"It's no reflection on me," I murmured, jocosely. A sickly kind of smile
flitted across Caroline's face, driving me to a stimulant again. I
poured out a pony of brandy.
"To drink or not to drink--that is the question," I soliloquized;
observing with satisfaction that Shakespeare tended to remove the
expression of untimely hilarity in my wife's countenance. "O Romeo,
wherefore art thou, Romeo?"
A joyful gleam came into Caroline's eyes as I thought of Van Tromp. I
swallowed the cognac and presently saw a flush creep into my wife's
cheeks. The sight angered me.
"If two or three fingers of old brandy show themselves at once in
this--ah--borrowed face of mine," I reflected, "I might as well take the
pledge at once. Caroline," I continued, addressing my remarks to the
mirror, "I am ashamed of you. If you don't quit this kind of thing,
you'll lose your complexion--and what'll poor robin do then? I am
ashamed of you, Caroline. I really didn't think that you'd go so far."
It suddenly came to me that I was talking in a most idiotic way, and I
turned Caroline's left shoulder to the mirror. Resisting the temptation
to follow the changing expressions of her face, I watched the smoke from
my cigar as it floated across the luncheon-table or mounted toward the
ceiling. At the outset, I derived a good deal of satisfaction from the
change of attitude. My thoughts assumed a healthier tendency. The
morbid, half-crazy inclinations that my mind had begun to display passed
away and something like contentment with the present and hope for the
future came gently to me. Even the question that would force itself
upon me now and again as to what Caroline might be doing or undoing at
my office failed to destroy wholly the pleasurable calm begotten of
solitude, cognac and tobacco. I even found myself contemplating
Caroline's white, tapering fingers, outstretched to flip the ashes from
my panatella, with a satisfaction that was a strange compound of pride
and jealousy. I could not refrain from an unworthy sense of delight at
the thought that Caroline was being punished for her brazen defiance of
my wishes every time she glanced at my hands.
But I had become a creature of changing moods, a prey to errant fancies.
As I realized that my cigar--shrinking reminder of happier days--was
nearly smoked out, and that my term of comparative freedom drew toward
its end, the fever of impotent rebellion burned in my veins--if they
were mine. To a practical, energetic individual, accustomed to having
his own way in small matters and great, the recurrent conviction that he
has become the plaything of mischief-loving powers concerning which he
knows little or nothing is not conducive to long intervals of repose. I
was growing restless again, eager for action, but afraid to indulge in
it; craving news of Caroline, but lacking courage to obtain it.
Suddenly a startling thought flashed upon my darkened mind,
illuminating, convincing, explanatory. Caroline and her friends had
been dipping into Oriental philosophy. Was it not more than probable
that my wife had deliberately planned a soul-transposition that had
ensured her freedom and made me a captive?
The longer I contemplated this supposition, the stronger grew my belief
that Caroline had attempted a psychical experiment, the success of which
accounted for her haughty, domineering manner after breakfast. It was
clear enough, now, as I looked back upon the episodes that I have been
recording. My wife's horror at the discovery of our soul-transposition
had been merely a clever bit of acting. Her seizure of my mail and
insistence upon a visit to my office had been parts of a well-laid plan.
It was evident that she had become an adept in the theory and practice
of transmigration, and had sacrificed me beneath the Juggernaut of her
eccentric ambition. If she found the life of a business man attractive,
I was at her mercy, doomed to skirts and corsets until she wearied of my
career. Furthermore, it was not unreasonable to suppose that, while
Caroline had acquired sufficient diabolical power to transpose our
identities, she had not gained enough occult wisdom to restore our souls
to their respective bodies. If that should prove to be the case, if she
was only half-educated as a psychical switch-tender, the future for me
became dark indeed. I could see before me a long stretch of weary,
hopeless years, down which I tottered toward a welcome grave, solaced
only now and then by the creature-comforts that I loved, the while
Caroline made merry with my affairs. Beset day after day by Suzanne,
Mrs. Taunton and other women in various stages of imbecility, I should
be driven to desperation at last and bring disgrace, in some form or
other, upon a proud name.
And how cleverly Caroline had played her little game! Had I not often
complained loudly of the annoyances appertaining to a business man's
life? Could not Caroline silence my accusing tongue with the assertion
that she had presented me with a life of luxurious leisure, to take up
burdens and responsibilities under which I had always grumbled? Had I
not often protested against the new woman's efforts to better her
condition, on the ground that woman had long enjoyed more special
privileges than fell to the lot of man? I was forced to acknowledge
that, even if Caroline was responsible for our psychical interchange, I
could not remain consistent and utter any very emphatic complaint. She
would fall back upon my own propositions and prove conclusively, quoting
my remarks, that, whatever may be the case with his soul, it may profit
a man to lose his own body.
A hot wave of impotent anger swept through me, and I turned in a rage
toward the mirror. The expression that my rebellious soul had thrust
into Caroline's face destroyed the last vestige of my self-control.
Seizing a carafe from the table, I hurled it at the sideboard, and my
wife's face disappeared in a chaos of broken looking-glass.
Horrified at my recklessness, I hurried toward the door as rapidly as my
skirts would permit. In the hall stood Jones, motionless, phlegmatic,
gazing at me with a calmness that had in it something of superiority.
"Go in there--ah--butler, and make yourself useful," I cried, angrily,
as I brushed past him to seek the library. "Don't be so damned
statuesque!"
A few moments later, I had hooked Caroline at the end of a telephone
wire.
"When are you coming up-town--ah--my dear?" I managed to gasp, with some
show of diplomacy.
"Is that you, Caroline?" asked my wife, with my voice, which I was
foolishly glad to hear again. "I've got good news for you. I'm twenty
thousand ahead on the day--and every transaction is cleaned out."
"Great Scott!" I exclaimed, forgetting my suspicions and rage in the
amazement that her words had caused.
"I'll stop at the club on the way up," went on Caroline, in a deep basso
that vibrated with a note of intense self-satisfaction. "Have you had a
pleasant day? How's Mrs. Taunton? By the way, my dear, Edgerton was
here a few moments ago. Mrs. Edgerton has a treat in store for us
to-night."
A chill of apprehension swept over me.
"What do you mean--ah--Reginald?" I faltered.
"She went to the lecture this morning, Caroline," explained my wife,
glibly. "She is awfully clever, don't you think? She made him promise
to look in on us at nine to-night."
"Him? Who's him?" I cried, cold with dread.
"Yamama," answered my voice, exultantly.
"Good God, Caroline!" I yelled through the 'phone, but my wife had cut
me off.
Stumbling into a chair, I rested Caroline's aching head upon her moist,
trembling hand.
"Yamama!" I murmured, terror-stricken. "He's the chocolate-colored adept
that Mrs. Taunton referred to. Pigs! Frogs! He's the scoundrel that
put Caroline up to this. He is coming here to look at me! Damn him!"
Excess of emotion had undone me. I felt the hot tears scorching
Caroline's cold hand.
*CHAPTER IX.*
*AFTERNOON CALLERS.*
Still in dreams it comes upon me that I once on wings did soar;
But or e'er my flight commences this my dream must all be o'er.
--_From the Persian_.
As I look back upon it now, that afternoon wears the aspect of a
variegated nightmare, from which I could not awaken.
"What will madame wear this afternoon?" Suzanne had asked me when I had
returned to my apartments above-stairs.
I kicked viciously at the empty air with one of Caroline's dainty feet.
The time had come, evidently, for Suzanne to change my costume again.
Should I take a ride or a walk, or remain at home? If I went out for a
ride, I should have only my own bitter thoughts for company. If I took
a stroll up the Avenue, almost anything unpleasant might happen to me.
If I stayed in the house, I must receive callers. No one of these
alternatives was alluring, but I was forced to choose the latter. For a
number of rather vague reasons, I did not dare to cut off my line of
communication with Caroline. She had become, as it were, a flying
column not yet out of touch with headquarters.
"And she ought to be shot for disobedience to orders," I mused, aloud.
"Pardon me, madame?" exclaimed Suzanne, interrogatively.
"_N'importe_, girl," I answered, testily. "I shall remain at home,
Suzanne. Give orders down-stairs that I have a headache and can receive
no one."
"But Madame is looking so much better!" protested Suzanne. "And the
debutantes will call to-day. It is madame's afternoon."
"Well, do your worst, then," I grumbled, discontentedly. "Can you get
me some cloves, Suzanne?"
An hour later, I entered the drawing-room after a perilous descent from
the second story, to confront three young women, who, I had gathered
from Suzanne, held Caroline in high esteem as a chaperon. I had
committed their names to memory before leaving the dressing-room, but
the effort to get down-stairs without spraining my wife's ankles had
obliterated from my mind all traces of its recent acquisition. I stood,
flushing painfully, gazing into the smiling faces of three handsome,
modish girls who were wholly strangers to their vicarious hostess.
"Oh, Mrs. Stevens, what a charming day!"
"How lovely you are looking!"
"Wasn't the Crompton dance perfectly stunning?"
"Mr. Van Tromp made such a pretty epigram about your costume!"
"Just a moment--ah--girls," I gasped, seating myself awkwardly, and
inclined to lose my temper. "There's a painful lack of method about all
this. Suppose we begin at the beginning. You were saying--ah--my
dear--?" I remarked to the calmest of the trio. The latter exchanged
puzzled glances with her companions.
"I was speaking of the compliment that Mr. Van Tromp paid to you,"
explained the maiden, rather dolefully.
"He's a bad lot, that young Van Tromp," I exclaimed, impulsively.
"Perhaps I ought not to talk against another man--ah--behind her--I mean
his--back, but Van Romeo's too easy, girls. He writes poetry. I have
no doubt that he makes puns. Charming--ah--day, isn't it?"
My beautiful callers had lost their vivacity. One of them--a pretty
little brunette--had grown pale.
"What about the coaching-party, Mrs. Stevens?" the one I took to be the
eldest of the three ventured to ask, presently.
"It's all arranged--ah--my dear," I answered, recklessly. "We're to
have a dozen cases of champagne and a brass band of ten pieces. I'm up
for all day, you see. If little Van Tromp praised my executive
ability--ah--girls, he'd have a career open to him. Merrily we'll bowl
along, bowl along--I'm to handle the reins, you know."
There were now three pallid maidens confronting me. In the eyes of the
eldest I saw a gleam of mingled suspicion and fear.
"I must be going," she gasped.
"Don't go," I implored her, overacting my hospitable role a bit. There
flashed through my mind a scene from a Gilbert-Sullivan opera--"The
Mikado"--and I caught myself humming the air of "Three Little Girls from
School Are We."
Jones, to my consternation, stalked into the drawing-room, as if about
to reprove me for my lack of dignity.
"Pardon me, madame," said my _bete noir_, pompously, "but Mr. Stevens
insists upon your coming to the telephone."
My callers were on their feet, instantly. They appeared to be glad of
an excuse for leaving me, and, also, somewhat astonished at the butler's
choice of words.
"Don't let us keep you a moment," cried the eldest.
"Remember me to Mr. Stevens," urged the little brunette, mischievously.
"Good-bye! We are so grateful to you, Mrs. Stevens," exclaimed the
third, with a sigh of relief.
"Be good!" I answered, gaily. "Come again--ah--young ladies. Don't
mind Jones. You'll get used to him. Look in next month, won't you?
Ta-ta!"
I stumbled over my skirts as I stepped forward, and the little flock of
debutantes hurried away in affright, glancing over their shoulders at me
in a manner that suggested gossip to come.
"Hello!" I shouted through the 'phone, when I had managed to reach the
library. "Is that you--ah--Reginald? Where are you?"
"Yes. This is Reginald," I heard my voice in answer. "I'm at the
'Varsity Club. Charming place. Nice boys here. You seem to be
popular, my dear. 'Here's to you, good as you are, and here's to me,
bad as I am; but as good as you are, and as bad as I am, I'm as good as
you are, bad as I am!'"
"Good Lord--ah--ah--Reginald!" I faltered, horror-stricken.
"Don't worry, Caroline," came my voice, soothingly. "It's all right. I
know when to stop. Had any callers? This is your day at home, is it
not?"
"I'll send the coupe for you at once--ah--Reginald," I said, with great
presence of mind. "Go easy till it arrives, will you?"
"What do you mean to imply, Caroline?" growled my wife, a note of anger
in my voice. "I'm going to walk home by-and-bye. You needn't bother
about the coupe. I hear the boys calling to me. Here's to you, my
dear! Good-bye!"
Before I could utter another word, Caroline had cut me off, and I turned
from the 'phone, despondently. For a moment, it seemed to me that the
library was surrounded by an iron grating and that I wore a ball and
chain attached to my legs. Caroline and "the Old Crowd!" I am forced
to confess that the hot tears came into my wife's eyes as I seated
myself in a reading-chair and found myself face to face with a
loneliness that was provocative of despair.
Jones was hot on the scent. He strode into the library and bore down
upon me relentlessly, carrying a tray upon which rested two
calling-cards.
"They are in the drawing-room, madame," said the butler, indifferently.
Caroline's toast came ringing to my ears. "Here's to you, good as you
are, and here's to me, bad as I am!" And here I sat, bullied by Jones
and the plaything of a lot of light-headed women of all ages. For one
wild, feverish, moment the thought of revolt darted through my mind. I
might faint, or have a fit, and Jones would be forced to dismiss my
callers. But I quickly realized that I was not up to a brilliant
histrionic effort. Even as it was, I was playing another's role with
but indifferent success.
Two elderly women, richly garbed, arose as I reentered the drawing-room.
"I'm so glad to see you--ah--my dears," I said, in a voice pitched to
indicate cordiality. One of my callers tossed her head haughtily, while
the prim mouth of her companion fell open. This was not encouraging, and
I remained silent. We stared at each other for a long, agonizing moment.
"How do you do?" I began again, with much less assurance. "Go away,
little girls," kept running through my mind from that diabolical,
tinkling "Mikado."
"We are very well, I believe," remarked Mrs. Martin, as she proved to
be, coldly. "I think I may answer for Mrs. Smythe's health."
"I am in perfect health," exclaimed Mrs. Smythe, with emphasis, staring
at me in a superior kind of way.
"There's nothing like perfect health--ah--my friends," I said, in a
high, almost hysterical, falsetto. "Who is it who says that a man is as
old as he feels and a woman as old as she looks?"
"Whoever said it, Mrs. Stevens, did us a great injustice," commented
Mrs. Martin, with some warmth. "I am as young in spirit as I was ten
years ago, but I don't look it."
"No, you don't look it," I hastened to remark, cordially; but my comment
was not well received. Mrs. Martin glanced at Mrs. Smythe, and they
stood erect on the instant.
"You're not going--ah--my dears?" I cried, thinking it too good to be
true.
"You will pardon the liberty that I am about to take, Mrs. Stevens,"
began Mrs. Martin, sternly, "but it seems only fair to you that we
should ask a question before leaving you. You are out of sorts to-day?
Not quite yourself, are you?"
"Not quite," I answered, drawing myself up to Caroline's full height and
struggling against an inclination to give vent to wild, feverish
laughter. "I may say--Mrs.--ah--my dear--that I'm not quite myself. Not
quite! It'll pass off. I have every reason to believe it'll pass off.
But you're right. I'm not quite myself."
My frankness, which appalled me as I thought of it afterward, seemed to
have a soothing effect upon my callers.
"You really do too much, Mrs. Stevens," remarked Mrs. Smythe, in a
motherly way. "You should try to get a nap at once."
"Your nerves are affected," Mrs. Martin added, speaking gently. "You
are overdoing things. Did you ever try the rest cure?"
"Yes. I've been giving it a chance to-day," I confessed. "But it
doesn't work. I can't sleep in the daytime. Bear that in mind--ah--my
dear. Don't talk to me about a nap. As I said to
Caroline--ah--Reginald, I'm up for all day. But you know what nerves
are, do you not?"
Mrs. Martin again glanced furtively at Mrs. Smythe, and without more ado
they swept out of the drawing-room.
I dropped into a chair, a feeling of relief mingled with self-disgust
sweeping over me. I realized that I had been making a sad botch of the
part that I had attempted to play. At that moment, heavy footsteps
behind me aroused me from my black-and-white revery. Two large, hot
hands were placed over my eyes, and the end of a beard tickled
Caroline's forehead.
"Guess who it is?" I heard my deep voice saying. "Here's to you, good
as you are!"
"Caroline!" I exclaimed, conflicting emotions agitating my soul.
"Guess again, little woman," said my wife, playfully, in my voice.
"They call me 'Reggie' at the club."
*CHAPTER X.*
*RECRIMINATIONS.*
We know these things are so, we ask not why,
But act and follow as the dream goes on.
--_Milnes_.
"Yes, I've had a simply perfect day, my dear," remarked Caroline,
frankly, as we left the library to ascend to our second-story suite.
"I've made twenty thousand dollars--by not taking your advice--and as to
the 'Old Crowd' at the 'Varsity Club, I think they're really charming.
I've been doing a good deal of miscellaneous thinking, my dear, and I'm
convinced that women have a great future before them."
"What women?" I cried, impatiently, as I tripped against the top stair
and caught my better half by the tail of my coat.
"You'll do better with practice," remarked Caroline, soothingly. "I'm
sure you enjoyed the day. Who has been here?"
"That'll keep," I answered, resisting an inclination to tweak my own
nose. "Where's Jenkins?"
Caroline indulged in a hoarse chuckle.
"Jenkins has gone to Hoboken. He won't be back for at least a month. I
think I can get on without a man. How's Suzanne?"
We had come to a standstill in the upper hall, just outside of the main
door to our private rooms.
"How'll you manage to dress for dinner?" I asked, gazing at my flushed,
triumphant face with sharply contrasted emotions. I was glad to see it
again, but I did not like Caroline's way of using it.
"I'm very quick to learn," answered my voice, tauntingly. "You must
admit, my dear, that I've been a success to-day. You don't think that
I'm to be overcome by a man's dinner costume?"
A chill ran through me, and Caroline's voice trembled as I said:
"What do you--ah--think I'd better wear to-night? Suzanne'll ask me
presently."
A jovial laugh greeted my words. The humorous side of our horrible
plight seemed to be always apparent to Caroline.
"You must be sure to do me credit, my dear boy," said my wife, gruffly.
"You've glanced over my wardrobe, have you not?"
The hot blood came into my adopted cheeks at the suggestion.
"I--I've been too--ah--busy to look into the--ah--matter," I faltered.
"Damn it, Caroline, don't be so confoundedly superior! I'm crushed and
discouraged. That's straight. Give me a word of advice, will you?
What shall I wear to-night? I don't want to make a fool of myself
before Suzanne."
"Poor Suzanne!" growled Caroline, somewhat irrelevantly, I thought.
"She must have had a day of it! Tell her you'll wear the dress I wore
at the Leonards' dinner-party last week. You needn't say much about my
hair. Suzanne'll know what to do with it."
Her hand, or rather mine, was on the knob of the door, when a hideous
and persistent horror that had haunted me for some time forced me to
say, in Caroline's most insistent treble:
"Why--oh, why--did you allow Edgerton to ask that infernal Yamama to
come here to-night? It was madness, Caroline."
"Call me Reginald," interposed my wife, coolly.
"It was madness, I say--ah--Reginald. It was that--or worse."
My heart beat fast in Caroline's bosom.
"What do you mean?" asked my wife, thrusting my face forward, and
transfixing me with my own eyes.
"You've enjoyed the day, haven't you?" I asked, my temper overcoming my
prudence. "Well, I haven't. I've been driven nearly crazy by a lot of
fool women, while you've had the time of your life."
"I don't follow you," remarked my wife, severely.
"That's just it," I cried, angrily. "You lead me, and I'm forced to
follow you. I tell you frankly that I've grown suspicious. You've been
studying Oriental mysticism. You've been to lectures and seances, and,
for all I know, you may be a favorite pupil of this chocolate-drop,
Yamama."
My wife drew herself up to my full height, and gazed down at me,
freezingly.
"You mean to imply, Mrs. Stevens," she remarked, with studied coldness,
"that I was deliberately responsible for what happened this morning, or
last night?"
"Don't dare to call me Mrs. Stevens, Caroline," I whispered, shaking
with futile rage. "If I have suspected you, have I not had sufficient
circumstantial evidence? Mrs. Taunton tells me that this rascally fakir
Yamama turns people into pigs, frogs, any old thing. And you've allowed
Edgerton to bring him here to-night! I don't believe that you have the
slightest desire to--ah--change back again."
My wife laughed aloud in my most disagreeable manner.
"Here's to you, good as you are, and here's to me, bad as I am!" she
cried, with most untimely geniality, and, without more ado, threw open
the door to our apartments. In the center of the room stood Suzanne,
pale but self-contained, awaiting my advent. For a moment, a mad
project tempted me. If I rushed downstairs and had a fit in the lower
hall, I might escape many of the horrors that the evening threatened to
bring with it. But if I took this heroic course a doctor would be
called in. On the whole, I preferred Suzanne to a physician.
I realize, clearly enough, that I lack the ability to keep or reject
data with the unerring judgment of the professional story-teller. I
should like to give to my testimony a somewhat artistic structure, but I
am hampered in this inclination by the necessity of following the actual
sequence of events. Being neither a novelist nor a scientist, I am in
danger of making an amorphous presentment of facts that shall fail
either to convince the psychologist or entertain the idle reader of an
empty tale. On the whole, I am prone to make sacrifices in behalf of
the latter. My natural inclination is toward Art rather than toward
Science, and for this reason I shall remain silent regarding the petty
episodes of the hour that followed my talk with Caroline. As it is, my
narrative is overweighted with what may be called details of the toilet.
At half-after six my wife and I entered our drawing-room under a flag of
truce. The annoyances that had hampered Caroline's unaided efforts to
don my evening clothes had had a beneficial effect upon her exultant,
overbearing tendencies. She was subdued in manner to the verge of
gloom.
"Why are you so downhearted, my dear?" I asked. "Don't you like--ah--my
appearance?"
"Which appearance?" growled Caroline, glaring at me. "Are the studs in
the right place?"
"Of course they are," I answered cheerfully. "I never looked better, I'm
sure. I congratulate you. And Suzanne tells me that this costume is
very becoming to you. The one I have on, I mean. Have you noticed,
Caroline, what an infernal nuisance pronouns have become? I'm glad our
nouns have no gender. What did you say to young Van Tromp at the
Cromptons' dance?"
My beard seemed to fairly bristle with Caroline's anger and
astonishment.
"Van Tromp!" she exclaimed, in a surly basso. "What has he been doing
now? Horrid little thing! He's not one of the boys, is he, my dear?"
I had seated myself with some difficulty, annoyed at Suzanne for lacing
Caroline so tightly, but rather pleased, inwardly, at my feminine beauty
and Parisian costume. Caroline stood not far away, six feet tall,
broad-shouldered, a manly figure in black and white.
"Van Tromp," I remarked, in the soft musical tones that had at last
reconciled me to my borrowed voice, "Van Tromp is a wandering minstrel,
a troubadour out of his time, an age-end Romeo, who haunts Juliet's
balcony at all hours of the day and night playing a hurdy-gurdy and
reciting his own rhymes. Van Tromp is the one bright gleam in a black
and starless night. He would atone for a dreary day were not Yamama
coming too."
"I don't understand you, Caroline," growled my wife, shifting my feet
uneasily.
"You haven't told me what Van Tromp said to you at the Cromptons'
dance," I said, relentlessly. "I'll return to the subject later on. Now
tell me--ah--Reginald, what you know about Yamama. You intimated,
unless I am mistaken, that my suspicions as to your collusion with this
Oriental fakir were unfounded?"
"Unfounded!" exclaimed my wife, scornfully. "Absurd! ridiculous! Do you
imagine that I would choose this clumsy body of yours in preference to
mine? Look at me, and then glance at the mirror, my dear. I'll admit
that I've had a very enjoyable day. But I assure you I know little more
about Yamama than you do. I am very nervous about him. I don't know
what he'll do to us. But I have a horrible fear that he will read our
secret at a glance."
"If he does--ah--Caroline," I cried, excitedly, "slug him! Never mind
about hospitality. Hit him a crack on the nose. You can apologize to
Edgerton afterward."
"That's just like a man," grumbled Caroline. "You think you can defeat
esoteric Buddhism with your fists. I'm rather ashamed of you, my dear."