"Have you nothing to say?"
"Nothing, except that your story is unique, and that I suppose I am flattered by your confidence." His voice was intentionally brusque.
Chilcote paid no attention to the voice. Taking a step forward, he laid his fingers on the lapel of Loder"s coat.
"I have pa.s.sed the stage where I can count upon myself," he said, "and I want to count upon somebody else. I want to keep my place in the world"s eyes and yet be free--"
Loder drew back involuntarily, contempt struggling with bewilderment in his expression.
Chilcote lifted his head. "By an extraordinary chance," he said, "you can do for me what no other man in creation could do. It was suggested to me unconsciously by the story of a book--a book in which men change ident.i.ties. I saw nothing in it at the time, but this morning, as I lay in bed, sick with yesterday"s fiasco, it came back to me--it rushed over my mind in an inspiration. It will save me--and make you. I"m not insulting you, though you"d like to think so."
Without remark Loder freed himself from the other"s touch and walked back to his desk. His anger, his pride, and, against his will, his excitement were all aroused.
He sat down, leaned his elbow on the desk and took his face between his hands. The man behind him undoubtedly talked madness; but after five years of dreary sanity madness had a fascination. Against all reason it stirred and roused him. For one instant his pride and his anger faltered before it, then common-sense flowed back again and adjusted the balance.
"You propose," he said, slowly, "that for a consideration of money I should trade on the likeness between us--and become your dummy, when you are otherwise engaged?"
Chilcote colored. "You are unpleasantly blunt," he said.
"But I have caught your meaning?"
"In the rough, yes."
Loder nodded curtly. "Then take my advice and go home," he said. "You"re unhinged."
The other returned his glance, and as their eyes met Loder was reluctantly compelled to admit that, though the face was disturbed, it had no traces of insanity.
"I make you a proposal," Chilcote repeated, nervously but with distinctness. "Do you accept?"
For an instant Loder was at a loss to find a reply sufficiently final.
Chilcote broke in upon the pause.
"After all," he urged, "what I ask of you is a simple thing. Merely to carry through my routine duties for a week or two occasionally when I find my endurance giving way--when a respite becomes essential. The work would be nothing to a man in your state of mind, the pay anything you like to name." In his eagerness he had followed Loder to the desk.
"Won"t you give me an answer? I told you I am neither mad nor drunk."
Loder pushed back the scattered papers that lay under his arm.
"Only a lunatic would propose such a scheme." he said, brusquely and without feeling.
"Why?"
The other"s lips parted for a quick retort; then in a surprising way the retort seemed to fail him. "Oh, because the thing isn"t feasible, isn"t practicable from any point of view."
Chilcote stepped closer. "Why?" he insisted.
"Because it couldn"t work, man! Couldn"t hold for a dozen hours."
Chilcote put out his hand and touched his arm. "But why?" he urged.
"Why? Give me one unanswerable reason."
Loder shook off the hand and laughed, but below his laugh lay a suggestion of the other"s excitement. Again the scene stirred him against his sounder judgment; though his reply, when it came, was firm enough.
"As for reasons--" he said. "There are a hundred, if I had time to name them. Take it, for the sake of supposition, that I were to accept your offer. I should take my place in your house at--let us say at dinnertime. Your man gets me into your evening-clothes, and there, at the very start, you have the first suspicion set up. He has probably known you for years--known you until every turn of your appearance, voice, and manner is far more familiar to him than it is to you. There are no eyes like a servant"s."
"I have thought of that. My servant and my secretary can both be changed. I will do the thing thoroughly."
Loder glanced at him in surprise. The madness had more method than he had believed. Then, as he still looked, a fresh idea struck him, and he laughed.
"You have entirely forgotten one thing," he said. "You can hardly dismiss your wife."
"My wife doesn"t count."
Again Loder laughed. "I"m afraid I scarcely agree. The complications would be slightly--slightly--" He paused.
Chilcote"s latent irritability broke out suddenly. "Look here," he said, "this isn"t a chaffing matter, It may be moonshine to you, but it"s reality to me."
Again Loder took his face between his hands.
"Don"t ridicule the idea. I"m in dead earnest."
Loder said nothing.
"Think--think it over before you refuse."
For a moment Loder remained motionless; then h rose suddenly, pushing back his chair.
"Tush, man! You don"t know what you say. The fact of your being married bars it. Can"t you see that?"
Again Chilcote caught his arm.
"You misunderstand," he said. "You mistake the position. I tell you my wife and I are nothing to each other. She goes her way; I go mine. We have our own friends, our own rooms. Marriage, actual marriage, doesn"t enter the question. We meet occasionally at meals, and at other people"s houses; sometimes we go out together for the sake of appearances; beyond that, nothing. If you take up my life, n.o.body in it will trouble you less than Eve--I can promise that." He laughed unsteadily.
Loder"s face remained unmoved.
"Even granting that," he said, "the thing is still impossible."
"Why?"
"There is the House. The position there would be untenable. A man is known there as he is known in his own club." He drew away from Chilcote"s touch.
"Very possibly. Very possibly." Chilcote laughed quickly and excitedly.
"But what club is without its eccentric member? I am glad you spoke of that. I am glad you raised that point. It was a long time ago that I hit upon a reputation for moods as a shield for--for other things, and, the more useful it has become, the more I have let it grow. I tell you you might go down to the House to-morrow and spend the whole day without speaking to, even nodding to, a single man, and as long as you were I to outward appearances no one would raise an eyebrow. In the same way you might vote in my place ask a question, make a speech if you wanted to--"
At the word speech Loder turned involuntarily For a fleeting second the coldness of his manner dropped and his face changed.
Chilcote, with his nervous quickness of perception, saw the alteration, and a new look crossed his own face.
"Why not?" he said, quickly. "You once had ambitions in that direction.
Why not renew the ambitions?"