humble. “He wouldn’t. I shall never do it. But, my God, how I wanted
to!”
“And I’ll tell you another thing, too.” Chantry’s tone was curious. “You
may agree with Ferguson all you like; you may admire him as much as you
say; but you, Havelock, would never have done what he did. Not even”--he
lifted a hand against interruption--“if you knew you had the brain you
think Ferguson had. You’d have been at the bottom of the sea, or under
the engine-wheels, and you know it.”
He folded his arms with a hint of truculence.
But Havelock the Dane, to Chantry’s surprise, was meek. “Yes,” he said,
“I know it. Now let me out of here.”
“Well, then”--Chantry’s voice rang out triumphant--“what does that
prove?”
“Prove?” Havelock’s great fist crashed down on the table. “It proves
that Ferguson’s a better man than either of us. I can think straight,
but he had the sand to act straight. You haven’t even the sand to think
straight. You and your reactionary rot! The world’s moving, Chantry.
Ferguson was ahead of it, beckoning. You’re an ant that got caught in
the machinery, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Oh, stow the rhetoric! We simply don’t agree. It’s happened before.”
Chantry laughed scornfully. “I tell you I respect him; but God Almighty
wouldn’t make me agree with him.”
“You’re too mediæval by half,” Havelock mused. “Now, Ferguson was a
knight of the future--a knight of Humanity.”
“Don’t!” shouted Chantry. His nerves were beginning to feel the strain.
“Leave chivalry out of it. The _Argentina_ business may or may not have
been wisdom, but it certainly wasn’t cricket.”
“No,” said Havelock. “Chess, rather. The game where chance hasn’t a
show--the game of the intelligent future. That very irregular and
disconcerting move of his.... And he got taken, you might say. She’s an
irresponsible beast, your queen.”
“Drop it, will you!” Then Chantry pulled himself together, a little
ashamed. “It’s fearfully late. Better stop and dine.”
“No, thanks.” The big man opened the door of the room and rested a foot
on the threshold. “I feel like dining with some one who appreciates
Ferguson.”
“I don’t know where you’ll find him.”
Chantry smiled and shook hands.
“Oh, I carry him about with me. Good-night,” said Havelock the Dane.
VI
BLUE BONNET
“Here is the letter.”
George Delano squared his fine shoulders judicially as he presented a
handful of thin, blue sheets to his brother-in-law.
Harold Redreeve frowned. He looked like a tired hawk, muscles relaxed,
eyes dull, but muscles and eyes pre-eminently meant for speed and light.
“I left my glasses up-stairs. Would Mary mind reading it aloud? I don’t
believe there’s anything in it. Millicent is always upsetting you.”
“I am not easily upset, Harry,” Delano answered reproachfully. “Your
wife--Millicent--has all the family nerves. But I think you will agree
with us that the letter is alarming. I have far too many important
things on my mind to be perturbed over nothing. I think it extremely
fortunate that your business called you in our direction. Frankly, I
don’t know how to answer it, nor does Mary. It is a family matter, I
should say; a delicate one. I am sorry to trouble you when you are so
busy with your own big case, but troubles have a knack of falling in at
the wrong time. You have to learn to meet a good many things at once in
this world.”
He squared his shoulders again with the gesture of a hopeful Atlas.
George Delano was the type of person to whom you must never suggest, in
any given case, that he has had luck. Harold Redreeve knew him of old;
was fond of him; sometimes wished that old George would come a mild
cropper, so that he could know how it felt to hit the dust when you
weren’t expecting to. Mary Delano murmured sympathetically in her corner
as she unfolded the letter. She never doubted, when each big deal went
through, that George had done it all himself, with the least possible
aid from the Almighty. His pompousness was sweet to her; his wealthy and
able associates were to her merely the inevitable parasites of a great
man. George was solid; he was reckoned brilliant by people who had seen
their own inheritances dwindle.
Then her sweet voice proceeded to the letter, emphasizing faithfully
every underlined word. Harold Redreeve listened keenly to his wife’s
letter, letting his cigarette go out. Delano, standing in front of the
chimney-piece, rocked gently and safely to and fro, frowning judicially
now and then, as one accustomed to weigh evidence. Harold had often felt
that his brother-in-law, in marble, would symbolize democratic justice
admirably on the façade of a courthouse. He didn’t look like a judge;
but he was the platonic idea of the foreman of a jury.
* * * * *
“‘My dear George,’” began Mary, then: “I’ll skip all the first, about
the garden and that girl’s camp she recommended to us for Violet. Here
is the important part.
“‘I write surrounded by strange people--very strange. Harry doesn’t know
about them. Two of them are men, gray-bearded men with eye-glasses,
reading newspapers. Annette has a dreadful habit of letting them pile up
on the tables. But there are one or two women; one is wearing a great
many pearls. I think they must be imitation--the kind that are set with
real diamonds in platinum--for no one could carry about so many real
ones on a hot day in a stranger’s house. Also, there is the most
dreadful little girl in a blue sunbonnet who goes about and hits the
furniture with her hard little knuckles. The older people change, but
the little girl almost always comes. I suppose they can’t lose her. She
looks as if she would hang on behind, with her legs dangling, and then
lean over the seat and crow horridly at them. But why she comes here!
“‘Indeed, why any of them come! I haven’t spoken to Harry about it. They
have always arrived and left before he gets home from town. I haven’t
even spoken to the maids. They are well-bred people, who just might come
over from the club or stop in their motors on their way back to town.
Once or twice Annette has looked a little surprised. You see, I can’t
tell Annette I don’t know who they are. They are precisely the kind of
people one does know--all except the little girl, and she may be the
offspring of some family mésalliance. They come in and speak charmingly,
then sit down and make themselves comfortable, and fan themselves, and
admire the view, and talk about Maria. The first time I thought they
must be friends of the Outamaros, and had come to call. We didn’t expect
to have the house until the last moment. I thought they might think I
was Mrs. Outamaro. You know he married again very suddenly last spring.
But they never called me that. I went away for a fortnight, the day
after their first visit, and forgot to tell Harold anything about it.
When I came back, they arrived again, and said they had called once or
twice meantime, but had been told I was away. I asked Annette who had
been here in my absence, and she said no one had been except the Stacys
and some men for Harold. I don’t like Annette, she’s so inaccurate and
careless. Think of how I should like to know their names!
“‘It’s a killing situation in which to be. You see, they always come on
fine days, when every approach to the house is wide open. They don’t
ring any bells; they just camp on the porches or the terrace, and speak
to me very charmingly, as if they were old friends. They rest and chat,
or read, and then go on to the club or to Fawneck or in the direction of
town. I nearly die of laughter; and sometime I shall burst out and say,
“Who are you, anyway, and _who_ do you think I am?” I leave them quite
to themselves, as if they were aunts and uncles and cousins who came so
often they didn’t have to be bothered with. To-day, you see, I’m writing
a letter at the wicker desk on the porch. One of the men--he really must
be somebody, for he has a gray imperial, and a Legion of Honor ribbon in
his buttonhole--has gone to sleep in the _chaise-longue_. Presently
he’ll apologize, I know, for he’s Chesterfied to the life. Blue Bonnet
isn’t here to-day, or I shouldn’t be writing. She would think it a
beautiful joke to grab the ink and throw it from behind (she does all
her tricks behind your back) over my new white serge.
“‘Now, you see, they’ve come so often that it has almost gone beyond a
joke. If Harry should come home early and notice all their little
familiar ways, he couldn’t believe I didn’t know them. _I don’t believe
they know I don’t know them._ It would be an awful moment when I was
unable to introduce properly. They are the kind to think it quite
immodest of me to be greeting them constantly when I didn’t know them.
And I really couldn’t face Legion-of-Honor going sadly down the terrace
to the car, thinking I wasn’t a lady. Isn’t it screaming, when you
realize that the original mistake was all theirs? I’ve always known,
from the first moment, that I had never laid eyes on them before.
“‘The first time it happened so naturally: I was on the porch when they
got out of the car; Legion-of-Honor and Mock-Pearls-and-Platinum (she is
his wife, I make out) came up and said: “We’ve been wanting to know you
for so long, and now that we’re comparatively near, we can drop in often
on our way to and fro.” They just took it for granted I knew all about
them. I thought it was amusing, and would never happen again. I didn’t
write to Harry (he was up in Canada with Jack Lee, and letters didn’t
get to him much) for I thought it would be a good story to tell him
after he got back. But they came twice again before he did get back, and
by that time they were a habit. Yes, a habit. And now I’m so deep in,
all on account of their mistake, that I dread to have Harry meet them.
“‘Annette has no manners at all. I rang for her one day when it looked
thunder-showery, and I had begged them not to start off again, and told
her to bring tea early. “Six cups,” I said; for I knew Blue Bonnet would
make a fuss if she didn’t have some. While she and Lily were getting it
inside, the clouds got blacker and blacker, and they suddenly said they
thought they’d get home before the storm broke. I begged them to have
some tea at least; but they were very pretty about it--said they
couldn’t wait, for if they once began to drink my delicious tea they
would never get off in time, and I might have to keep them until
evening. So they piled off at top speed in the motor, and when Annette
finally came out with the things, she had only one cup. Of course I
reproved her. “Why, Annette, I told you six cups.” “Yes, ma’am, but I
thought you wanted your tea right now, and I knew there wouldn’t be any
one else.” Of course I shall get rid of Annette in the autumn. Even if
she was wise enough to see they’d go before tea was ready, she should
have obeyed orders, and been surprised, like any well-bred servant. I
should have felt disgraced forever if they had been there when that
small tray came. I only said: “When I tell you tea for six, Annette,
bring tea for six. Lily can always help you to hurry it.” No one else
did come, though, and I didn’t insist on her trotting out a lot more
dishes in the middle of the thunder-storm. I had to run for cover, as it
was, with my own tea-cup.
“‘This is an endless letter, and I don’t know what you and Mary will
make of it, you think me so irresponsible anyway; but I really had to
tell some one. I laugh and laugh over my predicament, and yet I dread
telling Harry. These people were no bigger than a man’s hand at first,
and now they overspread the heavens. I actually dress for them; I try to
go out when I feel sure they won’t come--they never do when there’s a
high wind; Pearls-and-Platinum won’t wear motoring things, and her
bonnet goes askew if there’s a wind; she explained it to me in such a
sweet old-lady fashion--and I ask people in bad weather if I ask them at
all. Very few people do come, anyhow, except for dinner; the distances
are such that we all meet at the club. And up to this time they have
never run into any other guests. But I can’t be preserved forever. It’s
too silly of me to mind telling Harry. Only he’d think me such an
incompetent not to have found out all about them the first time! I quite
dread being laughed at. And you know he’s fearfully worried and busy
over that beast of a Tractions case. So I prolong the misunderstanding
with them, and shall say nothing about it until events force it on me.
They have certainly shown up Annette. She is perfect except when they’re
here, and then she seems to lose her head. Point of pride: not to let
Annette know they’re not my most intimate friends. She slipped and
nearly knocked into Legion-of-Honor the other day, and only said “Oh!”
not even “I beg your pardon.” Fortunately, he was staring through the
field-glasses at the golf-links, and only backed away blindly with a
little murmur. I must keep her until we leave, for it would be
impossible to get any one else up here now; and except for these people,
she’s a treasure. So I weakly ignore it.
“‘I’m so sorry you and Mary weren’t able to come to us this year. I keep
pretty quiet and go out very little, as the doctor bade me, and am
immensely better. It’s a little lonely sometimes, Harry is so busy--gets
home so late and never takes a day off--and I’m positively _grateful_
for these people, if truth were told. All except Blue Bonnet. The other
people they bring are just as nice as they are. But _who_ are they? Do
you and Mary know any friends of the Outamaros who answer to my
description? If so, do tell me privately, and then I can, by discreet
allusions, straighten it all out before I tell Harry. The comfort it
would give me, too, to be able to mention a name or two in a good firm
voice to Annette!
“‘Your affectionate sister,
“‘MILLICENT.’”
* * * * *
Harold Redreeve had not moved since she began. Except for a faint,
occasional motion of the lips, even his features had not stirred. When
Mary’s voice had quite died away, George Delano spoke:
“I think you will agree with me, Harry, that this is something you
ought to know about. You see how clear it is that no one sees these
people except my sister. Annette is, I suppose, a perfectly normal
creature--and well recommended?”
“Oh, yes, admirably recommended. Quite normal, I should say. Millicent
has always seemed to like her. Though, really, I’ve been at home so
little, and so busy, that I haven’t noticed her much.”
“Yes, of course, the Tractions case. It’s a big thing, and we all wish
you luck. If you pull that off, Conway says you’re made.” Perhaps he
noticed how tired the hawk-face before him was; for he went on: “We did
a good deal of consulting together before we decided to tell you of this
just now. Indeed, I asked Boyce about it--putting it, of course, as a
hypothetical case, but quoting the letter largely; I have an excellent
verbal memory--and he thought it an interesting and probably serious
case. The whole point in these matters is to take the person at the
start, before the delusions go too far. Boyce says--do you know Boyce?”
“Not personally.”
“He has been called in by the district attorney so often I thought you
might have run across him. I shall be delighted to introduce you, and
you could ask him to run down. He is very busy, but he would do it for
us. Quite the best alienist in the state and, I think, one of the best
in the country. They are teaching us nowadays to be very hopeful about
insanity--treat it just like any other illness, with large chances of
cure. I’ve dipped into it a good deal, talking with Boyce and reading
his books, and I know something about it myself.”
“Well?” The weariness had an odd likeness to patience.
“I should say, if it weren’t my poor sister who is concerned, that it
was a very interesting case. You notice the--ah--the cunning shown in
not reproving the maid Annette. Depend upon it, she has a suspicion that
she’s going off the track. Also the desire to tell somebody, which is
why Mary and I get the letter. She still thinks there’s something odd in
it; the delusions aren’t complete. She hasn’t reached the point of
telling every one; tries not to have people meet them, and so forth. But
she herself is perfectly convinced, _for_ herself. The violent aversion
to the little girl she calls--ah--Blue Bonnet, is also characteristic.
And she has gone so far that all the circumstantial evidence of their
unreality--the maid Annette bumping into an invisible old gentleman, and
not bringing tea-cups for non-existent people--ceases to be evidence for
her at all: it is merely a ground for annoyance. Her endeavor to
rationalize the situation by hypotheses as to their origin, their
possible relation to the owners of the house, is also interesting. It is
a complicated case, as Boyce at once saw. Of course I could not be
expected to find it interesting when it was in reality my poor sister
who was suffering from this mental lesion; but I was glad for her sake
that it interested him. I think you had better have him down as soon as
you can manage it. This week-end, perhaps? I am sure Boyce would make
sacrifices if I explained to him. He could come as a friend; and if the
delusions came on while he was there, it would be singularly fortunate.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll try to arrange it. But hadn’t I better see Millicent
first and have it all out with her?”
“She’ll be furious that we’ve shown you the letter, won’t she?” This was
Mary, sweet-voiced and sympathetic.
“This is not a moment for such considerations. I am willing to shoulder
that with poor Millicent. She may be permitted to think that we were
worried about the character of her callers, and thought you should know.
Millicent has often, in her youth, called me officious.” George Delano
smiled with perfect good humor.
“I am afraid I must let you take that on yourselves. Millicent won’t be
angry for long. She hasn’t a trace of bad temper in her, you know. And
she’s perfectly normal with me, a little tired of late, but nothing
else. After all, remember that I’ve been living with my wife all summer,
even if, in the course of things, we have had to be separated more or
less.”
“I take that as most encouraging,” Delano commented judicially. “They
are apt to make their scenes with the people they care for most. The
fact that she hasn’t turned on you in any way shows that she hasn’t gone
beyond the point of recapture. Of course there _is_ a slight hint in her
concealing from you a thing that she would normally tell you at once.”
“Yes”--Harold Redreeve frowned painfully--“that is quite true. I dare
say if she had known I was to spend the night here, she wouldn’t have
written. Poor child! I must get back at once, though I ought to go on
to-morrow and see Stephenson. But I can’t leave her another day. I shall
have to write him.” He sighed. The strain of the Tractions case had been
great. He had staked a good deal on it, and it seemed to his wearied
imagination that he would stand or fall by it. But Millicent--he
couldn’t leave her another day with her delusions. Thank heaven! they
weren’t horrible ones yet. He must get back and question Annette
discreetly; and Boyce--yes, Boyce had better come down, if he would.
“Do you know Boyce well enough to make a point, for me, of his coming to
us? Could you run up to town and manage for me to meet him at luncheon?
Could you somehow arrange it all? That is, if, after I’ve been home, it
seems best.”
“Certainly. Leave it to me. Wire me what day. Boyce is near town this
summer. Oughtn’t you to see Stephenson, anyhow? Surely one day more
couldn’t matter.”
“What I should say to Stephenson, if I saw him in my present state of
mind, would matter. Do you suppose I should be sitting here now if I
didn’t know it was too late to get home to-night? Perhaps you think this
is gay for me.”
“I don’t. Indeed, I don’t,” Delano hastened to assure him. “I think it’s
the devil and all. If Mary and I hadn’t felt it so serious, I should
have waited until the Tractions case came off before saying anything to
you. But the great thing is to take it in time.”
“Oh, I know that; I may not be a friend of Boyce’s, but I read magazine
articles occasionally--on the train. I’ve heard of psychiatry myself,
George.” He could not keep bitterness out of his tone, before the
spectacle of his brother-in-law’s interested immunity.
“It’s very hard, having it come just now. If Mary could go down; but
there are the Vincents coming on from the West next week, and a hundred
things. Of course she would go if she could do any real _good_. I know
all about it. Didn’t Violet have pneumonia last winter just when we were
putting the screws on Singer and all the C. & O. gang? But life is like
that.”
“I didn’t tell you about Violet until you had got your screws on.” Mary
spoke mildly, in the interests of literal truth.
“I hope you don’t mean, Mary”--Delano turned to his wife--“that you
think we shouldn’t have told Harry. Last night you said--”
But Mary was already in a flutter of compunction.
“Oh, my dearest George, how could you think so? We talked it all over
for an hour before you decided. Only I am sorry Harry doesn’t feel he
can see Stephenson.”
“I think myself he might as well. Twenty-four hours could make no
difference. Millicent is quite happy. All the first part of the letter
was about the garden. See.” He picked up the letter Mary had left on the
table, and handed it to Redreeve.
“I haven’t my glasses,” Redreeve muttered as he took up the thin sheets
in the familiar hand--the hand that might have been his own, so
intimately for years had it written of his deepest concerns. “May I take
it?”
Delano pursed his lips.
“Why--yes, I suppose so. Hadn’t you better see Stephenson to-morrow? You
have an appointment, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but I’ll telegraph.”
“Will it look well?”
“I don’t care a damn how it looks. He’ll get a letter explaining. I’d
like an early breakfast, Mary, if it isn’t too much trouble. I must take
the six forty-five. Thank you both--very much. Good-night.” He marched
away, clutching the letter in his hand.
When Harold Redreeve reached his summer home after a hot, broken
journey, the westering sun was falling in long, level streaks across his
wide lawn; the porches were empty; the big doors stood restfully open;
and only a bird-call was to be heard. He felt a slovenly creature,
thirsty, tired, and unsuccessful, to be coming into such a peaceful
haunt. For a moment his obsession seemed a thing to be washed off
presently with the dirt of travel; the only things he could conceivably
need were a shower and iced tea. He rang to give warning of his
presence, then stepped into the wide tiled hall. Millicent was not in
sight, but Annette appeared at once, surprised, obviously, to see him.
“Where is Mrs. Redreeve?”
“At the club, sir. She usually goes there for tea. She wasn’t expecting
you.”
“No, I know.” He started to the stairs. “Have the Stacys been here this
week?” He had to approach the matter as awkwardly as that.
“No one has been here, sir, since you went away, except Mr. and Mrs.
Carle to dinner last night. Mrs. Redreeve plays bridge most afternoons
now with the other ladies at the club.”
“What time do you expect her back?”
“Just in time to dress, sir. Nobody is here to-night.”
“Have some tea for me, will you, Annette, in about twenty minutes? I’ll
be down on the porch for it.” He went up to his dressing-room for his
bath.