Professor Vanlief lost no time in inventing an excuse for his immediate
departure. Jeannette would be well looked after. He got a few
necessaries together and started for Framley Lodge. After some delay he
obtained an interview with the distinguished patient.
"Try," urged Vanlief, "to tell me when this illness came upon you. Was
it after your curtain-speech at the end of last season?"
Wantage looked with blank and futile eyes. "Curtain-speech? I made
none."
"Oh, yes. Try to remember! It made a stir, did that speech of yours. Try
to think what happened that day!"
"I made no speech. I remember nothing. I am Wantage, I think. Wantage. I
used to act, did I not?" He laughed, feebly. It was melancholy to watch
him. He could eat and drink and sleep; he had the intelligence of an
echo. Each thought of his needed a stimulant.
Vanlief persisted, in spite of melancholy rebuffs. There was so much at
stake. This man's whole career was at stake. And, if matters were not
mended soon, the evil would be under way; the harm would have begun. It
meant loss, actual loss now, and one could scarcely compute how much
ruin afterwards. And he, Vanlief, would be the secret agent of this
ruin! Oh, it was monstrous! Something must be done. Yet, he could do
nothing until he was sure. To meddle, without absolute certainty, would
be criminal.
"What do you remember before you fell ill?" he repeated.
"Oh, leave me alone!" said Wantage. "Isn't the doctor bad enough,
without you. I tell you I remember nothing. I was well, and now I am
ill. Perhaps it was something Orson Vane gave me at supper that night, I
don't remember--"
"At supper? Vane?" The Professor leaped at the words.
"Yes. I said so, didn't I? I had supper in his rooms, and then--"
But Vanlief was gone. He had no time for the amenities now. His age
seemed to leave him as his purpose warmed, and his goal neared. All the
fine military bearing came out again. The people who traveled with him
that day took him for nothing less than a distinguished General.
At the end of the day he reached Vane's town house. Nevins was all alone
there; all the other servants were on the _Beaurivage_. The man looked
worn and aged. He trembled visibly when he walked; his nerves were
gone, and he had the taint of spirits on him.
"Mr. Vanlief, sir," he whined, "it'll be the death of me, will this
place. First he buys a yacht, sir, like I buy a 'at, if you please; and
now I'm to sell the furniture and all the antics. These antics, sir, as
the master 'as collected all over the world, sir. It goes to me 'eart."
Vanlief, even in his desperate mood, could not keep his smile back.
"Sell the antiques, eh? Well, they'll fetch plenty, I've no doubt. But
if I were you I wouldn't hurry; Mr. Vane may change his mind, you know."
"Ah," nodded Nevins, brightening, "that's true, sir. You're right; I'll
wait the least bit. It's never too soon to do what you don't want to,
eh, sir? And I gives you my word, as a man that's 'ad places with the
nobility, sir, that the last year's been a sad drain on me system. What
with swearing, sir, and letters I wouldn't read to my father confessor,
sir, Mr. Vane's simply not the man he was at all. Of course, if he says
to sell the furniture, out it goes! But, like as not, he'll come in here
some line day and ask where I've got all his trappings. And then I'll
show him his own letter, and he'll say he never wrote it. Oh, it's a bad
life I've led of late, sir. Never knowing when I could call my soul my
own."
The phrase struck the Professor with a sort of chill. It was true; if
his discovery went forth upon the world, no man would, in very truth,
know when he could call his soul his own. It would be at the mercy of
every poacher. But he could not, just now, afford reflections of such
wide scope; there was a nearer, more immediate duty.
"Nevins," he said, "I came about that mirror of mine."
"Yes, sir. I'm glad of that, sir; uncommon glad. You'll betaking it
away, sir? It's bad luck I've 'ad since that bit of plate come in the
house."
"You're right. I mean to take it away. But only for a time. Seeing Mr.
Vane's thinking of selling up, perhaps it's just as well if I have this
out of the way for a time, eh? Might avoid any confusion. I set store by
that mirror, Nevins; I'd not like it sold by mistake."
"Well, sir, if you sets more store by it than the master, I'd like to
see it done, sir. The master's made me life a burden about that there
glass. I've 'ad to watch it like a cat watches a mouse. I don't know now
whether I'd rightly let you take it or not." He scratched his head, and
looked in some quandary.
"Nonsense, Nevins. You know it's mine as well as you know your own name.
Didn't you fetch it over from my house in the first place, and didn't
you pack it and wrap it under my very eyes?"
"True, sir; I did. My memory's a bit shaky, sir, these days. You may do
as you like with your own, I'll never dispute that. But Mr. Vane's
orders was mighty strict about the plaguey thing. I wish I may never
see it again. It's been, 'Nevins, let nobody disturb the new mirror!'
and 'Nevins, did anyone touch the new mirror while I was gone?' and
'Nevins, was the window open near the new mirror?' until I fair feel
sick at the sight of it."
"No doubt," said the professor, impatiently. "Then you'll oblige me by
wrapping it up for shipping purposes as soon as ever you can. I'm going
to take it away with me at once. I suppose there's no chance of Mr. Vane
dropping in here before I bring the glass back, but, if he does, tell
him you acted under my orders."
"A good riddance," muttered Nevins, losing no time over his task of
covering and securing the mirror. "I'll pray it never comes this way
again," he remarked.
The professor, after seeing that all danger of injury to the mirror's
exposed parts was over, walked nervously up and down the rooms. He would
have to carry his plan through with force of arms, with sheer
impertinence and energy of purpose. It was an interference in two lives
that he had in view. Had he any right to that? But was he not, after
all, to blame for the fact of the curious transfusion of soul that had
left one man a mental wreck, and stimulated the other's forces to a
course of life out of all character with the strivings of his real soul?
If he had not tempted Orson Vane to these experiments, Arthur Wantage
would never be drooping in the shadow of collapse, and in danger of
losing his proper place in the roll of prosperity. Vanlief shuddered at
thought of what an unscrupulous man might not do with this discovery of
his; what lives might be ruined, what successes built on fraud and
theft? Fraud and theft? Those words were foul enough in the material
things of life; but how much more horrid would they be when they covered
the spiritual realm. To steal a purse, in the old dramatic phrase, was a
petty thing; but to steal a soul--Professor Vanlief found himself
launched into a whirlpool of doubt and confusion.
He had opened a new, vast region of mental science. He had enabled one
man to pass the wall with which nature had hedged the unforeseen forces
of humanity. Was he to learn that, in opening this new avenue of psychic
activity, he had gone counter to the eternal Scheme of Things, and let
in no divine light, but rather the fierce glare of diabolism?
His thoughts traversed argument upon argument while Nevins completed his
work. He heard the man's voice, finally, with an actual relief, a
gladness at being recalled to the daring and doing that lay before him.
When the Professor was gone, a wagon bearing away the precious mirror,
Nevins poured himself out a notably stiff glass of Five-Star.
"Here's hoping," he toasted the silent room, "the silly thing gets
smashed into everlasting smithereens!"
And he drowned any fears he might have had to the contrary. This
particular species of time-killing was now a daily matter with Nevins;
the incessant strain upon his nerves of some months past had finally
brought him to the pitch where he had only one haven of refuge left.
The Professor sped over the miles to Framley Lodge. He took little
thought about meals or sleep. The excitement was marking him deeply; but
he paid no heed to, or was unaware of, that. Arrived at the Lodge a
campaign of bribery and corruption began. Servant after servant had to
be suborned. Nothing but the well-known fame and name of Augustus
Vanlief enabled him, even with his desperate expenditures of tips, to
avert the suspicion that he had some deadly, some covertly inimical end
in view. One does not, at this age of the world, burst into another
man's house and order that man's servants about, without coming under
suspicion, to put it mildly. Fortunately Vanlief encountered, just as
his plot seemed shattering against the rigor of the household
arrangements, the doctor who was in attendance on Wantage. The man
happened to be on the staff of the University where Vanlief held a
chair. He held the older man in the greatest respect; he listened to his
rapid talk with all the patience in the world. He looked astonished,
even uncomprehending, but he shook his shoulders up and down a few times
with complaisance. "There seems no possible harm," he assented.
"Don't ask me to believe in the curative possibilities, Professor;
but--there can be no harm, that I see. He is not to be unduly excited. A
mirror, you say? You don't think vanity can send a man from illness to
health, do you? Not even an actor can be as vain as that, surely.
However, I shall tell the attendants to see that the thing is done as
quietly as possible. I trust you, you see, to let nothing detrimental
happen. I have to get over to the Port of Pines. I shall give the
orders. Goodbye. I wish I could see the result of your little--h'm,
notion--but I dare say to-morrow will be soon enough."
And he smiled the somewhat condescending smile of the successful
practitioner who fancies he is addressing a campaigner whose usefulness
is passing.
The setting up of the professor's mirror, so as to face Wantage's
sickbed, took no little time, no little care, no little exertion. When
it was in place, the professor tiptoed to the actor's side.
"Well," queried Wantage, "what is it? Medicine? Lord, I thought I'd
taken all there was in the world. Where is it?"
"No," said the professor, "not medicine. I am going to ask you to look
quite hard at that curtain by the foot of the bed for a moment. I have
something I think may interest you and--"
As the actor's eyes, in mere physical obedience to the other's
suggestion, took the desired direction, Vanlief tugged at a cord that
rolled the curtain aside, revealing the mirror, which gave Wantage back
the somewhat haggard apparition of himself.
A few seconds went by in silence. Then Wantage frowned sharply.
"Gad," he exclaimed, vigorously and petulantly, "what a beastly bad bit
of make-up!"
The voice was the voice of the man whom the town had a thousand times
applauded as "The King of the Dandies."
An exceedingly bad quarter of an hour followed for Vanlief. Wantage, now
in full possession of all his mental faculties, abused the Professor up
hill and down dale. What was he doing there? What business had that
mirror there? What good was a covered-up mirror? Where were the
servants? The doctor had given orders? The doctor was a fool. Only the
mere physical infirmity consequent upon being bedridden for so long
prevented Wantage from becoming violent in his rage. Vanlief, sharp as
was his sense of relief at the success of his venture, was yet more
relieved when his bribes finally got his mirror and himself out of the
Lodge. The incident had its humors, but he was too tired, too enervated,
to enjoy them. The very moment of Wantage's recovery of his soul had its
note of ironic comedy; the succeeding vituperation from the restored
actor; Vanlief's own meekness; the marvel and rapacity of the
servants--all these were abrim with chances for merriment. But Vanlief
found himself, for, perhaps, the first time in his life, too old to
enjoy the happy interpretations of life. Into all his rejoicings over
the outcome of this affair there crept the constant doubts, the
ceaseless questionings, as to whether he had discovered a mine of wisdom
and benefit, or a mere addition to man's chances for evil.
His return journey, his delivery of the mirror into Nevins' unwilling
care, were accomplished by him in a species of daze.
He had hardly counted upon the danger of his discovery. Was he still
young enough to contend with them?
Nevins almost flung the mirror to its accustomed place. He unwrapped it
spitefully. When he left the room, the curtain of the glass was flapping
in the wind. Nevins heard the sound quite distinctly; he went to the
sideboard and poured out a brimming potion.
"I 'opes the wind'll play the Old 'Arry with it," he smiled to himself.
He smiled often that night; he went to bed smiling. His was the cheerful
mode of intoxication.
Augustus Vanlief reached the cottage in the hills a sheer wreck. He had
left it a hale figure of a man who had ever kept himself keyed up to the
best; now he was old, shaking, trembling in nerves and muscles.
Jeannette rushed toward him and put her arms around him. She looked her
loving, silent wonder into his weary eyes.
"Sleep, dear, sleep," said this old, tired man of science, "first let me
sleep."