"Have you heard that for the first time?" asked his sister.
He looked up: "Yes. What was it, Nina?"
She became busy with her plate for a while; he sat rigid, patient, one hand resting on his claret-gla.s.s. And presently she said without meeting his eyes:
"It was even farther back--her grandparents--one of them--" She lifted her head slowly--"That is why it so deeply concerned us, Phil, when we heard of your marriage."
"What concerned you?"
"The chance of inheritance--the risk of the taint--of transmitting it.
Her father"s erratic brilliancy became more than eccentricity before I knew him. I would have told you that had I dreamed that you ever could have thought of marrying Alixe Varian. But how could I know you would meet her out there in the Orient! It was--your cable to us was like a thunderbolt... . And when she--she left you so suddenly--Phil, dear--I _feared_ the true reason--the only possible reason that could be responsible for such an insane act."
"What was the truth about her father?" he said doggedly. "He was eccentric; was he ever worse than that?"
"The truth was that he became mentally irresponsible before his death."
"You _know_ this?"
"Alixe told me when we were schoolgirls. And for days she was haunted with the fear of what might one day be her inheritance. That is all I know, Phil."
He nodded and for a while made some pretence of eating, but presently leaned back and looked at his sister out of dazed eyes.
"Do you suppose," he said heavily, "that _she_ was not entirely responsible when--when she went away?"
"I have wondered," said Nina simply. "Austin believes it."
"But--but--how in G.o.d"s name could that be possible? She was so brilliant--so witty, so charmingly and capriciously normal--"
"Her father was brilliant and popular--when he was young. Austin knew him, Phil. I have often, often wondered whether Alixe realises what she is about. Her restless impulses, her intervals of curious resentment--so many things which I remember and which, now, I cannot believe were entirely normal... . It is a dreadful surmise to make about anybody so youthful, so pretty, so lovable--and yet, it is the kindest way to account for her strange treatment of you--"
"I can"t believe it," he said, staring at vacancy. "I refuse to." And, thinking of her last frightened and excited letter imploring an interview with him and giving the startling reason: "What a scoundrel that fellow Ruthven is," he said with a shudder.
"Why, what has he--"
"Nothing. I can"t discuss it, Nina--"
"Please tell me, Phil!"
"There is nothing to tell."
She said deliberately: "I hope there is not, Phil. Nor do I credit any mischievous gossip which ventures to link my brother"s name with the name of Mrs. Ruthven."
He paid no heed to what she hinted, and he was still thinking of Ruthven when he said: "The most contemptible and cowardly thing a man can do is to fail a person dependent on him--when that person is in prospective danger. The dependence, the threatened helplessness _must_ appeal to any man! How can he, then, fail to stand by a person in trouble--a person linked to him by every tie, every obligation. Why--why to fail at such a time is dastardly--and to--to make a possible threatened infirmity a reason for abandoning a woman is monstrous--!"
"Phil! I never for a moment supposed that even if you suspected Alixe to be not perfectly responsible you would have abandoned her--"
"_I?_ Abandon _her!_" He laughed bitterly. "I was not speaking of myself," he said... . And to himself he wondered: "Was it _that_--after all? Is that the key to my dreadful inability to understand? I cannot--I cannot accept it. I know her; it was not that; it--it must not be!"
And that night he wrote to her:
"If he threatens you with divorce on such a ground he himself is likely to be adjudged mentally unsound. It was a brutal, stupid threat, nothing more; and his insult to your father"s memory was more brutal still. Don"t be stampeded by such threats. Disprove them by your calm self-control under provocation; disprove them by your discretion and self-confidence. Give n.o.body a single possible reason for gossip. And above all, Alixe, don"t become worried and morbid over anything you might dread as inheritance, for you are as sound to-day as you were when I first met you; and you shall not doubt that you could ever be anything else. Be the woman you can be! Show the pluck and courage to make the very best out of life. I have slowly learned to attempt it; and it is not difficult if you convince yourself that it can be done."
To this she answered the next day:
"I will do my best. There is danger and treachery everywhere; and if it becomes unendurable I shall put an end to it in one way or another. As for his threat--incident on my admitting that I did go to your room, and defying him to dare believe evil of me for doing it--I can laugh at it now--though, when I wrote you, I was terrified--remembering how mentally broken my father was when he died.
"But, as you say, I _am_ sound, body and mind. I _know_ it; I don"t doubt it for one moment--except--at long intervals when, apropos of nothing, a faint sensation of dread comes creeping.
"But I am _sound_! I know it so absolutely that I sometimes wonder at my own perfect sanity and understanding; and so clearly, so faultlessly, so precisely does my mind work that--and this I never told you--I am often and often able to detect mental inadequacy in many people around me--the slightest deviation from the normal, the least degree of mental instability. Phil, so sensitive to extraneous impression is my mind that you would be astonished to know how instantly perceptible to me is mental degeneration in other people. And it would amaze you, too, if I should tell you how many, many people you know are, in some degree, more or less insane.
"But there is no use in going into such matters; all I meant to convey to you was that I am not frightened now at any threat of that sort from him.
"I don"t know what pa.s.sed between you and him; he won"t tell me; but I do know from the servants that he has been quite ill--I was in Westchester that night--and that something happened to his eyes--they were dreadful for a while. I imagine it has something to do with veins and arteries; and it"s understood that he"s to avoid sudden excitement.
"However, he"s only serenely disagreeable to me now, and we see almost nothing of one another except over the card-tables. Gerald has been winning rather heavily, I am glad to say--glad, as long as I cannot prevent him from playing. And yet I may be able to accomplish that yet--in a roundabout way--because the apple-visaged and hawk-beaked Mr. Neergard has apparently become my slavish creature; quite infatuated. And as soon as I"ve fastened on his collar, and made sure that Rosamund can"t unhook it, I"ll try to make him shut down on Gerald"s playing. This for your sake, Phil--because you ask me. And because you must always stand for all that is upright and good and manly in my eyes. Ah, Phil! what a fool I was! And all, all my own fault, too.
"Alixe."
This ended the sudden eruption of correspondence; for he did not reply to this letter, though in it he read enough to make him gravely uneasy; and he fell, once more, into the habit of brooding, from which both Boots Lansing and Eileen had almost weaned him.
Also he began to take long solitary walks in the Park when not occupied in conferences with the representatives of the Lawn Nitro-Powder Works--a company which had recently approached him in behalf of his unperfected explosive, Chaosite.
This hermit life might have continued in town indefinitely had he not, one morning, been surprised by a note from Eileen--the first he had ever had from her.
It was only a very brief missive--piquant, amusing, innocently audacious in closing--a mere reminder that he had promised to write to her; and she ended it by asking him very plainly whether he had not missed her, in terms so frank, so sweet, so confident of his inevitable answer, that all the enchantment of their delightful intimacy surged back in one quick tremor of happiness, washing from his heart and soul the clinging, sordid, evil things which were creeping closer, closer to torment and overwhelm him.
And all that day he went about his business quite happily, her letter in his pocket; and that night, taking a new pen and pen holder, he laid out his very best letter-paper, and began the first letter he had ever written to Eileen Erroll.
"DEAR EILEEN: I have your charming little note from Silverside reminding me that I had promised to write you. But I needed no reminder; you know that. Then why have I not written? I couldn"t, off-hand. And every day and evening except to-day and this evening I have been in conference with Edgerton Lawn and other representatives of the Lawn Nitro-Powder Company; and have come to a sort of semi-agreement with them concerning a high explosive called Chaosite, which they desire to control the sale of as soon as I can control its tendency to misbehave. This I expect to do this summer; and Austin has very kindly offered me a tiny cottage out on the moors too far from anybody or anything to worry people.
"I know you will be glad to hear that I have such attractive business prospects in view. I dare say I shall scarcely know what to do with my enormous profits a year or two hence. Have you any suggestions?
"Meanwhile, however, your letter and its questions await answers; and here they are:
"Yes, I saw Gerald once at his club and had a short talk with him.
He was apparently well. You should not feel so anxious about him.
He is very young, yet, but he comes from good stock. Sooner or later he is bound to find himself; you must not doubt that. Also he knows that he can always come to me when he wishes.
"No, I have not ridden in the Park since you and Nina and the children went to Silverside. I walked there Sunday, and it was most beautiful, especially through the Ramble. In his later years my father was fond of walking there with me. That is one reason I go there; he seems to be very near me when I stand under the familiar trees or move along the flowering walks he loved so well. I wish you had known him. It is curious how often this wish recurs to me; and so persistent was it in the Park that lovely Sunday that, at moments, it seemed as though we three were walking there together--he and you and I--quite happy in the silence of companionship which seemed not of yesterday but of years.
"It is rather a comforting faculty I have--this unconscious companionship with the absent. Once I told you that you had been with me while you supposed yourself to be at Silverside. Do you remember? Now, here in the city, I walk with you constantly; and we often keep pace together through crowded streets and avenues; and in the quiet hours you are very often, seated not far from where I sit... . If I turned around now--so real has been your presence in my room to-night--that it seems as though I could not help but surprise you here--just yonder on the edges of the lamp glow--
"But I know you had rather remain at Silverside, so I won"t turn around and surprise you here in Manhattan town.
"And now your next question: Yes, Boots is well, and I will give him Drina"s love, and I will try my best to bring him to Silverside when I come. Boots is still crazed with admiration for his house.
He has two cats, a housekeeper, and a jungle of shrubs and vines in the back yard, which he plays the hose on; and he has also acquired some really beautiful old rugs--a Herez which has all the tints of a living sapphire, and a charming antique Shiraz, rose, gold, and that rare old Persian blue. To mention symbols for a moment, apropos of our archaeological readings together, Boots has an antique Asia Minor rug in which I discovered not only the Swastika, but also a fire-altar, a Rhodian lily border, and a Mongolian motif which appears to resemble the cloud-band. It was quite an Anatshair jumble in fact, very characteristic. We must capture Nina some day and she and you and I will pay a visit to Boots"s rugs and study these old dyes and mystic symbols of the East. Shall we?
"And now your last question. And I answer: Yes, I do miss you--so badly that I often take refuge in summoning you in spirit. The other day I had occasion to see Austin; and we sat in the library where all the curtains are in linen bags and all the furniture in overalls, and where the rugs are rolled in tarred paper and the pictures are m.u.f.fled in cheese-cloth.