“Mike, you ought to be on the stage.”
Glendenning’s scowl deepened.
“Yes, as Romeo.”
Without heat, Mike took it up.
“Perhaps I may. I may surprise you yet, Glendenning.”
As he spoke, he moved to the girl, dropped his voice, whispered at her.
At that Glendenning fairly neighed.
“Ha! It won’t be with your manners, then! Good night, Camille.”
Camille nodded and turned to Mike. When they had both been younger, his face had frightened her. Latterly she had become accustomed to it as one does become accustomed to anything. In the interim, she had been in Europe, and he in this country. It was only since the war that they had been under this roof, which belonged to his father, her guardian.
“I wish you were blind,” he told her, when Glendenning had gone. “If you were, you would marry me. As it is, I’m off.”
Camille, who had been standing, sat down.
“Where to, Mike?”
From a pocket, he took a paper and, in taking it, took also another, which fell at her feet. The first, which was partially engraved, had on it particulars concerning him; also his photograph. He displayed it.
“This is a passport. With it, I had intended to go to France and join the Foreign Legion. But yesterday my father changed his mind about something, and since then I have changed mine.” He stooped and recovered the fallen paper, at which, as he did so, she looked.
“What is that? A Medical Record? Mike! You’re not going to be a physician, are you? A physician in the family is so reassuring. Just like a fire escape.”
He shook his head.
“That’s just a thing I happened on in Dix’s office. He wants it back. No, I’m going away to join a friend of mine.”
“Who? What is his name?”
For a second he hesitated.
“Victor Revell.”
The girl considered him.
“I never heard you speak of him before.”
Mike fumbled in his waistcoat.
“You never heard me speak of anything but you, Camille. You won’t any more. Now, before I go, will you do me a favor?”
“A dozen.”
Into her hand he put a silver coin, at which she stared and exclaimed:
“Why, it’s a five-franc piece! What in the world—”
Mike nodded at her.
“It’s what gamblers call a luck piece. I want you to keep it for me. Promise that you will.”
“I promise. But you must do something for me. You must write.”
He took her hand.
“I have every intention of doing so. May I kiss you goodbye?”
She nodded, but she closed her eyes. When she opened them, he was in the hall.
In the hall was the stair. He went on and up. At the top was darkness. It engulfed him.
In this life, Camille was never to see his face again—except once, long later, when she thought she did. Yet in that, as will appear, she was perhaps mistaken.
II
Camille got up and looked at the clock, which marked seven. Usually at that hour she dined, having dressed beforehand. But on this evening, after returning from a run with a chum, Kate Delafield, she had been waylaid by the cook, then by Glendenning, finally by Mike, and she had had no time to change.
She was none the less hungry and she went back into the dining room, which, situated in an extension, was in a measure separated from the rest of the house. There the lights were on, the table was set. On a sideboard was bread, fruit, a salad, a decanter of claret, a brace of cold partridges; also, an evening paper.
Camille rang and took up the paper, which told of the misery that is the garment of Europe and of the gayety that is the parure of New York. The moderate irony of it missed her. But then one gets satiated with horrors, and, telling herself she was glad that Mike had changed his mind about going abroad, she rang again.
Then, as no one came, she put the food on the table, sat down, and began to eat. The partridge was good, and though, ordinarily, she would have preferred something hot, she was too hungry to care. The salad, too, might have been worse—and better, for in the preparation of the dressing, there had been a noticeable absence of brains. But that, too, she let pass and, while eating it, wondered whether Mr. Vulper was coming down and, in that case, whether he would have more to tell her about Shri.
That creature interested her enormously. She did not in the least believe in him, but the things he did, or was credited with doing, delighted her. He could be in two places at once, and if you happened on him where he had no business to be—in, for instance, Mr. Vulper’s study at the head of the stairs—he would break like a bubble and vanish.
Gymnastics of that high order appealed to her as unsurpassed by anything she had ever read.
“But how can he be so wickedly lovely?” she had at dinner, only the day before, asked of Mr. Vulper, who had referred her to his Sutras of Patanjali—which, when she had first heard of them, she had thought must be something from the chemists, but which, she had since become skeptically aware, taught of union with the supersensible; taught of the supernormal powers which that union confers; taught, too, how the advanced pupil may exteriorize himself from the body, project himself through space, materialize partially or wholly, appear and disappear at will.
“But why should this duck of a darling want to play flying trapese with himself like that?” she had also asked, and had been told that among the apes and peacocks of the apricot temples at Benares, there are priests whose duty it is to guard the arcana of their immemorial lore.
“Such things,” the old man continued, “are not for everybody—at all events not for nobodies who talk about nothing—yet, while they can be safely divulged to scholars, it is just that that Shri is trying to prevent. Well, my dear, perhaps he may, perhaps he may,” Vulper, with philosophic fatalism, had
