He paid the professor another visit a few days later, and afterwards
another, and another.
"What," said the professor, at the end of his second visit, "is it ten
o'clock? I assure you it is usually much later than this when it strikes
ten."
"Thank you," said Arbuthnot. "I never heard that civility accomplished
so dexterously before. It is perfectly easy to explain the preternatural
adroitness of speech on which Mrs. Amory prides herself. But don't be
too kind to me, professor, and weaken my resolution not to present
myself unless I have just appropriated an idea from somewhere. If I
should appear some day _au naturel_, not having taken the precaution to
attire myself in the mature reflections of my acquaintance, I shouldn't
pay you for the wear and tear of seeing me, I'll confess beforehand."
"I once told you," said the professor to Tredennis, after the fourth
visit, "that I was not fond of him, but there had been times when I had
been threatened with it. This is one of the times. Ah!" with a sigh of
fatigue, "I understand the attraction--I understand it."
The following week Tredennis arrived at the house one evening to find it
in some confusion. The _coupé_ of a prominent medical man stood before
the pavement, and the servant who opened the door looked agitated.
"The professor, sir," he said, "has had a fall. We hope he aint much
hurt, and Mr. Arbuthnot and the doctor are with him."
"Ask if I may go upstairs," said Tredennis; and, as he asked it,
Arbuthnot appeared on the landing above, and, seeing who was below, came
down at once.
"There is no real cause for alarm," he said, "though he has had a
shock. He had been out, and the heat must have been too much for him. As
he was coming up the steps he felt giddy and lost his footing, and fell.
Doctor Malcolm is with him, and says he needs nothing but entire quiet.
I am glad you have come. Did you receive my message?"
"No," answered Tredennis. "I have not been to my room."
"Come into the library," said Arbuthnot. "I have something to say to
you."
He led the way into the room, and Tredennis followed him, wondering.
When they got inside Arbuthnot turned and closed the door.
"I suppose," he said, "you know no more certainly than I do where Mr.
Amory is to be found." And as he spoke he took a telegram from his
pocket.
"What is the matter?" demanded Tredennis. "What has"--
"This came almost immediately after the professor's accident," said
Arbuthnot. "It is from Mrs. Amory, asking him to come to her. Janey is
very ill."
"What!" exclaimed Tredennis. "And she alone, and probably without any
physician she relies on!"
"Some one must go to her," said Arbuthnot, "and the professor must know
nothing of it. If we knew of any woman friend of hers we might appeal to
her; but everybody is out of town."
He paused a second, his eyes fixed on Tredennis's changing face.
"If you will remain with the professor," he said, "I will go myself, and
take Doctor Wentworth with me."
"You!" said Tredennis.
"I shall be better than nothing," replied Arbuthnot, quietly. "I can do
what I am told to do, and she mustn't be left alone. If her mother had
been alive, she would have gone; if her father had been well, he would
have gone; if her husband had been here"--
"But he is not here," said Tredennis, with a bitterness not strictly
just. "Heaven only knows where he is."
"It would be rather hazardous to trust to a telegram reaching him at
Merrittsville," said Arbuthnot. "We are not going to leave her alone
even until we have tried Merrittsville. What must be done must be done
now. I will go and see Doctor Wentworth at once, and we can leave in an
hour if I find him. You can tell the professor I was called away."
He made a step toward the door, and as he did so Tredennis turned
suddenly.
"Wait a moment," he said.
Arbuthnot came back.
"What is it?" he asked.
There was a curious pause, which, though it lasted scarcely longer than
a second, was still a pause.
"If _I_ go," said Tredennis, "it will be easier to explain my absence to
the professor." And then there was a pause again, and each man looked at
the other, and each was a trifle pale.
It was Arbuthnot who spoke first.
"I think," he said, without moving a muscle, "that you had better let me
go."
"Why?" said Tredennis, and the unnatural quality of his voice startled
himself.
"Because," said Arbuthnot, as calmly as before, "you will be conferring
a favor on me, if you do. I want an excuse for getting out of town,
and--I want an opportunity to be of some slight service to Mrs. Amory."
Before the dignity of the stalwart figure towering above his slighter
proportions he knew he appeared to no advantage as he said the words;
but to have made the best of himself he must have relinquished his point
at the outset, and this he had no intention of doing, though he was not
enjoying himself. A certain cold-blooded pertinacity which he had
acquired after many battles with himself was very useful to him at the
moment.
"The worst thing that could happen to her just now," he had said to
himself, ten minutes before, "would be that he should go to her in her
trouble." And upon this conviction he took his stand.
In placing himself in the breach he knew that he had no means of defence
whatever; that any reasons for his course he might offer must appear, by
their flimsiness, to betray in him entire inadequacy to the situation in
which he seemed to stand, and that he must present himself in the
character of a victim to his own bold but shallow devices, and simply
brazen the matter out; and when one reflects upon human weakness it is
certainly not to his discredit that he had calmly resigned himself to
this before entering the room. There was no triviality in Tredennis's
mood, and he made no pretence of any. The half darkness of the room,
which had been shaded from the sun during the day, added to the
significance of every line in his face. As he stood, with folded arms,
the shadows seemed to make him look larger, to mark his pallor, and
deepen the intensity of his expression.
"Give me a better reason," he said.
Arbuthnot paused. What he saw in the man moved him strongly. In the
light of that past of his, which was a mystery to his friends, he often
saw with terrible clearness much he was not suspected of seeing at all,
and here he recognized what awakened in him both pity and respect.
"I have no better one," he answered. "I tell you I miss the exhilaration
of Mrs. Amory's society and want to see her, and hope she will not be
sorry to see me." And, having said it, he paused again before making his
_coup d'état_. Then he spoke deliberately, looking Tredennis in the
eyes. "That you should think anything detrimental to Mrs. Amory, even in
the most shadowy way, is out of the question," he said. "Think of me
what you please."
"I shall think nothing that is detrimental to any man who is her
friend," said Tredennis, and there was passion in the words, though he
had tried to repress it.
"Her friendship would be a good defence for a man against any wrong that
was in him," said Arbuthnot, and this time the sudden stir of feeling in
him was not altogether concealed. "Let me have my way," he ended. "It
will do no harm."
"It will do no good," said Tredennis.
"No," answered Arbuthnot, recovering his impervious air, "it will do no
good, but one has to be sanguine to expect good. Perhaps I need pity,"
he added. "Suppose you are generous and show it me."
He could not help seeing the dramatic side of the situation, and with
half-conscious irony abandoning himself to it. All at once he seemed to
have deserted the well-regulated and decently arranged commonplaces of
his ordinary life, and to be taking part in a theatrical performance of
rather fine and subtle quality, and he waited with intense interest to
see what Tredennis would do.
What he did was characteristic of him. He had unconsciously taken two or
three hurried steps across the room, and he turned and stood still.
"It is I who must go," he said.
"You are sure of that?" said Arbuthnot.
"We have never found it easy to understand each other," Tredennis
answered, "though perhaps you have understood me better than I have
understood you. You are quicker and more subtle than I am. I only seem
able to see one thing at a time, and do one thing. I only see one thing
now. It is better that I should go."
"You mean," said Arbuthnot, "better for me?"
Tredennis looked down at the floor.
"Yes," he answered.
A second or so of silence followed, in which Arbuthnot simply stood and
looked at him. The utter uselessness of the effort he had made was borne
in upon him in a manner which overpowered him.
"Then," he remarked at length, "if you are considering me, there seems
nothing more to be said. Will you go and tell the professor that you are
called away, or shall I?"
"I will go myself," replied Tredennis.
He turned to leave the room, and Arbuthnot walked slowly toward the
window. The next moment Tredennis turned from the door and followed him.
"If I have ever done you injustice," he said, "the time is past for it,
and I ask your pardon."
"Perhaps it is not justice I need," said Arbuthnot, "but mercy--and I
don't think you have ever been unjust to me. It wouldn't have been
easy."
"In my place," said Tredennis, with a visible effort, "you would find it
easier than I do to say what you wished. I"--
"You mean that you pity me," Arbuthnot interposed. "As I said before,
perhaps I need pity. Sometimes I think I do;" and the slight touch of
dreariness in his tone echoed in Tredennis's ear long after he had left
him and gone on his way.