For an instant his bearded face looked so strangely at her that she
half moved towards the bell. Then he smiled, with a little reassuring
gesture.
"No, no," he said. "May I sit down a moment?"
She began hastily to cover her confusion.
"It is a meeting," she said, "for this evening. I am sorry--"
"Just so," he said. "It is about that that I have come."
"I beg your pardon...?"
"Please sit down, Lady Laura.... May I say in a sentence what I have
come to say?"
This seemed a very odd old man.
"Why, yes--" she said.
"I have come to beg you not to allow Mr. Baxter to enter the
house.... No, I have no authority from anyone, least of all from Mr.
Baxter. He has no idea that I have come. He would think it an
unwarrantable piece of impertinence."
"Mr. Cathcart ... I--I cannot--"
"Allow me," he said, with a little compelling gesture that silenced
her. "I have been asked to interfere by a couple of people very much
interested in Mr. Baxter; one of them, if not both, completely
disbelieves in spiritualism."
"Then you know--"
He waved his hand towards the cabinet.
"Of course I know," he said. "Why, I was a spiritualist for ten years
myself. No, not a medium; not a professional, that is to say. I know
all about Mr. Vincent; all about Mrs. Stapleton and yourself, Lady
Laura. I still follow the news closely; I know perfectly well--"
"And you have given it up?"
"I have given it up for a long while," he said quietly. "And I have
come to ask you to forbid Mr. Baxter to be present this evening,
for--for the same reason for which I have given it up myself."
"Yes? And that--"
"I don't think we need go into that," he said. "It is enough, is it
not, for me to say that Mr. Baxter's work, and, in fact, his whole
nervous system, is suffering considerably from the excitement; that
one of the persons who have asked me to do what I can is Mr. Baxter's
own law-coach: and that even if he had not asked me, Mr. Baxter's own
appearance--"
"You know him?"
"Practically, no. I lunched at the same table with him on Friday; the
symptoms are quite unmistakable."
"I don't understand. Symptoms?"
"Well, we will say symptoms of nervous excitement. You are aware, no
doubt, that he is exceptionally sensitive. Probably you have seen for
yourself--"
"Wait a moment," said Lady Laura, her own heart beating furiously.
"Why do you not go to Mr. Baxter himself?"
"I have done so. I arranged to meet him at lunch, and somehow I took a
wrong turn with him: I have no tact whatever, as you perceive. But I
wrote to him on Friday night, offering to call upon him, and just
giving him a hint. Well, it was useless. He refused to see me."
"I don't see what I--"
"Oh yes," chirped the old gentleman almost gaily. "It would be quite
unusual and unconventional. I just ask you to send him a line--I will
take it myself, if you wish it--telling him that you think it would be
better for him not to come, and saying that you are making other
arrangements for tonight."
He looked at her with that odd little air of birdlike briskness that
she had noticed in the street; and it pleasantly affected her even in
the midst of the uneasiness that now surged upon her again tenfold
more than before. She could see that there was something else behind
his manner; it had just looked out in the glance he had given round
the room on entering; but she could not trouble at this moment to
analyze what it was. She was completely bewildered by the strangeness
of the encounter, and the extraordinary coincidence of this man's
judgment with her own. Yet there were a hundred reasons against her
taking his advice. What would the others say? What of all the
arrangements ... the expectation...?
"I don't see how it's possible now," she began. "I think I know what
you mean. But--"
"Indeed, I trust you have no idea," cried the old gentleman, with a
queer little falsetto note coming into his voice--"no idea at all. I
come to you merely on the plea of nervous excitement; it is injuring
his health, Lady Laura."
She looked at him curiously.
"But--" she began.
"Oh, I will go further," he said. "Have you never heard of--of
insanity in connection with all this? We will call it insanity, if you
wish."
For a moment her heart stood still. The word had a sinister sound, in
view of an incident she had once witnessed; but it seemed to her that
some meaning behind, unknown to her, was still more sinister. Why had
he said that it might be "called insanity" only...?
"Yes.... I--I have once seen a case," she stammered.
"Well," said the old gentleman, "is it not enough when I tell you that
I--I who was a spiritualist for ten years--have never seen a more
dangerous subject than Mr. Baxter? Is the risk worth it...? Lady
Laura, do you quite understand what you are doing?"
He leaned forward a little; and again she felt anxiety, sickening and
horrible, surge within her. Yet, on the other hand....
The door opened suddenly, and Mr. Vincent came in.