Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care.
I should like to preface my subject with a _Caractère_, in the
style of La Bruyère, as thus:—
Pamphilus is what the liberal call a reserved man, and the intolerant
a secretive. He certainly has an aggravating way of appearing to make
Asian mysteries of the commonplaces of life. He traffics in silence as
others do in gossip. The “Ha!”, with which he accepts your statement
of fact or conjecture, seems to imply on his part both a shrewder than
ordinary knowledge of your subject, and a curiosity to study in you
the popular view. One feels oddly superficial in his company, and,
resentful of the imposition, blunders into self-assertive vulgarities
which one knows to be misrepresentations of oneself. Do still waters
always run deep? Pamphilus, it would appear, has founded his conduct
on the fallacy, as if he had never observed the placid waters of the
Rhine slipping over their shallow levels. One finds oneself
speculating if, could one but once lay bare, suddenly, the jealous
secrets of Pamphilus’s bosom, one would be impressed with anything but
their unimportance. Yet, strangely, scepticism and irritation despite,
one likes him, and takes pleasure in his company.
Possibly the fact that he cultivates so few friends makes of his
lonely preferences a flattery. Then, too, loquacity is not invariably
a brimming intellect’s overflow. It is better, on the whole, if one
has very little to say, to keep that little in reserve for a rainy
day. Too many of us, having the conceit of our inheritance, think that
we, also, can feed a multitude on five loaves and a couple of fishes.
But we must adulterate largely to do it.
Pamphilus, again, has the winning, persuasive “presence.” He is
thirty-three, but still in his physical and mental attributes a
big-eyed wondering boy. You can mention to him nothing so ordinary,
but his eager “Yes? Yes?” startles you into trying to improve upon
your subject with a touch of humour, a flower of observation, for his
rare delectation. Is he worth the effort? You don’t know. You don’t
know whether or not he wants you to think so, or is really
instinctively greedy for the psychologic _bonne bouche_. He is tall,
and spare, and interesting in appearance. In short, he lacks no charm
but candour; and I am not sure but that the lack is not a fifth grace.
He is, finally, “Valentine,” and the subject of this “Morality.”
It may have been a year ago that, coming silently into my rooms one
night, Valentine “jumped” me, to my dignified annoyance. I hate being
so taken off my guard. Generally, I hold it that a man’s consideration
for his fellow-creatures’ nerves is the measure of his mental
endowment. Valentine, however, does not, to do him justice, make these
noiseless entrances to surprise one, so much as to entertain himself
with one’s preoccupations. Mine, as it happened, was the evening
paper.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, breathing the monosyllable suddenly over my
shoulder, like an enlightened ghost. The characteristic note was, I
supposed, in allusion to the paragraph which engaged my attention at
the moment. It was headed “The Brompton Sleeping Girl.”
I started, of course; and, in the instant reaction of nerve, flew to
an extreme of rudeness.
“Yes,” I drawled; “an interesting case, isn’t it? Supposing it had
been a private letter, how long would you have stood before shouting
your presence into my ear like that?”
He laughed as he moved away (he had not shouted at all, by the by);
then, as he sat down opposite me in the shadow, appeared for the first
time to realize my meaning.
“Just long enough to recognize the fact,” he said quietly. “What do
you mean by the question?”
Thus rebounding, my own rudeness struck me ashamed. I had no real
justification for the insult, anyhow that I could call into evidence.
“O, nothing!” I mumbled awkwardly; “except that you made me almost
jump out of my skin.”
It was characteristic of him, and a further puzzle, that in spite of
his self-suggested consciousness of superiority he was easily
depressed by a snub. We sat for a little in a glowering silence, and
perhaps with a mutual sense of injury.
“Yes, an interesting case,” he said at length with an effort. “A
trance, isn’t it?”
“Something of the sort,” I replied. “I saw the girl yesterday.”
He looked up interested.
“Yes?”
“She is in a private ward of B—— Hospital. I know the house surgeon.
He took me to see her.”
“Well! How does she look?”
“Seen the St. Amaranthe at Tussaud’s—the one whom, as children, we
used to call the Sleeping Beauty? Not unlike her: as pretty as wax and
as stiff: just breathing, with pale cheeks and her mouth a little
open.”
“The fit—I seem to remember—was brought on by some shock, wasn’t
it?”