Chapter 12

The reader of this history may have been conscious, from time to time, of a mysterious glow--now baleful, now rather cheerful, like the light from the tap-room of an inn--which has illuminated the horizon of the narrative. It appeared in certain allusions found in Mr. Alvord's conversation with Mr. Amidon during the episode of the Wrong House, and so terrified him as to give him thoughts of flight from Bellevale. It glared more brightly in the chat at the Club. It flamed concretely on our sight when Mr. Brassfield met its source on the street that day he made his fatal escape. Mr. Alvord slangily called it "the Strawberry Blonde." Mr. Brassfield very improperly pinched its elbow, and called it "Daise." It is high time that we put on our smoked glasses and look it in the face in such a formal introduction as will enable us to do it tardy justice--for we may have been guilty of misjudgment!

Miss Daisy Scarlett, sitting on a piano-stool, with one foot curled up under her, was entertaining Doctor Julia Brown and Miss Flossie Smith, who had called on her at the home of Major Pumphrey, her uncle. Miss Scarlett was well and shiveringly known in Bellevale, where she visited often, and was generally esteemed for her many good qualities of heart and mind, and for the infinite variety of her contributions to the sensations of a not over-turbulent social swim. Her entertainment in this instance consisted in readings from a certain book which must be regarded as an early literary imprudence of a most estimable and industrious, as well as improving writer--_Poems of Passion_. The particular selection rendered by Miss Scarlett was the one (unknown, I presume, to my readers--no, my dear, we haven't it) which informs us what the first person singular feminine, being invited into Paradise, would do if the third person singular masculine, down in the regions infernal, should open his beautiful arms and smile. Miss Scarlett read ill sentiments very well, and Miss Smith laid violent hands on herself and looked shocked.

"Oh, Daisy!" she exclaimed, "don't, please don't!"

"Oh, Flossie!" said Miss Daisy imitatively, "don't pretend! That poem is simply great!"

Doctor Brown laughed, quite in the manner of the bass villain in the comic opera.

"The dissecting table," said she, "brings all these beautiful arms and brows to the same dead level of tissue--unpoetical, but real."

Miss Scarlett liberated her foot, spun about, and dashed into a stormy prelude, modulating into the accompaniment to the refrain of Sullivan's _Once Again_, which she sang with much fervor.

She was about the height of a well-grown girl of twelve or thirteen, and had appealing eyes of delf blue, and a round face of peachy softness. Her hair was undeniably red, of a shade which put to shame such verbal mitigations as "auburn" or "golden," and was of tropic luxuriance and anarchistic disposition. It curled and uncurled and strayed all about her brow and neck like an explosion of spun lava. For the rest, had she really been a little girl of twelve, one would feel free to describe her as fat and roly-poly; but in the case of a young spinster of somewhere in her third decade, well-gowned and stayed and otherwise in physical subjection to the modiste, and singing of love like a diva, what can one say? No more than this, perhaps, that the fortunate man who carries her off the field a prize, will realize before he has got very far that he has captured something.

"Love, once again, meet me once again! Old love is waking; shall it wake in vain!"

Thus sang Miss Scarlett, ending with a fervid trill. Then she turned about, sitting with her feet very wide apart, and faced Doctor Brown.

"Dissecting table, indeed!" she burst forth. "I tell you, it's blasphemy to speak of making such use of a nice man! But, if I could pick 'em out, so as to be sure the right ones were dissected, I don't know but I'd agree."

Flossie Smith said that some of them ought to be put to _some_ use; and Doctor Brown, having reminded the company of her profession, merely laughed again.

"Here I am down from Allentown," Miss Scarlett proceeded, "on purpose to be stayed with flagons and comforted with apples, as I have been here in the past. I wanted to have a good sort of lackadaisical time with the nice boys here, and I've had to stay--I don't know how long--on a famine diet of women and girls, with Ella Wheeler for sauce. It makes me swearing mad!"

"I like that now!" said Flossie. "I really like that!"

"Well, I don't," Miss Scarlett went on. "I'm not used to it. To be left alone--oh, of course Billy Cox has been trying to butt in, but what good is he? My Hercules, my Roman Antony, who won my trusting heart last summer, at a time when I had just got it back from what I had thought a final and total loss--I find him away, and when he gets back, because, forsooth, he happens to be newly engaged, he's so wrapped up in a little thing like that, that he might as well have stayed in New York. He doesn't respond when I ring up his office on the telephone; he doesn't see me on the street---or, at least, only once--he seems scared. I've a good mind to give him something to _be_ scared about!"

"Your condition," said the doctor, "is verging on the pathological."

"I don't know what path it's verging on," was the reply, "but it isn't the primrose path of dalliance. There's some mystery in it."

"Go to Madame What's-Her-Name down at the hotel," said Flossie. "She has solved almost all the mysteries we used to have--for a consideration. And she is said to have superior facilities for observing this Great Brassfield Mystery of yours."

"I must!" replied Miss Scarlett, looking out of the window. "There's Billy Cox just going into his house! What a pity for a bachelor to have such a big house all to himself--it has filled me with sighs for the past week, that thought! Oh, girls, I've an idea! Let's call him over and have him take us down to her! Central! Give me 432, please. Is that you, Billy? This is Daisy. Don't you want to do something for me?--Oh, you behave, now! We want you to take us somewhere down town, so don't take off your coat. We'll explain when you come over. Good-by!"

"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Flossie. "_I_ don't care about Mr. Cox, nor his big house! And the doctor and I have just started----"

"Oh, we can't go," said the doctor, "but that won't break Daisy's heart; she didn't expect we would, did you?"

"Well, I shall be sorry not to have you go, of course," said Miss Scarlett. "But if you must go, how would it do for you to slip away before Billy, comes in, so as to leave him to me? I may be able to make something of Billy, if I'm allowed to have my way with him. _Must_ you go? So glad you called. Of course, we shall meet at our reception? Good-by!"

Madame le Claire looked amusedly down on Miss Scarlett. The bright-haired one was questioning her concerning her mystic art.

Could she see into the future?

Sometimes, when the conditions were right.

Could she read thoughts?

Let the lady judge, on the statement that two men, one with brown and the other with gray eyes, had been much in the lady's thoughts lately.

Marvelous! And could she tell what her thoughts in that connection had been? Well, never mind about that! Did she know about palmistry? And could she _really_ put people under her influence so that they must do as she willed? How nice that must be! And would she and the professor come up to the Pumphreys' reception and arrange to give a program of occult feats for the entertainment of the guests? Surely; they should be very glad; that was a part of their profession.

During these negotiations Mr. Cox waited outside, and Florian Amidon, meeting him in the lobby and being accosted as 'Gene, stopped for a talk, fearing to slight some dear but unknown friend. The word "'Gene" was becoming a sort of round shot across the bows in his Bellevale cruises. The parley (concerning wells and tanks) he cut as short as possible, and, passing on, started up the stairway.

Half-way up there was a broad landing, and as Florian turned on this, he saw at the head of the flight the blast-furnace of hair, the striking hat and the pleasantly rounded figure of Clara's visitor--a person to him quite unknown. Fate, however, seemed to have in store for him an extraordinary introduction, for instantly he was aware of the descent upon him of a fiery comet of femininity. The lady seemed to be falling down stairs. With a little cry she descended, partly flying, partly falling, partly sliding flown the baluster--a whirl of superheated hair, swirling skirts, and wide, appealing eyes of delf blue. Amidon caught her in his arms, and sought to place her gently on her feet: but in the pure chance and accident of the encounter, her arms had fallen about his neck, and she hung upon him in something like a hug.

"Oh! oh!" said she, "the idea of your flying to me like that! But it's nice of you!"

Amidon bowed distantly, and in evident embarrassment. Miss Scarlett drew herself up, as at an undeserved rebuke.

"I am very glad," said he, "to have been of any service, even at the risk of seeming familiarity, in saving you from a fall. I hope you will pardon me, a stranger, for so far----"

"A stranger!" she ejaculated; "oh, heavens! Leave me, 'Gene! Go away!"

The "Go away" was pronounced as Mr. Cox appeared at the foot of the stairs. Amidon passed on, now fully aware of having committed a _faux pas_. Looking back, he saw Miss Scarlett leaning against a newel-post as if in agitation; saw Mr. Cox come up and lead her down; and as she disappeared, leaning weakly on her escort's arm, the mop of rumpled hair faded from his sight like a receding fire-ship. Who could she be? Suddenly Alvord's whispered caution flashed on his mind, and he knew that he had encountered, embraced and repudiated the Strawberry Blonde. He paused for a moment to think over the situation--considerations of policy were coming more and more to appeal to him as guides, and he found himself feeling vulpine and furtive. But here, thought he, would it not really have been best to temporize with the situation, and not to have terminated all relations with Miss Scarlett in this public way? Would it not----

Then rolled over his heart the consciousness of the manifold glories of his Elizabeth's womanhood. Temporize with another woman? The very thought repelled him. He involuntarily brushed his coat where it had supported and encircled Miss Scarlett. He felt a sense of unworthiness in having, even of necessity and for a proper purpose, embraced this other girl. Looking up, he saw Judge Blodgett regarding him like a portly accusing angel from the head of the stairway. He made a feint at assisting Amidon in brushing his coat.

"Those red ones," said he, "are the very devil for showing on black! I'd carry a whisk-broom, if I were you!"

"Blodgett," said Amidon, "I don't care to be chaffed about an accident of that sort."

"Oh, certainly not!" said the judge. "But pick off the ringlets all the same. And say, Florian, of course I don't count, but there was another fellow at the foot of the stairs, the junior in the firm of Fuller and Cox, my fellow practitioners; and in accidents of this sort one sometimes does as much damage as a regular cloud of witnesses. And remember, if you won't use the letter of withdrawal, you're to be a good deal in the public eye, now."

Amidon moved on in disgust. And the poor faithful fellow, that his spiritual tone might be restored, sat down and read once more his Bible--the letter superscribed in the large, scrawly hand, "To be Read En Route."

XXI

SOME ALTERNATIONS IN THE CURRENT

One made himself a name for skill to trace To its last hiding-place, Each secret Mother Earth engaged to save, Of jungle, sea or cave. No path so devious but he mastered it; And, bit by bit, From off the face of mystery, he tore The veil she wore; Then, turning inward all his skill in seeing, To solve the knot of Being, In the deep crypts of Self fordone he lay, Quite cast away. --_Adventures in Egoism_.

Every morning, now, a box of flowers went up to Elizabeth, at the house with the white columns; and every evening Mr. Amidon bravely followed. The terror he felt of women was overpowered by the greater terror of losing this woman, and the fortitude and resolution he possessed in all other fields of action were returning to him. His violets and carnations she always wore for him, and all the roses except the red ones, which she put in vases and kept near her, but did not wear. She was ineffably kind and sweet, in a high and pure and far-off way fit for Olympus, but all the intimate little coquetries and tricks of charm with which she had at first received and disconcerted him were gone. She talked to him in that low voice of hers, but oftener she sat silent, and seemed to desire him to talk to her.

Since that first night, he could not bring himself to act a part, further than to assume the name and place of Eugene Brassfield. He stood afar off, looked at his divinity and worshiped. He read to her her favorite books, and ventured somewhat, out of his exceptional knowledge, to expound them--whereat she looked away and listened with something of the astonishment with which she had received his disquisitions on poetry and art on that first unlucky evening. For the most part, however, he, too, was inclined to silences, in which he looked at Elizabeth in the happiness of a lover's wretchedness. The love she had given to Brassfield seemed to him based on the deceitful pretensions of that wretch, and in any case it was not his, and he felt repelled from accepting it. He yearned to show her the soul of Florian Amidon, purified, adorned, and dedicated to her.

Once or twice she had hinted at something fateful which she wanted to say to him; but he had begged her to wait. After a few days of this slavish devotion of his, she seemed less aloof, not quite so much the unattainable goddess.

She gave him her hand, as usual, one evening at parting.

"I shall not expect to see you to-morrow," said she, "until we meet at the Pumphreys' reception. Until then, good-by."

"I thought," said he, "that if you would permit, I should like to call in the afternoon--say at three or four. May I?"

He looked so pleadingly at her, holding the little hand in both of his, that it is no wonder her color rose. It was like the worshipful inception of a new courtship.

"I shall be invisible," said she, "all day--so you must wait. You haven't any time to bother with me, anyhow. Haven't you your platform to complete? A public man must attend to public matters first, and, anyhow, I shall be denied to all my friends, and you must wait with the rest!"

"It is hard to wait," he answered, "when you are so near."

"I shall try to make amends," said she, "by endeavoring to be as beautiful as--as you used to describe me--at the reception. Good night! Good night!"

He once more violated the Brassfield traditions; he simply raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. To do more, he felt, would spoil all. She went in, more nearly happy than at any time since his return, but sorely puzzled. "I shall never understand him," she thought.

Mrs. Major Pumphrey, standing in line with Miss Scarlett and Mrs. Pumphrey's sister from Wisconsin; a procession of people coming in by twos and threes, and steered by attendants into rooms for doffing wraps; a chain of de-wrapped human beings circulating past the receiving line and listening to Mrs. Pumphrey's assurances that she was delighted to welcome them that she might have the pleasure of introducing them to her sister--and of course they knew Miss Scarlett; an Italian harper who played ceaselessly among palms; a punch-bowl presided over by Flossie Smith and Mrs. Alvord; a melange of black coats, pretty frocks and white arms and shoulders; a glare of lights; a hum like a hive's--in short, a reception. Such was the function to which Florian made his way, waiting until he could arrive concomitantly with the Waldron carriage so that he might hand the ladies therefrom, and receive from his divinity a little, uncertain pressure of the hand. Then came his respects to Mrs. Pumphrey. Amidon started as he recognized in the bright-haired second person in line his fairy of the balustrade.

"So delighted to see you here, Mr. Brassfield!" said Mrs. Pumphrey. "It gives me the opportunity of presenting you to--why, Daisy, where's your auntie gone? She was here just now!"

"She was called away for a few moments," said Miss Scarlett. "Yes, I believe Mr. Brassfield and I have met"--this with an icy bow--"and please, Mr. Cox, don't go, until I have told you the end of the story!" And she went on vivaciously chatting to Billy Cox, who had moored himself as close to her as the tide of guests sweeping by her would permit. Which current swept Mr. Amidon onward as he was in the act of assuring his hostess of his sense of loss in her sister's absence--until an eddy left him in a quiet corner, where he found absorbing occupation in trying to imagine again as vividly as possible that pressure of the hand. Was it meant as an evidence of affection?--or did her foot slip, so that she clung to his hand to prevent a fall? This question seemed of the most transcendent importance to him, and he debated it mentally all the evening, as he talked the set conversation of such an occasion. He knew no one; but every one knew him; yet he had no difficulty in getting on, because there was no sense in any of the conversation. He could answer all the remarks regarding his new role of political leader without committing himself to anything serious. Bright eyes flashed meaning and soulful glances into his, as sweet lips said things which he could answer quite as well as if the context of the conversation had been as familiar to him as it was supposed to be. Platitudes, generalities, inanities; and inanities, platitudes and generalities in reply. Amidon looked the part of Brassfield perfectly, and on occasions of this sort, to look the part is quite enough.

He found Elizabeth again, surrounded by a circle of admirers--men and women--an oasis of intelligence, it seemed to him as he listened, in a desert of twaddle. She smiled at him with her eyes, as he looked at her through the press, and just as he had won to a place by her side, the tide was sent flooding into a large room where, it was announced, Professor Blatherwick and Madame le Claire were doing feats of occultism.

"Laties ant shentlemen,"--it was the professor who spoke, "you are at liperty, of gourse, to adopt any t'eory vich seems to you goot to eggsblain dese phenomena. Madame le Claire offers none. Ven she hass broduced te phenomena, she iss--she iss all in! If dey seem to you to be de vork of tisempodied spirits, fery well--goot! Somedimes it seems so to her. If you rekard letchertemain as a sufficient vorking hypot'esis, vy, letchertemain goes, and upon dat hypot'esis ve vill gontinue to vork de miracles ant de public. Id iss kvite de same to Madame le Claire. It iss only fair to say, howefer, dat she hass nefer yet detected herself in any fraut. Bud she offers no eggsblanation; she chust gifes dese tests for your gonsiteration."

A ripple of laughter and a buzz of interested comment ran through the room.

"But how was it possible for her to get her hands loose?" said one.

"I assure you," said Mrs. Meyer, she of the _Parsifal_ impressions, and the wife of the Hebrew leader of the Gentile mob who went "down the line" for McCorkle the night before the caucuses, "I assure you that what she told me was unknown not only to every one else, but to me also; but it turned out true. It's uncanny!"

"It's humbug," said the bass voice of Doctor Brown, "and until you show me the source of this 'occult' energy, I shall so contend. Animal magnetism and sleight-of-hand! What do you think, Mrs. Hunter?"

Amidon looked across and saw--Mrs. Hunter, of Hazelhurst! It was she and her daughter from whom he had bashfully flown to the buffet, just before he alighted from the train at Elm Springs Junction. As he looked at her all the old life returned to him! He saw himself sitting with her and Minnie in the car, as she talked fashions to him and chattered her anticipations of the lovely time Minnie was to have with the family of Senator Fowler on the Maine coast. He saw Blodgett come in, and himself seize the opportunity to escape with his lawyer to the buffet. Then he saw the rural railway platform, the fading glory of the west--and then the waking in the sleeping-car! Could it all be possible?

"Do you know the lady talking with Doctor Brown?" he asked of Miss Waldron.

"Mrs. Hunter?" said Elizabeth questioningly. "Why, didn't you meet her when you came in? She is Mrs. Pumphrey's sister, of Hazelhurst, Wisconsin. She receives with Mrs. Pumphrey to-night."

"I thought it was Mrs. Hunter, as soon as I saw her," answered Amidon; "she is an old acquaintance of mine."

And it was some little time, so far had he forgotten his peculiar position, before the baleful possibilities of this innocent and truthful remark occurred to him. When he thought of it, any observing friend might well have inquired after his health, so gray with pallor and moist with sweat had his face become. Not that he felt hanging over him any such danger as he had feared when he found himself in the shoes of another man, with that other man unaccounted for. He really cared very little about _that_, now. The people of Bellevale, and Hazelhurst, too, might think what they pleased about this mystery of disappearance and reappearance: he was independent of them all, and those he really cared about would understand.

But Elizabeth! Everything now revolved about her. Now that she had grown so dear--that she had come to smile on him in his new character--how could he let her know that this Eugene Brassfield whom she so admired and loved, was no more for ever; and that Florian Amidon had never seen her, never loved her, never wooed her until these past few days! Would she ever see him again? Could she regard him as anything else than an interloper and an impostor? His right to Brassfield's clothes and Brassfield's fortune might be as clear as Judge Blodgett said; but would not Elizabeth feel that as to her he had attempted the very deed of which he had first suspected himself--fraud and robbery? And her "perfect lover," whom Amidon habitually thought of as "that fellow Brassfield"--all the perfections which Elizabeth had learned to attribute to him, would no longer be credited to Amidon. It was tragic!

As a matter of fact, beloved, any man would have been a perfect lover, or none at all, to Elizabeth. A perfect lover is the noblest work of woman.

"Te autience," went on the professor, "vill haf te eggstreme gourtesy to assist in a temonstration of Madame le Claire's power as a hypnotist. Not effery vun gan pe hypnoticed te fairst dime; bud ve vill try. Vill te autience bleace suchest te name of a laty or shentleman as a supchect?"

"Doctor Brown!" said many voices. "Alvord!" said others, but most of the votes appeared to be for Brassfield--a name which the professor hailed joyfully as insuring against failure. It is not often that the audience will hit on the only practised sensitive in the room.