my pillow here. If the old chap didn't want me to stay before, he is even less anxious for my company now. But I am going to stay. Aunt Caroline would call this stubbornness. But of course it isn't. It is merely a certain strength of character and a business determination to carry out a business bargain. Dr. Farr allowed me to engage board here and to pay for it. I am under no obligation to take cognizance of his deeper feelings.
The only feelings which concern me in this matter are the feelings of his daughter. If my staying were to prove a burden for her I could not, of course, stay. But I see many ways in which I may be helpful, and I know that she needs and wants the secretarial work which I have given her. Usually she holds her head high and one isn't even allowed to guess. But one does guess. Her meagre ration of life is plain beyond all artifice of pride.
John, she interests me intensely. She is a strange child. She is a strange woman. For both child and woman she seems to be, in fascinating combination. But, lest you should mistake me, good old bone-head, let me make it plain that there is absolutely no danger of my falling in love with her. My interest is not that kind of interest. I am far too hard headed to be susceptible. I can appreciate the tragedy of a charming girl placed in such unsavory environment, and feel impelled to seek some way of escape for her without being for one moment disturbed by that unreasoning madness called love. Every student of psychology understands the nature and the danger of loving. 'Every sensible student profits by what he understands. You and I have had this out before and you know my unalterable determination never to allow myself to become the slave of those primitive and passing instincts. Nature, the old hussy, is welcome to the use of man as a tool for her own purposes. But there are enough tools without me. The race will not perish because I intend to remain my own man. But I shall have to evolve some way of helping Miss Farr. She cannot be left here under these conditions.
I am writing to Aunt Caroline, briefly, that I am immersed in study and that my return is indefinite. Don't, for heaven's sake, let her suspect that I have employed Miss Farr as secretary. You know Aunt Caroline's failing. Do be discreet!
Yours,B. H. S.
P.S.: Any arrangement I may find it necessary to propose in Miss Farr's case will be based on business, not sentiment. B.