Wednesday morning Edith telephoned to Dr. Rowland while Elsie was
getting breakfast. He not only made an appointment for ten o’clock, but
volunteered to go with his car and bring Mrs. Shaviro to Elsie’s flat.
After breakfast, Edith called up Trench, not without a tremor.
“This is Miss Bridgman, Dr. Trench.—So am I to hear yours. I want to
consult you concerning a friend of mine. Can I see you this afternoon at
your office?—Thank you very much—three will be just right.”
And at three she was there. Chatterjee let her in, and she told him she
had seen him at the University, at the Tagore lecture. She introduced
herself, learned his name, and hoped that they might see more of each
other. This pleased him immensely, and in his shy, quiet way, he asked
her if she had liked Mr. Tagore when he spoke about union with nature, or
some such thing.
“So much, Mr. Chatterjee, that sometime I want to ask you many questions.
Just now the doctor is expecting me.”
Chat disappeared into the inner office, and did not reappear, having
another way of exit thence. Trench came through into the library and held
out only one hand, though the impulse to extend both was strong.
“It is a very great pleasure to see you here, Miss Bridgman. I lack
training in the amenities, as you know only too well, but Mrs. Jamison
had a name for you. Do you recall it?”
“I’m afraid I do. And it is distinctly nice of you to imply that I
brighten the room. When you hear what I’ve come about, you will want to
call me Evening Cloud.”
“Or some such thing!” said Trench.
“Or some such thing,” she echoed. “He’s delightful—Mr. Chatterjee is
delightful. One can see that he’s had bringing up.”
“You could say that of all the fellows around me here—even of one who has
just left us, having scarred us all with frank speech. And now come into
my sanctum.”
He led the way, and closed the door. She stood looking at the Della
Robbia—that dearest one of the sculptured babies of the Spedalie degli
Innocenti. It had the intimacy of famous things—it seemed like Trench’s
own child.
“You called this room sanctum,” she said, “and you have that exquisite
little fellow always before you, like something sacred.”
“Please sit down, Miss Bridgman. You are already tossing me a challenge,
for ‘sacred’ is a word that belongs to a past age. I don’t suppose there
is an animal or a plant that hasn’t been sacred.”
“And _I_ don’t suppose,” she retorted, “that there _are_ any past ages.
Aren’t the confidences that pass in this office sacred?”
“I hope so.”
“And aren’t the relations of men and women sacred?”
“Yes, subject to reason.”
“It is not the first time in the history of the world, Dr. Trench, that
an idolater has transferred sacredness from persons to reason. Do you
find that reason carries you far in considering the relations of men and
women?”
“No,” said Trench, perceiving that she had acquired resources since last
he talked with her.
Edith smiled at his docility. “I don’t really need to quiz you like this,
because I know how good you are. I know that your bark is a thousand
times worse than your bite. I have been trying very hard this winter to
be impersonal.”
“Why should you, my dear lady? Don’t become a negation like me.”
“Being,” said Edith, in as sepulchral a tone as she could command,
“myself a mere atom. Little you know, my dear Dr. Trench, how far behind
the times you are in astrophysics. An atom is as complicated a thing as
the planet Saturn, and looks like it, with its ring of electrons. In
fact, it reminds me of you and your boys, and I shall address you on
that subject on the twenty-eighth of June, in connection with potential
energy.”
“Heavens!” ejaculated Trench. “Does that appointment really hold?”
“Hold! It holds like a non-Euclidean equation. For ten in the morning,
sir, in the conservatory. I’m preparing a lecture which will last till
Sunday dinner, and take the place of church.”
“I’ll be there,” cried Trench, “in spite of all the babies in Chicago.”
“Good! And now to my errand. Do you remember my using the words
‘impersonal passion’?”
“I’m not likely to forget it, while life lasts.”
“And sending me to Ischl’s?”
“Yes. I apologise.”
“There is no need of apology. I went, and made the acquaintance of two
girls. One was Italian and one was Jewish. Soon afterward the Jewish girl
married, and that is what I have come to consult you about. Her husband
is not with her now, and I am terribly afraid that he has deserted her.”
Trench nodded. “The old story. Desertion gives the charities more trouble
than everything else except alcohol. But the law can do something, and I
will help you take the proper steps.”
“I’m afraid the law can’t help us. The man has gone to Russia.”
“That is unusual, and makes it worse. Is she very anxious to get him
back?”
“No, because she is sure he will return. She is desperately in love, and
trusts him completely. But I feel very certain that she has seen the last
of him.”
“In that case, the best thing to do is to do nothing—not even to destroy
her faith. She will come to believe him dead and send him to the heaven
of Jewish heroes.”
Edith smiled demurely. “It isn’t every woman, then, who has to be told
the truth.”
“No.”
“I had hoped,” she said, “that you had some friend in Russia who might be
asked to find the man and reason with him. I should be very glad to pay
such a friend’s expenses.”
Trench shook his head. “Reason doesn’t go far in these cases—as you just
now reminded me. The best thing is to let the girl go back into the
factory. Is she a person of any intelligence?”
“Dr. Trench, this girl is above the average. She is my superior.”
“What type physically? Heavy?”
“No—more like a flame.”
Trench knotted his brow. “The man whom she loves must be above the
average also. Very likely the Jewish type of Russian intellectual. Is
there any reason, however, why the girl should not return to the factory?”
“Yes, Dr. Trench. If you don’t mind, will you call up Dr. Rowland, and
tell him that I am here, and ask him about my friend whom he saw this
morning?”
The doctor took up the telephone, got the number, and began to talk.
“Good morning, doctor. This is Trench. Miss Bridgman is here, speaking
to me about a case in which she is interested. It is the young woman
whom you saw this morning. She wants me to know the facts and the
prospects.”—He listened for two or three minutes.—“Yes.—Yes.—October. All
right, and thank you. Good-bye.”
“Dr. Rowland reports everything in fine shape, and is much impressed with
the girl. He called her Elsie.”
“Yes, that’s her name. Elsie Sereef.”
“Sereef!”
“Exactly, Dr. Trench. She is the wife of your student.”
It is not appointed to many men in a lifetime to be so surprised. He had
thought that nothing in Saadi could surprise him, but he seemed to be
listening to incredible bad news about—himself.
But Trench took it in characteristic fashion. He sat in silence for
three minutes, while his mind retraced Saadi’s history swiftly, omitting
little and neglecting nothing. Then he took another minute to consider
the future, while his gaze seemed fastened on the little picture that
Arschiak had given him. She followed his gaze and saw with a start what
the picture was. At the end of four minutes Trench unknotted his brow,
looked up, apologised, and reached out for the picture.
“Do you remember the scene?”
“I’m not likely to forget it, while life lasts,” she quoted. “Just about
there”—she touched the foreground—“I wondered whether either of us would
ever see land again.”
Trench put the painting back. “My boy Saadi,” he said, “will be glad to
know that he is to be a father. I will wire his steamer immediately.”
“You poor innocent—you poor Della Robbia innocent wrapped in swathing
bands!”
“Delightful epithet,” said Trench.
“Why, doctor, is it possible that you think this adventurer cares a rap
about Elsie? It is the most terrible example of—impersonal passion.”
“Appearances are against him, Miss Bridgman, but I have faith in Saadi.”
“Why? How is it possible?”
“If I tell you the truth, you will think me the most arrogant animal that
walks.”
“Well, tell me the truth. I seem to be the person for whom you reserve
it.”
“I trust Saadi because he is so much like myself. He has no God, no
standards, no anything.”
She checked her quick tongue, determined that this time she would not
make the old mistake. “You mean something, my friend. Your confidence in
this Mr. Sereef is entirely personal?”
“Yes. Personal is the word. Saadi came here with despair in his heart and
strange oaths on his lips. He called himself strictly selfish, and warned
me that he would seduce some girl if he saw fit. It was an attempt to
be honest with himself in the midst of cowardice and hypocrisy. All the
autumn he sang the praises of war—war being to him the honest expression
of human nature. But a change came over him. On the fifteenth of last
month he told me that he had been reading the New Testament.”
“Yes. His wife tells me that they read it together.”
“Ah, that completes the chain. Saadi reverted to the ideals of
Christianity, exactly as if he had Christian blood in him. He regarded
them as wild dreams, but resigned himself.”
“Resigned himself!”
“Yes. And I know exactly how he felt. I am now quite ready to admit the
importance of certain ideals—the importance of certain illusions, if you
please.”
“That subject, Dr. Trench, is reserved for the twenty-eighth of June.
But you are ready to admit that Mr. Sereef’s marriage vow is sacred?”
“Quite ready.”
“Then will you not appeal to him to respect it?”
“I shall be glad to wire him that the child is coming. I don’t feel
called upon to lecture him.”
“I wish,” said Edith, “oh, I do wish that I could share your confidence
in him. But you have surely been deceived. His whole tale about Bokhara
is a tissue of lies.”
“I confess that I can’t prove the contrary.”
“Doctor, do you think that this man has any sense of obligation toward
you?”
Trench studied the lake scene again. “Saadi once said to me that he would
answer when I called.”
“Then call, Dr. Trench! Call him back! Don’t let him sail.”
“He would not return.”
“Ah! You confess it.”
“Miss Bridgman, Saadi is going out of a sense of duty to his fellow
countrymen.”
“Pooh! I’d let all his countrymen hang for Elsie’s sake.”
She said it with emphasis. Her Easter vision, which had grouped all men
as those about Trench, had fled.
Trench looked very grave. “Mrs. Potter said to me that she would let all
the Indians in the world die for Mildred’s sake. But she did not mean it.”
Edith flushed. “I suppose that Mrs. Potter and I are petty and personal.
We love the persons we know.”
“Saadi,” said Trench, “loves those whom he doesn’t know.”
“I’m afraid you are hopeless, doctor. You are sentimentalising a
scoundrel who has no more sense of duty than a machine. _Why_ is he going
back? _Why?_”
“Because,” said Trench with a slow sweet smile, “those about us are those
about us.”
She was silent, wondering at the strange, vague words.—Trench drew up a
pad of paper, and began to write a telegram. Edith laid a hand on his arm.
“If you are wiring Mr. Sereef, please wait a minute. I don’t want him to
have a week on shipboard to think about it, and cover up his tracks as
soon as he lands. I don’t want him to have information without personal
influence.”
“I will do as you say, Miss Bridgman, but you are taking a great
responsibility.”
“Then I’ll take it. I have a great notion to pack my trunk and follow him
myself. But I don’t know him. I should have no weight with him.”
Trench tore up the telegram, and waited for her to go on.
“Doctor, let us suppose that this man is not really bad at heart. I
think he is, but let us suppose not. But if he is even faltering in his
allegiance to Elsie, he needs personal influence brought to bear upon
him. Isn’t there some one over there who could go to him as your proxy?
Some one who is true and tried, and knows you both?”
Trench smiled and answered lightly. “There is my good friend Jaffer. Dr.
Jaffer is true and tried, and he knows about Saadi, though he doesn’t
know him personally.”
“That would be fine, if Dr. Jaffer lives in Constantinople, or anywhere
near the Balkans.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this!” She drew the cable message from her handbag.
Trench took it and read it.
Cetinje, April 15, 1914.
Saadi Sereef Dr. Trench, Halsted St., Chicago.
bsvd