A young man so prominent in the town as Orson Vane had naturally a very
large list of acquaintances. He knew, in the fashionable phrase,
"everybody," and "everybody" knew him. His acquaintances ranged beyond
the world of fashion; the theatre, the turf, and many other regions had
denizens who knew Orson Vane and held him in esteem. He had always lived
a careful, well-mannered life; his name had never been in the newspapers
save in the inescapable columns touching society.
When he was ready to proceed with the experiment of the mirror, the
largeness of his social register was at once a pleasure and a pain.
There were so many, so many! It was evident that he must use the types
most promising in eccentricity; he must adventure forth in company with
the strangest souls, not the mere ordinary ones.
Sitting in the twilight of his rooms one day, it occurred to him that he
was now ripe for his first decision. Whose soul should he seize? That
was the question. He had spent a week or so perfecting plans, stalling
off awkward episodes, schooling his servants. There was no telling what
might not happen.
He picked up a newspaper. A name caught his eye; he gave a little laugh.
"The very man!" he told himself, "the very man. Society's court fool; it
will be worth something to know what lies under his cap and bells."
He scrawled a note, enclosed it, and rang for Nevins.
"Have that taken, at once, to Mr. Reginald Hart. And then, presently,
have a hansom called and let it wait nearby."
"Reggie will be sure to come," he said, when alone. "I've told him there
was a pretty woman here."
He felt a nervous restlessness. He paced his room, fingering the frames
of his prints, trying the cord of his new mirror, adjusting the blinds
of the windows. He tingled with mental and physical expectation. He
wondered whether nothing, after all, would be the result. How insane it
was to expect any such thing to happen as Vanlief had vapored of! This
was the twentieth century rather than the tenth; miracles never
happened. Yet how fervently he wished for one! To feel the soul of
another superimposing itself upon his own; to know that he had committed
the grandest larceny under heaven, the theft of a soul, and to gain,
thereby, complete insight into the spiritual machinery of another
mortal!
Nevins returned, within a little time, bringing word that Mr. Hart had
been found at home, and would call directly.
Vane pushed the new mirror to a position where it would face the door.
He told Nevins not to enter the room after Mr. Hart; to let him enter,
and let the curtain fall behind him.
He took up a position by a window and waited. The minutes seemed heavy
as lead. The air was unnaturally still.
At last he heard Nevins, in gentle monosyllables. Another voice, high
almost to falsetto, clashed against the stillness.
Then the curtain swung back.
Reginald Hart, whom all the smart world never called other than Reggie
Hart, stood for a moment in the curtain-way, the mirror barring his
path. He caught his image there to the full, the effeminate, full face,
the narrow-waisted coat, the unpleasantly womanish hips. He put out his
right hand, as if groping in the dark. Then he said, shrilly,
stammeringly.
"Vane! Oh, Vane, where the de--"
He sank almost to his knees. Vane stepping forward, caught him by the
shoulder and put him into an arm-chair. Hart sat there, his head hunched
between his shoulders.
"Silly thing to do, Vane, old chappy. Beastly sorry for this--stunt of
mine. Too many tea-parties lately, Vane, too much dancing, too much--"
his voice went off into a sigh. "Better get a cab," he said, limply.
He had quite forgotten why he had come: he was simply in collapse,
mentally and physically. Vane, trembling with excitement and delight,
walked up to the mirror from behind and sent the veil upon its face
again. Then he had Nevins summon the cab. He watched Hart tottering out,
upon Nevins' shoulder, with a dry, forced smile.
So it was real! He could hardly believe it. In seconds, in the merest
flash, his visitor had faded like a flower whose root is plucked. The
man had come in, full of vitality, quite, in fact, himself; he had gone
out a mere husk, a shell.
But there was still the climax ahead. Had he courage for it, now that it
loomed imminent? Should he send for Hart and have him pick up his soul
where he had dropped it? Or should he, stern in his first purpose, fit
that soul upon his own, as one fits a glove upon the hand? There was yet
time. It depended only upon whether Hart or himself faced the mirror
when the veil was off.
He cut his knot of indecision sharply, with a stride to the mirror, a
jerk at the cord and a steady gaze into the clear pool of light,
darkened only by his own reflection.
* * * * *
Strain his eyes as he would, he could feel no change, not the faintest
stir of added emotion. He let the curtain drop upon the mirror
listlessly.
Walking to his window-seat again, he was suddenly struck by his image in
one of the other glasses. He was really very well shaped; he felt a wish
to strip to the buff; it was rather a shame to clothe limbs as fine as
those. He was quite sure there were friends of his who would appreciate
photographs of himself, in some picturesque costume that would hide as
little as possible. It was an age since he had any pictures taken. He
called for Nevins. His voice struck Nevins as having a taint of tenor in
it.
"Nevins," he said, "have the photographer call to-morrow, like a good
man, won't you? You know, the chap, I forget his name, who does all the
smart young women. I'll be glad to do the fellow a service; do him no
end of good to have his name on pictures of me. I'm thinking of
something a bit startling for the Cutter's costume ball, Nevins, so have
the man from Madame Boyer's come for instructions. And see if you can
find me some perfume at the chemist's; something heavy, Nevins. The
perfumes at once, that's a dear man. I want them in my pillows tonight."
When the man was gone, his master went to the sideboard, opened it, and
gave a gentle sigh of disappointment.
"Careless of me," he murmured, "to have no Red Ribbon in the place. How
can any gentleman afford to be without it? Dear, dear, if any of the
girls and boys had caught me without it. Another thing I must tell
Nevins. Nothing but whisky! Abominably vulgar stuff! Can't think,
really, 'pon honor I can't, how I ever came to lay any of it in. And no
cigarettes in the place. Goodness me! What sweet cigarettes those are
Mrs. Barrett Weston always has! Wonder if that woman will ask me to her
cottage this summer."
He strolled to the window, yawned, stretched out his arms, drawing his
hands towards him at the end of his gesture. He inspected the fingers
minutely. They needed manicuring. He began to put down a little list of
things to be done. He strolled over to the tabouret where invitations
lay scattered all about. That dear Mrs. Sclatersby was giving a
studio-dance; she was depending on him for a novel feature. Perhaps if
he did a little skirt-dance. Yes; the notion pleased him. He would sit
down, at once, and write a hint to a newspaper man who would be sure to
make a sensation of this skirt-dance.
That done, he heard Nevins knocking.
"Oh," he murmured, "the perfumes. So sweet!" He buried his nose in a
handful of the sachet-bags. He sprayed some Maria Farina on his
forehead. Perfumes, he considered, were worth worship just as much as
jewels or music. The more sinful a perfume seemed, the more stimulating
it was to the imagination. Some perfumes were like drawings by
Beardsley.
He looked at the walls. He really must get some Beardsleys put up. There
was nothing like a Beardsley for jogging a sluggish fancy; if you wanted
to see everything that milliners and dressmakers existed by hiding, all
you had to do was to sup sufficiently on Beardsley. He thought of
inventing a Beardsley cocktail; if he could find a mixture that would
make the brain quite pagan, he would certainly give it that name.
His mind roved to the feud between the Montagues and Capulets of the
town. It was one of those modern feuds, made up of little social
frictions, infinitesimal jealousies, magnified by a malicious press into
a national calamity. It was a feud, he told himself, that he would have
to mend. It would mean, for him, the lustre from both houses. And there
was nothing, in the smart world, like plenty of lustre. There were
several sorts of lustre: that of money, of birth, and of public honors.
Personally, he cared little for the origin of his lustre; so it put him
in the very forefront of smartness he asked for nothing more. Of course,
his own position was quite impeccable. The smart world might narrow year
by year; the Newport set, and the Millionaire set, and the Knickerbocker
set--they might all dwindle to one small world of smartness; yet nothing
that could happen could keep out an Orson Vane. The name struck him, as
it shaped itself in his mind, a trifle odd. An Orson Vane? Yes, of
course, of course. For that matter, who had presumed to doubt the
position of a Vane? He asked himself that, with a sort of defiance. An
Orson Vane, an Orson Vane? He repeated the syllables over and over, in a
whisper at first, and then aloud, until the shrillness of his tone gave
him a positive start.
He rang the bell for Nevins.
"Nevins," he said, and something in him fought against his speech, "tell
me, that's a good man,--is there anything, anything wrong with--me?"
"Nothing sir," said Nevins stolidly.
Orson Vane gave a sort of gasp as the man withdrew. It had come to him
suddenly; the under-self was struggling beneath the borrowed self. He
was Orson Vane, but he was also another.
Who? What other?
He gave a little shrill laugh as he remembered. Reggie Hart,--that was
it,--Reggie Hart.
He sat down to undress for sleep. He slipped into bed as daintily as a
woman, nestling to the perfumed pillows.
Nevins, in his part of the house, sat shaking his head. "If he hadn't
given me warning," he told himself, "I'd have sent for a doctor."