Westover had a difficulty in congratulating Jeff which he could scarcely
define to himself, but which was like that obscure resentment we feel
toward people whom we think unequal to their good fortune. He was ashamed
of his grudge, whatever it was, and this may have made him overdo his
expressions of pleasure. He was sensible of a false cordiality in them,
and he checked himself in a flow of forced sentiment to say, more
honestly: "I wish you'd speak to Cynthia for me. You know how much I
think of her, and how much I want to see her happy. You ought to be a
very good fellow, Jeff!"
"I'll tell her that; she'll like that," said Jeff. "She thinks the world
of you."
"Does she? Well!"
"And I guess she'll be glad you sent word. She's been wondering what you
would say; she's always so afraid of you."
"Is she? You're not afraid of me, are you? But perhaps you don't think so
much of me."
"I guess Cynthia and I think alike on that point," said Jeff, without
abating Westover's discomfort.
There was a stress of sharp cold that year about the 20th of August. Then
the weather turned warm again, and held fine till the beginning of
October, within a week of the time when Jackson was to sail. It had not
been so hard to make him consent when he knew where the doctor wished him
to go, and he had willingly profited by Westover's suggestions about
getting to Egypt. His interest in the matter, which he tried to hide at
first under a mask of decorous indifference, mounted with the fire of
Whitwell's enthusiasm, and they held nightly councils together, studying
his course on the map, and consulting planchette upon the points at
variance that rose between them, while Jombateeste sat with his chair
tilted against the wall, and pulled steadily at his pipe, which mixed its
strong fumes with the smell of the kerosene-lamp and the perennial odor
of potatoes in the cellar under the low room where the companions
forgathered.
Toward the end of September Westover spent the night before he went back
to town with them. After a season with planchette, their host pushed
himself back with his knees from the table till his chair reared upon its
hind legs, and shoved his hat up from his forehead in token of
philosophical mood.
"I tell you, Jackson," he said, "you'd ought to get hold o' some them
occult devils out there, and squeeze their science out of 'em. Any
Buddhists in Egypt, Mr. Westover?"
"I don't think there are," said Westover. "Unless Jackson should come
across some wandering Hindu. Or he might push on, and come home by the
way of India."
"Do it, Jackson!" his friend conjured him. "May cost you something more,
but it 'll be worth the money. If it's true, what some them Blavetsky
fellers claim, you can visit us here in your astral body--git in with 'em
the right way. I should like to have you try it. What's the reason India
wouldn't be as good for him as Egypt, anyway?" Whitwell demanded of
Westover.
"I suppose the climate's rather too moist; the heat would be rather
trying to him there."
"That so?"
"And he's taken his ticket for Alexandria," Westover pursued.
"Well, I guess that's so." Whitwell tilted his backward sloping hat to
one side, so as to scratch the northeast corner of his bead thoughtfully.
"But as far as that is concerned," said Westover, "and the doctrine of
immortality generally is concerned, Jackson will have his hands full if
he studies the Egyptian monuments."
"What they got to do with it?"
"Everything. Egypt is the home of the belief in a future life; it was
carried from Egypt to Greece. He might come home by way of Athens."
"Why, man!" cried Whitwell. "Do you mean to say that them old Hebrew
saints, Joseph's brethren, that went down into Egypt after corn, didn't
know about immortality, and them Egyptian devils did?"
"There's very little proof in the Old Testament that the Israelites knew
of it."