THE MANSARD ROOF.
Again, for the second time, the student of the occult gazed upon his
affinity; and again the lovely Typewriter, versed in the higher
criticism of Chicago social life, sized up her caller with
cosmopolitan grace.
The meeting was relieved of embarrassment by the spontaneous
interrogation of the city-bred business woman.
“And what can we do for you today, Mr. Leffingwell?”--sweetly.
“I have come, Miss Sheets,”--murmured Mr. Leffingwell, and he looked
directly through the maiden at the wall paper,--“I have come to invite
you, to implore you, to go with me to--to--to--stroll with me.
Walls--walls--that is, some of them, have ears. I would be alone with
you. There is much of moment to impart to you--to you alone. There is
a secret--”
“That catches me,”--broke in the beauty, and she rose, donning her
picture hat hastily, and grabbing her long-handled umbrella and
many-buttoned kids.
“Well, come along, Mr. Leffingwell; I’m ready”--and the dear girl’s
hand was on the hall door-knob.
And the man and the maiden passed on down Asylum Avenue.
The Mystic appeared actually to know where he wanted to go. After
conducting her to the outskirts he led her upward to the summit of a
bluff overlooking the City, the Asylum and the Vanderhook drug store.
Then he became strangely silent. Indeed, he had spoken but once in
their long walk, and then only when his companion halted suddenly,
dropping a few paces behind him.
“What is it, dear Miss Sheets, art weary?”--he had murmured softly,
and he anxiously contemplated her listless expression.
“It’s nothing,” the lady replied, and then she smiled bravely.
But it was something, very unpleasant and very painful. Miss Sheets
was breaking in a new pair of boots--an immense feat, as any Chicago
girl knows.
It made her very tired.
Finally they reached and paused upon the summit. It was the hour when
the sun is apparently sinking. Kankakee lay bathed in that rosy
afterglow.
“Is not this inspiring--uplifting? Is not this Realization? Let us
VIBRATE.”
His large, round, blue eyes were fixed steadfastly upon nothing. He
wore an expression of ineffable self-satisfaction.
But the lady was silent. She seemed not to hear. She was busy with
some burrs on her gown. Her gaze lingered fondly upon her new
sparkling diamond.
“Still silent,” he murmured, “still wrapped in your own thoughts. Why
that disturbed expression, why no response? You frown; alas, what
does this portend?” and Alonzo, the Guru, momentarily diverted from
contemplation of Himself, clasped his hands, cast his eyes upward and
bent as if he might kneel.
“It isn’t anything,” indifferently.
“Alas, and alas!” ejaculated her escort. “Not anything you say; yet we
who walk the Path are taught that everything Objective is the outcome
of something which is Subjective, and therefore nothing is something
and ‘not anything’ is everything to me, when it disharmonizes YOU.
Tell me, fair one, what and why?”
“O, well, if you must know,” and Miss Sheets sniffed, “I was just
wondering if I could ever tie up to these dreadful, grassy smells of
the country. One gets _so_ used to City odors, you know. And Chicago
has more of ’em, especially about the Yards, and better mixed than in
any city in the world. When you’re in Chicago you know what’s
a-coming”--and the city-bred girl held up her dainty “mouchoir” to
ward off the scent of new mown hay.
A wave of perplexity, of doubt over-swept the solemn countenance of
the Mystic.
“Then you would tell me--”
“Yes, that I don’t like the odors, and I don’t like this
dead-and-alive stillness. Why, anybody who comes from the Yards, and
is used to the roar and crash and squealing, gets nervous prostration
in a cemetery like this.”
Alonzo contemplated her, wonderingly; then, as if dismissing the whole
thing, he said in a tone that hinted of impetuosity, “Let us not talk
of Chicago, nor the Yards. Let us forget the smelly things and the
dead ones. Let us only think of each other, Miss Sheets,” and he drew
closer to her. “Miss Sheets, Imogene, my own, my very own, tell me,
tell me now that you feel a subtle something drawing you to ME!”
The sharp, bright eyes of the Typewriter opened with astonishment. It
was the lady’s turn to look bewildered. She gazed blankly at the
smitten Seer who had already dropped on one knee. She gazed upon him
in wonderment. It was the look of mingled awe and admiration a child
bestows upon a circus Poster.
“I--I--don’t catch on,” she said simply. The rapt lover smiled. It was
a pale, luminous ripple of compassion. He lifted himself to the
perpendicular--drawing still closer. He gazed upon her. He seemed
almost ready to take her hand.
“Most perfect of mortals,” he began. “Let me explain:
“As you may have heard, I am under orders for Gnaniship. To accomplish
this I must soon go from the sophomore grade of Illinois to the senior
course in far off Hindustan. In the line of my profession I come to
know pretty much everything. I am as familiar with the IS, as with the
APPARENT. The NOTHINGNESS of the IS NOT I have demonstrated several
times. The oneness of UNITY and the ISNESS of BEING I have already
mastered. And by a patient pursuit of the WHITHER and WHENCE, I have
anticipated my contemporaries by thousands of years. I have distanced
posterity by many a lap.”
The Mystic paused to note the impression he was making. Then he went
on;--“Through the esoteric fundaments of nature and through certain
occult experiments in primordial polarity, I was enabled to apprehend,
to comprehend, to cognize the great law of affinity. I discovered that
somewhere there was a ONE, a particular ONE, a dear, sweet, beautiful
SHE to whom I was bound in protoplasmic energies and biological
consequences.
“And there came a time when she whom I sought was visioned in the
astral light. I saw her--SHE--that one, essential, correlated
SHE,--SHE that was my other half--that satisfying SHE--that only
SHE--was none other than your own sweet self, Miss Sheets.
“Nay, do not interrupt me. It was not until you realized in material
substance this ethereal vision that I had, as it were, solved the
problem. I had proved the law. Though as yet far beneath MYSELF in
physical refinement, mental acquirements and spiritual illumination, I
am yet resolved to accept you as my own and wait until you _do
attain_. I am patient. I can and will wait until you have been
instructed in the Path of Yog, and attain to ME. And now, my own,
speak to me. Express your joy. Speak, ah, speak!”
Mr. Leffingwell paused. There was something almost akin to human
desire in his voice, but there was no reply. Miss Sheets was silent.
She seemed to be only half listening. In her eyes was now that
far-offness, so habitual to mystics, gnanis and gurus. It was now the
lady who was abstracted. Her glance traveled down and backward along
the avenue. She was looking in the direction of the drug store.
“Hear me again, fair one”--whispered the occultist. “I am yours only.
You are mine only. I co-ordinate with you, not as Bill does on the
earth plane. Mine is a love not desecrated by thoughts of diamond
rings, sealskin sacques, oyster suppers, pink candies and frozen
mushes. Mine is the primordial passion that vibrates in the etheric
spaces of the universe. It is a passion which scorns material bribes.
Mine is a devotion that looks only to soul communion, and the solemn
absorption of OURSELF back into Nirvanic nothingness. The hour is come
and now is. Imogene, my onliest, sweet bird of paradise, it is your
mate who calls. Come, O come, this day, this hour, and we will
fly-by-night to Hindustan.”
Miss Sheets started--but not to Hindustan. She was roused from her
reverie of drugs, drug stores and druggists. She had but mistily
sensed the monologue of the Mystic. But the last proposition
penetrated her inner consciousness. His reference to birds had
recalled her to herself, for she was a member of the Audubon Society
and quite up on birds. She now realized that she had been indifferent
and almost rude to one whom Kankakee regarded as harmless.
Her Chicago good nature asserted itself. “Well, you do just talk to
beat the band”--politely--“as we girls say at the Yards. Now what was
that you were just saying about birds and flies?”
“I was trying to say this”--gasped the Mystic huskily, as he reached
out, touching the border of her belt ribbon to hold her attention. “I
was saying that you must be mine. Listen,--this secret shall not be
mine alone, but ours henceforth. Together in aeons past you and I,
sweet creature, proceeded from primordial One-Substance. From the
remote to the now, from the now to the ultimate we have been and shall
be one. As we hereinbefore evolved ourselves from the potentialities
of the duplex soul, so shall we together involve ourselves hereinafter
in the blessedness of nothing. Though you have not reached my own
karmic height, you may _Aspire_. Though you do not cognize the
immutable from my own lofty perch of perfect attainment, I will wait,
calmly wait, until you by long self-unfoldment shall rise to the state
of being of ME.”
“O, come off!”--ejaculated the fair girl, at last losing patience.
“You make me tired. I say, let’s get a move”--and emphasizing her
speech with a yawn, she gathered up a handful of back draperies and
turned away.
“Alas, and alas,”--mournfully murmured the mystic. “It is as I was
warned by the Director of our division. You have not as yet cognized
your higher self, hence have not perceived ME. You have not as yet
sensed this fair fleshly veil as but the vehicle of your higher
principles and quite separate from your ultimate ego. All the same,
you’re mine. I will not repudiate you. You are the feminine principle
co-ordinating with myself, and though you may ignore this only
opportunity, yet I will bide your awakening and your renunciation of
error. Though you may defeat your own illumination by renouncing ME,
yet will I continue to walk the fifty-seven Paths-of-Self and wait. It
rests with you, girl, to fix the happy day now, or to postpone it
through tedious incarnations. It is for you to say now whether you
will fly with me to India and share with me in the coming centuries in
the ecstatic contemplation of the One-Horned-Hair of the
Sacred-Rabbit. Are you ready to aspire for aeons? Are you prepared to
meditate for cycles upon the oneness of substance and the Be-Ness of
Being; attaining thereby to the ultimate exaltation of Nirvanic
vacuity? Speak, bright one, sweet spirit of Chicago, say,--I WILL.
Delay not. Your consent I implore. Miss Sheets, Imogene, what is your
answer?”
“R--a--a--t--,” but the maiden checked herself with a little scream,
for unheard and unperceived came Nemesis.
Bill Vanderhook stood face to face with the importunate Mystic and the
ruffled Typewriter.
And the druggist, fresh, rosy and sleek, from the best of barbers and
haberdashers, loomed up handsomely by contrast with the now weary,
wilted and woebegone Lonnie.
“Imogene Sheets”--and the words cut the air like a whip
cracker,--“and I also say that the day and the hour is now. There’s to
be no more fooling. Business is business. Here’s where we change the
score. Here’s where we decide who’s captain of this game. I’m up to
all sorts of games, and I’m going to know now which of us rooters is
IT. I’m a kicker and a catcher and a shortstop and a batter all in
one.”
Miss Sheets turned deadly pale as Bill continued: “Now, which is it,
the Yogy cave with him in India, or the two-story--basement--brown
stone--swell front--modern conveniences and mansard roof with Bill
Vanderhook in Kankakee? Speak, girl.”
“The--the--man--sar-r-d roof.” The words came faintly from the
trembling lips of the agitated girl. But the rivals caught the import.
Had they been inaudible the rejected lover would have sensed the
thought and perceived her answer.
But he made no protest. Philosophers never do. He did not speak. He
did not even cast upon her a reproachful look, nor one of anger upon
his rival. He only made one little moan with a faint far-offness in
the vibration, and then for the second time the unhappy Mystic lay as
one dead at the feet of his affinity.
“Well, isn’t that fierce?” and Imogene looked on with sweet womanly
sympathy while Bill, the now triumphant lover, lifted Lonnie like he
was a pigskin and hoisted him into the auto. “Sure thing,” said Bill,
joyously. “He got it in the neck that time. Come, Petsy, we’ve got to
honk some. We must revive him on the Q. T.
“I’ll take him home with me and give him about four fingers with
ginger on the side. That’ll fetch him.”
Imogene looked her admiration of Bill’s generosity, and then,
gathering her draperies and snuggling down by her future Chauffeur,
she sighed a little as she looked upon the inert gentleman on the back
seat--saying more to herself than to Bill, “Isn’t it a pity he has
fits?”
Oh, wild and wooly Wizard of the West;
Worthy, winsome worker of the Test;
Wakeful, watchful, wise one, whiskerless;
Weird and woozy wight, all unexpressed.