The entrance of Mrs. Wood, senior, ended their dialogue, and he went away with a sense of having failed to win Leo"s respect and confidence, as he had hoped to do. "She considers me a kid," he muttered, discontentedly. "But she will change her mind one of these days."
He spent the morning with his mother, but toward noon he grew restless and went down into the library, wherein he had observed several bound volumes of the report of The Psychical Society. He fell to reading a long article upon "multiple personality," and followed this by the close study of an essay on hysteria, and when Mrs. Joyce called him to lunch he was like a man awakened from deep sleep. These articles, filled with new and bewildering conceptions of the human organism, were after all entirely materialistic in their outcome. Personality was not a unit, but a combination, and the whole discussion served but to throw him into mental confusion and dismay.
At lunch Mrs. Joyce proposed that they all take an automobile ride round the city and end up with a dinner at the Club; and seeing no chance for doing anything along the line of securing employment, Victor consented to the expedition.
The weather was glorious, and the troubled youth"s brain cleared as if the sweet, cool, lake wind had swept away the miasma which his experience of the darker side of the city had placed there. He surrendered himself to the pleasure, the luxury of it recklessly. How could he continue to brood over his future with a lovely girl by his side and a sweet and tender spring landscape unrolling before him?
They fairly belted the city in their run, and in the end, as they went sweeping down the curving driveway of the lake, Mrs. Ollnee"s face was delicately pink and her eyes were bright with happiness. To her son she seemed once more the lovely and delicate figure of his boyhood"s admiration. It seemed that her death-like trance had been a horrible dream.
The ride, the club-house, the dinner, were all luxurious to the point of bewilderment to Victor, but he did not betray his uneasiness. He was only a little more silent, a little more meditative, as he took his place at the finely decorated table in the pavilion which faced upon the water. He determined (for the day at least) to accept everything that came his way. This recklessness completely dominated him as he looked across the board at Leonora, so radiant with health and youth.
No one would have detected anything morbid in Mrs. Ollnee. She was prettily dressed and not in the least abnormal, and Victor was proud of her, even though he knew that her dresses were earned by a sort of necromancy.
Mrs. Joyce carefully avoided any discussion of his problem, and the dinner ended as joyfully at it began. They rode home afterward, under the bright half moon, silent for very pleasure in the beautiful night.
The park was full of loiterers, two and two, and on the benches under the trees others sat, two and two together. It was mating-time for all the world, and Victor"s blood was astir as he turned toward the stately girl whose face had driven out all others as the moon drowns out the stars. His audacity of the morning was gone, however. He looked at her now with a certain humble appeal. His subjugation had begun.
At the house they all lingered for an hour on the back porch, which looked out upon a little formal garden. Two slender trees stood there, and their silken rustling filled in the pauses of the conversation like the conferring voices of a distant mult.i.tude of infant seraphim.
"Those must be cottonwoods," Victor remarked.
"They are," replied Mrs. Joyce. "I love them. When I was a child I used to visit a farm-house in whose yard were two tall trees of this sort, and their murmur always filled me with mystical delight. I used to lie in the gra.s.s under them, hour by hour, trying to imagine what they were saying to me. Ever since I had a place of my own I"ve had cottonwood-trees in my yard. I know they"re a nuisance with their fuzz, but I love their rustling."
As she paused, the leaves uttered a pleased murmur, and Victor, listening with a new sense of the sentiment which his hostess concealed in a plump and unimposing form, thought he heard a sibilant whispered word in his car. "Victor," it said, "I love you."
He turned quickly toward his mother, but she seemed not to be listening, and a moment later she spoke to Mrs. Joyce, uttering some pleasant commonplace about the night.
This whisper was so clear, so unmistakable, that Victor could not doubt its reality. The question was which of the women had spoken it. He had a foolish wish to believe that Leo had uttered it. He listened again, but heard nothing.
As he was helping his mother slowly up the stairs to her room, he said: "This is all very beautiful, mother, but I can"t enjoy it as I ought. I feel like a fraud every time I see Mrs. Joyce handing out one of those big bills. I suppose she can afford it, but I can"t. We must get back to the old place, or to some new place, and live on our own resources."
"We can"t do that till morning, dear. Let us wait until The Voices speak. They have been silent to-day. Perhaps they will advise us to-morrow."
Here was the place to tell her of the whispers he had heard, but he could not bring himself to do so.
She went on: "I wish you would repair my table, your grandfather"s table, as you promised, Victor. I don"t know why, but it helps me. But you must be careful not to use any metal about it."
"Why not?"
"Oh, that"s another one of the mysteries. They seem to object to metal."
"Well, I"ll get at it to-morrow," he said, and kissing her good-night, went to his own room.
He was awake and dressed before six the next morning, and leaving a note for Mrs. Joyce, set out for California Avenue. On the way he dropped into a cheap cafe and got a breakfast which cost him twenty cents. He enjoyed this keenly, because, as he said, it was in his cla.s.s and was paid for out of the money his mother had given him for his trophy.
All was quiet at the flat, and setting to work on the table with glue and stout cord, he soon had it on its legs. Looking down upon it as a completed job, he marveled at the reverence which his mother seemed to have for it, and his mind reverted to the astounding phenomena which he himself had witnessed over its top.
Picking up one of the folded slates, he opened it with intent to see if it held any hidden springs or false surfaces. Out fluttered a folded paper. This he s.n.a.t.c.hed up and studied with interest. It was a peculiar sort of parchment, veined like a bit of corn-husk, and on it, written in delicate and beautiful script, were these words: "_Go to Room 70, Harwood Bldg., to-day. Danger threatens. Altair._"
"I wonder who Altair is," he mused, staring at the bit of paper, "and what is the danger that threatens?"
While still he stood debating whether to go down-town or to warn his mother, a heavy step on the stairs announced a visitor. The man (for it was plainly the tread of a man, and a fat man) knocked on the door, but did not pause for reply. "Are you there, Lucy?" he called, and came in.
Victor faced him with instant resentment of this familiarity. "Who are you? What do you want here?" he demanded.
The other, a tall, clumsy, broad-faced individual in costly clothing, seemed surprised and a little alarmed. "I came to see Mrs. Ollnee," he explained. "Who are you?"
"I am her son--and I want to know how you dare to push into my mother"s house like this!"
"My name is Pettus," he answered, pacifically. "No doubt you"ve heard your mother speak of me."
"Oh yes," responded the youth. "I heard Mr. Carew speak of you. You"re president of that Transportation Company they"re all so wild about."
A shade of apprehension pa.s.sed over Pettus"s fat, ugly face. "Carew!
You"ve seen him? I suppose he gave me a bad name? But never mind--where will I find your mother?"
Victor didn"t like the man, and he remained silent till Pettus repeated his question, then he answered, "I can"t tell you where my mother is."
"You mean you won"t!"
"Well, yes, that"s what I do mean."
Pettus turned away. "I can find her without your aid."
"What do you want with her?"
"I want a sitting at once!"
"You keep away from her!" Victor blazed out. "I don"t want her sitting for you. She"s mixed up too deeply in your affairs already. Carew said--"
"I don"t care what Carew said--and I don"t care whether you approve of your mother"s sitting for me or not. Her controls will decide that question."
He tramped out and down the stairway, and from the window Victor saw him whirl away in his automobile. "That man"s a scoundrel and a slob," he said; "a greasy old slob. I will not have my mother sitting for such people. Can"t I head him off somehow?"
With sudden resolution he ran down the stairway and over to the telephone booth on the corner. He got the butler at once, and was deeply relieved to find that his mother was out with Mrs. Joyce. "He can"t see her before I do," he concluded, as he hung up the receiver. "I"ll go over there and wait for her to return."
As he neared the house he met Leo coming out with some letters in her hand, and with the swift resiliency of youth, he asked if he might not walk with her.
"Certainly," she said; "I want to talk with you about your plans."
"I haven"t any plans," he said.
"What have you been doing this morning?"
He hesitated a moment, then answered: "I"ve been mending that old table--I suppose you heard about my smashing it?"
"Yes; and it seemed a very childish thing to do."