Chapter 4

"I suppose I'm to carry it with me, and when an acquaintance accosts me on the street, I'm to look him up in the index and find out who he is, before I decide whether to shake hands with him or cut him, am I?"

"Not exactly that way," said the judge; "that wouldn't be practicable, you know; but it's ten to one you'll find his name there. I tell you, that compilation----"

"Te tifision into gategories," broke in the professor, "according to te brinciples of lotchik was te chutche's itea. A vonderfully inchenious blan. It vill enaple you----"

"Has it any plan of reference," interrupted Amidon, "by which I shall be enabled to find out about a man when I don't know who he is?"

"N--no."

"Or, in such a case, to give me knowledge of my past relations with him, or whether I like him or hate him?"

"Of course," said the judge, "we only try to do the possible. The law requires no man to do more."

"Does this thing," said Amidon, shaking it in evident disgust, "tell where I live in Bellevale, whether in lodgings or at a hotel, or in my own house? Could I take it and find my home?"

"Damn it, Florian!" said the judge, "I'm not here to be jumped on, am I? No one can remember everything all the time. We'll get those things and put them into a supplement, you know."

"Not for me," said Florian. "I've made up my mind definitely about this. I'll not depend on it. If I go back to Bellevale, I must have at hand at all times the means of connecting things as I find them with the life of this Brassfield. I must take with me the bridge which spans the chasm between Brassfield and Amidon--I mean our friend Clara. Without her, I shall never go back. I haven't the nerve. I should soon find myself in a tangle of mistakes from which I could never extricate myself--I've thought it all out. The Cretan Labyrinth would be like going home from school, in comparison."

"Pshaw!" said the judge, looking lovingly at Blodgett's _Notes on the Compiled Statements of Brassfield_, "you could feel your way along very well--with these."

"Would you go into the trial of a case," said Florian, "no matter how simple, in which not only your own future, but the happiness of others, might be involved, without even a speaking acquaintance with any of the parties, or one of the witnesses? I tell you, Judge, we must have Madame le Claire."

The judge rolled up the notes and snapped a rubber band about the roll. He said no more until evening.

"Then," said he, as if he had only just made up his mind to concede the point, "let's see if it can be arranged at once. Come over to the Blatherwicks' with me."

"I think," said Amidon slowly, "that I'll see her alone."

"Alone, yes--yes!" said the judge, changing an interjection into an assent. "By all means; by all means. Only don't you think there may be things down there needing attention, Florian--money matters--and--and other things, you know, my boy--and that we ought to be moving in the matter? I would respectfully urge," he concluded, using his orator's chest-tones to drown Amidon's protest against his joking, "that no time be lost in deciding on our course."

The judge had noted the increasing dependence of his client on the fair hypnotist, and the growing interest that she seemed to feel in him, and therefore showed some coolness toward the proposal to take her to Bellevale. The eyes inured to the perusal of dusty commentaries and reports were still sharp enough to see the mutual tenderness exchanged in the unwavering, eye-to-eye encounters whereby Amidon was converted into Brassfield, and to note the softness of the feline strokings by which Florian's catalepsy was induced or dispelled. He rather favored dropping the Blatherwick acquaintance: but he could not answer Amidon's arguments as to their need for its continuance.

So it was that, about the time when Elizabeth Waldron sat in the summer-house at Bellevale, with tears of disappointment in her pretty eyes, holding poor Florian's best-he-could-do but ineffective letter all crumpled up in her hand, the tigrine Le Claire rested her elbows upon a window-ledge in the attitude of gazing into the street (it was all attitude, for she saw nothing), and was disturbed by Aaron, who brought in Mr. Florian Amidon's penciled card. She gave a few pokes to her hair, of course, turned once or twice about before her mirror, and went into the parlor.

"The judge and your father," said Amidon, "have got up a wonderful guide from notes of this man Brassfield's talk."

"Yes," said she with a smile; "they are wonderful."

"And perfectly useless," he continued, "so far as my steering by them in Bellevale is concerned."

"As useless," she admitted, "as can be."

"You knew that?" he inquired. "Then why did you let them go on with it?"

"That's good," said she. "I like that! I was nicely situated to mention it, wasn't I?"

"The fact is, Clara," said he, "as you can see, that I've got to have you at Bellevale. I shall not go down there without you. I can't do it. I've thought it all out----"

"So have I," said she. "I knew that you'd have to have me--for a little while; knew it all the time. I was just thinking about it as you came up."

"Then can you--will you go?"

"Can I stay, Florian?" she inquired steadily. "Can I leave you like a just-cured blind and deaf man, and my work for you only begun? I must go! We were just talking about our going to Bellevale, as you came in, papa. Mr. Amidon will need us for a while when he first gets there."

"Surely, surely," said the professor. "Te most inderesting phaces of dis case vill arise in Bellevale. I grave te brifiletche of geeping you unter my opsairfation until--until to last dog is hunk! Let us despatch Chutche Blotchett to spy out te landt. In a day or two he can tiscofer vere dis man Brassfield lifes, vere te fair Fraulein Elizabeth resides, and chenerally get on to te logal skitivation. He vill meet up with us at te train, and see that ve don't put our foots in it. Ve vill dus be safed te mortification of hafing Alderman Brassfield, chairman of te street committee, asking te boliceman te vay to his lotchings; or te fiance of Miss Valdering bassing her on te street vit a coldt, coldt stare of unrecognition or embracing her young laty friendt py mistake. Goot! Let te chutche dake his tebarture fortwith. Clara and I vill be charmed and habby, my friendt, to aggompany you. Supliminally gonsidered, it vill be great stuff!"

IX

IN DARKEST PENNSYLVANIA

The good God gave hands, left and right, To deal with divers foes in fight; And eyes He gave all sights to hold; And limbs for pacings manifold; Gave tongue to taste both sour and sweet, Gave gust for salad, fish and meat; But, Christian Sir, whoe'er thou art, Trust not thy many-chambered heart! Give not one bow'r to Blonde, and yet Retain a room for the Brunette: Whoever gave each other part, The devil planned and built the heart! --_In a Double Locket_.

Clara, Amidon and Blatherwick were on their way to Bellevale. The professor was in the smoking-car, his daughter and Florian in the parlor-car. Amidon, his nerves strained to the point of agony, sat dreading the end of the journey, as one falling from an air-ship might shrink from the termination of his. Madame le Claire brooded over him maternally.

"Of course," said Amidon, "this Brassfield must have adopted some course of behavior toward Miss Waldron, when----"

"You must call her Elizabeth," said Madame le Claire, "and----"

"And what?" he inquired, as she failed to break the pause. "Have you found out--much--about it--from him?"

"Not so very much," she replied, "only she'll expect such things as 'dearest' and 'darling' at times. And occasionally 'pet' and 'sweetheart'--and 'dearie.' I can't give them all; you must extemporize a little, can't you?"

"Merciful heaven!" groaned Amidon; "I can't do it!"

"You have," said Madame le Claire; "and more--a good deal more."

"It was that scoundrel Brassfield," said he, in perfect seriousness. "More? What do you mean by 'more'?"

"Well, sometimes you----"

"He, not I!"

"You, I think we had better say--sometimes, when you were alone, your arm went about her waist; her head was drawn down upon your bosom; and with your hand, you turned her face to yours, and----"

"Clara, stop!" Amidon's bashful being was wrung to the sweating-point as he uttered the cry. "I never could have done it! And do you mean to say I must now act up to a record of that kind--and with a strange woman? She--she won't permit it---- Oh, you must be mistaken! How do you know this?"

Madame le Claire blushed, and seemed to want words for a reply. Amidon repeated the question.

"I want to know if you are sure," said he. "To make a mistake in that direction would be worse than the other, you know."

"Ah, would it?" said Clara; "I didn't know that!"

"Oh! I think we may take that for granted."

"You really don't get a grain of good from your Brassfield experience," said she, "or you'd know better." Here ensued a long silence, during which Amidon appeared to be pondering on her extraordinary remark.

"But, as to the fact," urged he at last, "how can you guess out any such state of things as you describe?"

"Can't _you_ guess a little bit more once in a while? I know about it, from Mr. Brassfield's treatment--of--of me--when I made him think--that I--was Elizabeth! Oh, don't you see that I had to do it, so as to know, and tell you? Oh, I wish I had never, never begun this! I do, I do!"

A parlor-car has no conveniences whatever for heroics, hysterics or weeping, so miserably are our American railways managed; and Clara winked back into her eyes the tears which filled them, and Amidon looked at her tenderly.

"Did I, really," said he confusedly--"to you?"

"M'h'm," said Madame le Claire, nodding affirmatively; "I couldn't stop you!"

"It must have been dreadful--for you," said Amidon.

"Awful," said she; "but the work had to be done, you know."

"Oh, if it were you, now," said he, laying his hand on hers, "I could do it, if you didn't mind. I--I should like to, you know."

"Now see here," said Clara; "if you're just practising this, as a sort of rehearsal, you must go further and faster than a public place like this allows, or you'll seem cold by comparison with what has passed. If you mean what you say, let me remind you that you're engaged!"

Mr. Amidon swore softly, but sincerely. Somehow, the pitiful case of the girl who had written that letter with which he had fallen in love, had less and less of appeal to him as the days drifted by. And now, while the duty of which he had assured himself still impelled him to her side, he confessed that this other girl with the variegated hair and eyes, and the power to annihilate and restore him, the occultist with the thrilling gaze and the strong, supple figure, was calling more and more to the aboriginal man within him. So, while he took Elizabeth's letters from his pocket and read them, to get, if possible, some new light on her character, it was Clara's face that his eyes sought, as he glanced over the top of the sheet. Ah, Florian, with one girl's love-letter in your hands, and the face of another held in that avid gaze, can you be the bashful banker-bachelor who could not discuss the new style of ladies' figures with Mrs. Hunter! And as we thus moralize, the train sweeps on and on, and into Bellevale, where Judge Blodgett waits upon the platform for our arrival.

The judge stood by the steps to seize upon Amidon as he alighted. That gentleman and Madame le Claire, however, perversely got off at the other end of the car. As they walked down the platform, Florian met his first test, in the salutation of a young woman in a tailor-made gown, who nodded and smiled to him from a smart trap at a short distance from the station, where she seemed to be waiting for some one.

"Any baggage, Mr. Brassfield?" said a drayman.

"Yes," said Amidon; "take the checks."

"Do these go to the hotel, or----" The man waited for directions.

"I don't--that is," said the poor fellow, "I really---- Just wait a minute! Judge," this in a whisper to his friend, who had reached his side, "this is terrible! Where do I want to go?--and for the love of Heaven, where does this hound take my luggage?"

"Your lodgings at the Bellevale House!" returned the judge.

"To my lodgings at the Bellevale House," announced Amidon.

"And say," said the judge, "don't look that way; but the young woman in the one-horse trap across the way is your intended."

"No!" said Amidon. "I lifted my hat to her--she nodded to me, you know!"

"The devil!" said the judge; "I'll bet you didn't put any more warmth than a clam into your manner. Well, you'll have to go over, and she'll take you up-town, I suppose. Don't stay with her long, if you can help it, and come to me at the hotel as soon as you can. She's been driving over to see who got off every New York train ever since I came. Go to her, and may the Lord be merciful to you! Here are these notes, if you think they'll help you any--I've added some to 'em since I got down here."

Amidon waved a contemptuous rejection of the notes, and, casting a despairing glance at Madame le Claire, walked over toward his fate. He could have envied the lot of the bull-fighter advancing into the fearful radius of action of a pair of gory horns. He would gladly have changed places with the gladiator who hears the gnashing of bared teeth behind the slowly-opening cage doors. To walk up to the mouths of a battery of hostile Gatlings would have seemed easy, as compared with this present act of his, which was nothing more than stepping to the side of a carriage in which sat a girl, for a place near whom any unattached young man in Bellevale would willingly have placed his eternal welfare in jeopardy.

Point by point, the girl's outward seeming met Amidon's eyes as he neared her. From the platform, it was an impressionistic view of a well-kept trap and horse, and a young woman wearing a picture-hat with a sweeping plume, habited in a gown of modish tailoring, and holding the reins in well-gauntleted hands. As he reached the middle of the street-crossing, the face, surmounted by dark hair, began to show its salient features--great dark eyes, strongly-marked brows, and a strong, sweet mouth with vivid lips. Then came the impression of a form held erect, with the strong shoulders and arms which come from athletics, and the roundnesses which denote that superb animal, the well-developed woman. But it was only as he stood by the side of the carriage that he saw and felt the mingled dignity and frankness, the sureness and lightness of touch, with which she acted or refrained from acting; the lack of haste, the temperateness of gesture and intonation, which bespoke in a moment that type of woman which is society's finished product.

Her lips were parted in a half-smile; the great dark eyes sought his in the calling glance which seeks its companion; and in the face and voice there was something tremulous, vibrant and pleadingly anxious. Yet she did and said only commonplaces. She gave him her hand, and threw over the lap-robe as an invitation for him to take the seat beside her.

"I am glad to see you back, dear," said she, "and a little surprised."

"I hardly expected to come on this train," he answered, "until the very hour of starting. I can--hardly say--how glad I am--to be here."

She was silent, as she drove among the drays and omnibuses, out into the open street. He looked searchingly, though furtively, at her, and blushed as if he had been detected in staring at a girl in the street as she suddenly looked him straight in the face.

"Have you been ill, Eugene?" said she. "You look so worn and tired."

"I have had a very hard time of it since I left," said he; "and have been far from well."

She patted him lightly with her glove.

"You must be careful of yourself," said she, and paused as if to let him supply her reasons for so saying. "I hope your trouble is over, dear."

"Thank you," said he. "I am sure that after a few hours in my rooms, I shall be quite refreshed. Will you please put me down at the Bellevale House? I shall beg the privilege of calling soon."

"Why!" She looked swiftly at him, looked at the horse, and again at him. "Soon?" she went on, as if astonished. "I shall be alone this evening--if you care about it!"

"Oh, yes!" said he confusedly, "this evening, yes! I meant sooner--in a few minutes, you know!"

"No," said she, in that tone which surely denotes the raising of the drawbridge of pique; "you must rest until this evening. Who is the old gentleman who has been waiting two or three days to see you?"

"Judge Blodgett, an old friend," said he, relieved to find some matter with reference to which he could tell the truth.

"And the queer-looking lady--do you know her?"

"Oh, yes!" said Amidon; "she is a good friend, too."

"Ah!" the girl answered, in a tone which said almost anything, but was not by any means without significance. "And who is she?"

"Her professional name is Madame le Claire; in private life, she is Miss Blatherwick."

"I didn't see the rest of the troupe," said Miss Waldron icily; "or perhaps she's an elocutionist."

"No," said Amidon, "she's an occultist--a sort of--well, a hypnotist."

There was a long pause here, during which they drew near to the big brick building on the side of which Amidon saw the sign of the Bellevale House.

"Also an old friend?" inquired Miss Waldron.

"Oh, no!" said Florian; "I met her only a week or two ago."

"She must be very charming," said Elizabeth, "to have inspired so much friendship in so short a time. Here we are at the hotel. Do you really think you'll call this evening? _Au revoir_, then."

Even the unsophisticated Amidon could perceive, now, that the drawbridge was up, the portcullis down, and all the bars and shutters of the castle in place. Moreover, in the outer darkness in which he moved, he imagined there roamed lions and wolves and ravening beasts--and he with no guide but Judge Blodgett, who stands there in the lobby, so wildly beckoning to him.

X

THE WRONG HOUSE

When Adam strayed In Eden's bow'rs, One little maid Amused his hours. He fell! But, friend, I leave to you Where he'd have dropped Had there been two! --_Paradise Rehypothecated_.

"Now, Florian," said Judge Blodgett, as they sat in Amidon's rooms, "search yourself, and see if you don't feel a dreamy sense of familiarity here in these rooms--the feeling that the long-lost heir has when he crawls down the chimney as a sweep and finds himself in his ancestral halls, you know."

"Never saw a thing here before," said Amidon, "and have no feeling except surprise at the elegance about me, and a sneaking fear that Brassfield may come in at any time and eject us. The fellow had taste, anyhow!"

"Didn't you recognize anything," went on the judge, "in the streets or buildings or the general landscape?"

"Nothing."

"Nor in the young lady? Wasn't there a sort of--of music in her voice, like long-forgotten melodies, you understand--like what the said heir notices in after years when his mother blunders on to him?"

"Well," said Florian, "her voice is musical, if that's what you mean--musical and low, and reminds one of the sounds made by a great master playing his heart out in the lowest notes of the flute; but it is so far from being familiar to me that I'm quite sure I never heard a voice like it before."

The judge strode up and down the room perturbedly.

"Why," said he, "it's enough to make a man's hair stand!"

"It does," said Amidon. "What can I say to her?"

"You haven't a piece of property here," said the judge, going on with the matters uppermost in his mind, "that you could successfully maintain replevin for, if anybody converted it. They'd ask you on cross-examination if it was yours, and you'd have to say you didn't know! And there's a world of property, I find. They could take it all away from you without your knowing it, if they only knew. Have you any course mapped out--any plans?"

"To a certain extent, yes," said Florian. "I shall call on her this evening."

"For help, yes," said the judge. "She must bring Brassfield up, so that we can find out about some property matters."

"I don't mean that," said Amidon. "I must call on Miss Waldron--Elizabeth."

"And neglect----" began the judge.

"Everything," said Florian firmly. "This is something that concerns my honor as a gentleman. While it remains in its present state, I can't bother with these property matters. Have I an office?"

"Have you!" said the judge. "Well, just wait until you see them."

"And an office force?"

"Confidential manager named Stevens, as per the notes,"; said Judge Blodgett. "Bookkeeper, assistant bookkeeper and stenographer. Tried to pump 'em and got frozen out. Yes, you've got an office force."

"Well, then," said Amidon, "we'll go down there in the morning, and I'll tell this man Stevens--is that what you call him?--to show you all through the books and things--going to buy or take a partnership, or something. Then we can go through the business together. We can do it that way, without being suspected, can't we?"

"Maybe," meditatively, "maybe we can. Take a sort of invoice, hey? But don't you think we'd better have Brassfield on the witness-stand for a while this evening? A sort of cramming--coaching--review, on the eve of trial, you know?"

"No, no!" answered Florian. "No more of that, if it can be avoided."

The judge stroked his mustache in silence for a time.

"See here," asked he finally, "what did we bring madame and the professor down here for, anyway, I'd like to know?"

"I know," said Amidon, "but, somehow, I feel like getting along without it if I can. As little of her--of their--services as possible, Judge, from now on."

"Oh!" said the judge, in a tone of one who suddenly sees the situation; "all right, Florian, all right. Maybe it's best, maybe it's best. Abnormal condition, as the professor says, and all that; effect on the mind, and one thing and another. Yes--yes--yes!"

"If I have any duties to perform here, Judge, you must help me to keep straight. I've never had much tendency to go wrong, you know, but that was for lack of temptation, don't you think, Blodgett?"

"Well, well, Florian, I can't say as to that; can't say. Yes--and say! You'll want to go over to the Waldron residence this evening. I'll take you out and show you the house. By George! It must seem extraordinarily odd to walk about among things you are supposed to know like a book, and to be, in fact, a perfect stranger. Dante could have used that idea, if it had occurred to him."

"An idea for Dante, indeed!" thought Amidon, as he walked toward the house, which, from afar, the judge had pointed out to him. "For the _Inferno_: a soul thrown into a realm full of its friends and enemies, its loves and hates, shorn of memory, of all sense of familiarity, of all its habits, stripped of all the protection of habitude. For the _Inferno_, indeed!--Now this must be the house, with the white columns running up to the top of the second story; crossing the ravine and losing sight of it for a few minutes makes even the house look different. Outside, I can get accustomed to it, in this five-minute inspection. But, inside--oh, to be invisible while I get used to it! Well, here goes!"

"Ding-a-ling-ting-ting!" rang the bell somewhere back in the recesses of the house, and the footsteps of a man approached the door. Amidon was frightened. He had expected either Elizabeth herself, or a maid to take his card, and was prepared for such an encounter only. A little dark, bright-eyed man opened the door and seized his hand.