Burton eyed him anxiously.
"Cigarette taste all right now?"
"Delicious!" Mr. Waddington replied. "Most exquisite tobacco! Makes me shiver inside to think how I could ever have smoked that other filthy rubbish."
"No idea of calling in at the Golden Lion on your way back, eh?" Burton persisted.
Mr. Waddington"s expression was full of reproach. "The very thought of that place, with its smell of stale beer and those awful creatures behind the bar, makes me shiver," he confessed. "I shall walk for an hour before lunch in Kensington Gardens. If I have a moment to spare I shall run into the Museum and spend a little time with the mosaics.
What a charming effect the sunlight has coming through those trees, Burton! I want you to come down and see my rooms sometime. I have picked up a few trifles that I think you would appreciate."
"I will come with pleasure," Burton replied. "This afternoon, if you could spare a few minutes?" the auctioneer suggested. "We might go around and look at that Romney which has just been unearthed. I have been to Christie"s three times already to see it, but I should like to take you. There"s something about the face which I don"t quite understand. There is a landscape there, too, just sent up from some country house, which I think would interest you."
Burton shook his head and moved feverishly towards his desk.
"I am going to work," he declared. "You have frightened me a little. I must economize time. I shall write a novel, a novel of real life. I must write it while I can still see the perfect truth."
CHAPTER XIII
PROOF POSITIVE
Burton did not get very far with his novel. About nine o"clock on the same evening, Mr. Waddington, who was spending a quiet hour or two with his books, was disturbed by a hasty knock at the door of his rooms. He rose with some reluctance from his chair to answer the summons.
"Burton!" he exclaimed.
Burton came quickly in. He was paler, even, than usual, and there were black shadows under his eyes. There was a change in his face, indescribable but very apparent. His eyes had lost their dreamy look, he glanced furtively about him, he had the air of a man who has committed a crime and fears detection. His dress was not nearly so neat as usual. Mr. Waddington, whose bachelor evening clothes--a loose dinner-jacket and carefully tied black tie--were exactly as they should be, glanced disparagingly at his visitor.
"My dear Burton," he gasped, "whatever is the matter with you? You seem all knocked over."
Burton had thrown himself into a chair. He was contemplating the little silver box which he had drawn from his pocket.
"I"ve got to take one of these," he muttered, "that"s all. When I have eaten it, there will be three left. I took the last one exactly two months and four days ago. At the same rate, in just eight months and sixteen days I shall be back again in bondage."
Mr. Waddington was very much interested. He was also a little distressed.
"Are you quite sure," he asked, "of your symptoms?"
"Absolutely certain," Burton declared sadly. "I found myself this evening trying to kiss my landlady"s daughter, who is not in the least good-looking. I was attracted by the programme of a music hall and had hard work to keep from going there. A man asked me the way to Leicester Square just now, and I almost directed him wrongly for the sheer pleasure of telling a lie. I nearly bought some ties at an outfitter"s shop in the Strand--such ties! It"s awful--awful, Mr. Waddington!"
Mr. Waddingon nodded his head compa.s.sionately.
"I suppose you know what you"re talking about," he said. "You see, I have already taken my second bean and to me the things that you have spoken of seem altogether incredible. I could not bring myself to believe that an absolute return to those former horrible conditions would be possible for either you or me. By the bye," he added, with a sudden change of tone, "I"ve just managed to get a photograph of the Romney I was telling you of."
Burton waved it away.
"It doesn"t interest me in the least," he declared gloomily. "I very nearly bought a copy of Ally Sloper on my way down here."
Mr. Waddington shivered.
"I suppose there is no hope for you," he said. "It is excessively painful for me to see you in this state. On the whole, I think that the sooner you take the bean, the better."
Burton suddenly sat up in his chair.
"What are those sheets of paper you have on the table?" he asked quickly.
"They are the sheets of paper left with the little flower-pot in the room of Idlemay House," Mr. Waddington answered. "I was just looking them through and wondering what language it was they were written in.
It is curious, too, that our friend should have only translated the last few lines."
Burton rose from his chair and leaned over the table, looking at them with keen interest.
"It was about those papers that I started out to come and see you," he declared. "There must be some way by which we could make the action of these beans more permanent. I propose that we get the rest of the pages translated. We may find them most valuable."
Mr. Waddington was rather inclined to favor the idea.
"I cannot think," he admitted, "why it never occurred to us before.
Whom do you propose to take them to?"
"There is some one I know who lives a little way down in the country,"
Burton replied. "He is a great antiquarian and Egyptologist, and if any one can translate them, I should think he would be able to. Lend me the sheets of ma.n.u.script just as they are, and I will take them down to him to-morrow. It may tell us, perhaps, how to deal with the plant so that we can get more of the beans. Eight months is no use to me. When I am like this, just drifting back, everything seems possible. I can even see myself back at Clematis Villa, walking with Ellen, listening to the band, leaning over the bar of the Golden Lion. Listen!"
He stopped short. A barrel organ outside was playing a music hall ditty. His head kept time to the music.
"I wish I had my banjo!" he exclaimed, impulsively. Then he shivered.
"Did you hear that? A banjo! I used to play it, you know."
Mr. Waddington looked shocked.
"The banjo!" he repeated. "Do you really mean that you want to play it at the present moment?"
"I do," Burton replied. "If I had it with me now, I should play that tune. I should play others like it. Everything seems to be slipping away from me. I can smell the supper cooking in my little kitchen at Clematis Villa. Delicious! My G.o.d, I can"t bear it any longer! Here goes!"
He took a bean from his pocket with trembling fingers and swallowed it.
Then he leaned back in his chair for several moments with closed eyes.
When he opened them again, an expression of intense relief was upon his face.
"I am coming back already," he declared faintly. "Thank Heavens! Mr.
Waddington, your room is charming, sir. j.a.panese prints, too! I had no idea that you were interested in them. That third one is exquisite.
And what a dado!"
"Hewlings himself designed it for me," Mr. Waddington observed, with satisfaction. "There are several things I should like you to notice, Burton. That lacquer-work box!"
Burton was already holding it in his fingers and was gazing at it lovingly.
"It is perfect," he admitted. "What workmanship! You are indeed fortunate, Mr. Waddington. And isn"t that Mona Lisa on the walls?
What a beautiful reproduction! I am saving up money even now to go to Paris to see the original. Only a few nights ago I was reading Pater"s appreciation of it."
He rose and wandered around the room, making murmured comments all the time. Presently he came back to the table and glanced down at the sheets of ma.n.u.script.