In Search of the Unknown Part 46

"'I am,' he murmured; 'that's what makes me so absent-minded. I often go to bed and forget to sleep.' Then, looking at me, he asked me my name, adding, with a bow, that his name was P. Royal Wyeth, Professor of Pythagorean Research and Abstruse Paradox.

"'My first name is Penny--named after Professor Penny, of Harvard,' he said; 'but I seldom use my first name in connection with my second, as the combination suggests a household remedy of penetrating odor.'

"'My name is Kensett,' I said, 'Harold Kensett, of New York.'

"'Student?'

"'Er--a little.'

"'Student of diamonds?'

"I smiled. 'Oh, I see you know who my great-aunt was,' I said.

"'I know her,' he said.

"'Ah--perhaps you are unaware that my great-aunt is not now living.'

"'I know her,' he repeated, obstinately.

"I bowed. What a crank he was!

"'What do you study? You don't fiddle away all your time, do you?' he asked.

"Now that was just what I did, but I was not pleased to have Miss Wyeth know it. Although my time was chiefly spent in killing time, I had once, in a fit of energy, succeeded in writing some verses 'To a Tomt.i.t,' so I evaded a humiliating confession by saying that I had done a little work in ornithology.

"'Good!' cried the professor, beaming all over. 'I knew you were a fellow-scientist. Possibly you are a brother-member of the Boston Dodo Society of Pythagorean Research. Are you a dodo?'

"I shook my head. 'No, I am not a dodo.'

"'Only a jay?'

"'A--what?' I said, angrily.

"'A jay. We call the members of the Junior Ornithological Jay Society of New York, jays, just as we refer to ourselves as dodos. Are you not even a jay?'

"'I am not,' I said, watching him suspiciously.

"'I must convert you, I see,' said the professor, smiling.

"'I'm afraid I do not approve of Pythagorean research,' I began, but the beautiful Miss Wyeth turned to me very seriously, and, looking me frankly in the eyes, said:

"'I trust you will be open to conviction.'

"'Good Lord!' I thought. 'Can she be another lunatic?' I looked at her steadily. What a little beauty she was! She also, then, belonged to the Pythagoreans--a sect I despised. Everybody knows all about the Pythagorean craze, its rise in Boston, its rapid spread, and its subsequent consolidation with mental and Christian science, theosophy, hypnotism, the Salvation Army, the Shakers, the Dunkards, and the mind-cure cult, upon a business basis. I had hitherto regarded all Pythagoreans with the same scornful indifference which I accorded to the faith-curists; being a member of no particular church, I was scarcely prepared to take any of them seriously. Least of all did I approve of the 'business basis,' and I looked very much askance indeed at the 'Scientific and Religious Trust Company,' duly incorporated and generally known as the Pythagorean Trust, which, consolidating with mind-curists, faith-curists, and other flourishing salvation syndicates, actually claimed a place among ordinary trusts, and at the same time pretended to a control over man's future life. No, I could never listen--I was ashamed of even entertaining the notion, and I shook my head.

"'No, Miss Wyeth, I am afraid I do not care to listen to any reasoning on this subject.'

"'Don't you believe in Pythagoras?' demanded the professor, subduing his excitement with difficulty, and adding another knot to his coat-tails.

"'No,' I said, 'I do not.'

"'How do you know you don't?' inquired the professor.

"'Because,' I said, firmly, 'it is nonsense to say that the soul of a human being can inhabit a hen!'

"'Put it in a more simplified form!' insisted the professor. 'Do you believe that the soul of a hen can inhabit a human being?'

"'No, I don't!'

"'Did you ever hear of a hen-pecked man?' cried the professor, his voice ending in a shout.

"I nodded, intensely annoyed.

"'Will you listen to reason, then?' he continued, eagerly.

"'No,' I began, but I caught Miss Wyeth's blue eyes fixed on mine with an expression so sad, so sweetly appealing, that I faltered.

"'Yes, I will listen,' I said, faintly.

"'Will you become my pupil?' insisted the professor.

"I was shocked to find myself wavering, but my eyes were looking into hers, and I could not disobey what I read there. The longer I looked the greater inclination I felt to waver. I saw that I was going to give in, and, strangest of all, my conscience did not trouble me. I felt it coming--a sort of mild exhilaration took possession of me. For the first time in my life I became reckless--I even gloried in my recklessness.

"'Yes, yes,' I cried, leaning eagerly across the table, 'I shall be glad--delighted! Will you take me as your pupil?' My single eye-gla.s.s fell from its position unheeded. 'Take me! Oh, will you take me?' I cried. Instead of answering, the professor blinked rapidly at me for a moment. I imagined his eyes had grown bigger, and were a.s.suming a greenish tinge. The corners of his mouth began to quiver, emitting queer, caressing little noises, and he rapidly added knot after knot to his twitching coat-tails. Suddenly he bent forward across the table until his nose almost touched mine. The pupils of his eyes expanded, the iris a.s.suming a beautiful, changing, golden-green tinge, and his coat-tails switched violently. Then he began to mew.

"I strove to rouse myself from my paralysis--I tried to shrink back, for I felt the end of his cold nose touch mine. I could not move. The cry of terror died in my straining throat, my hands tightened convulsively; I was incapable of speech or motion. At the same time my brain became wonderfully clear. I began to remember everything that had ever happened to me--everything that I had ever done or said. I even remembered things that I had neither done nor said; I recalled distinctly much that had never happened. How fresh and strong my memory! The past was like a mirror, crystal clear, and there, in glorious tints and hues, the scenes of my childhood grew and glowed and faded, and gave place to newer and more splendid scenes. For a moment the episode of the cat at the Hotel St. Antoine flashed across my mind. When it vanished a chilly stupor slowly clouded my brain; the scenes, the memories, the brilliant colors, faded, leaving me enveloped in a gray vapor, through which the two great eyes of the professor twinkled with a murky light. A peculiar longing stirred me--a strange yearning for something, I knew not what--but, oh! how I longed and yearned for it! Slowly this indefinite, incomprehensible longing became a living pain. Ah, how I suffered, and how the vapors seemed to crowd around me! Then, as at a great distance, I heard her voice, sweet, imperative:

"'Mew!' she said.

"For a moment I seemed to see the interior of my own skull, lighted as by a flash of fire; the rolling eyeb.a.l.l.s, veined in scarlet, the glistening muscles quivering along the jaw, the humid ma.s.ses of the convoluted brain; then awful darkness--a darkness almost tangible--an utter blackness, through which now seemed to creep a thin, silver thread, like a river crawling across a world--like a thought gliding to the brain--like a song, a thin, sharp song which some distant voice was singing--which I was singing.

"And I knew that I was mewing!

"I threw myself back in my chair and mewed with all my heart. Oh, that heavy load which was lifted from my breast! How good, how satisfying it was to mew! And how I did miaul and yowl!

"I gave myself up to it, heart and soul; my whole being thrilled with the pa.s.sionate outpourings of a spirit freed. My voice trembled in the upper bars of a feline love-song, quavered, descended, swelling again into an intimation that I brooked no rival, and ended with a magnificent crescendo.

"I finished, somewhat abashed, and glanced askance at the professor and his daughter, but the one sat nonchalantly disentangling his coat-tails, and the other was apparently absorbed in the distant landscape. Evidently they did not consider me ridiculous. Flushing painfully, I turned in my chair to see how my grewsome solo had affected the people on the terrace. n.o.body even looked at me. This, however, gave me little comfort, for, as I began to realize what I had done, my mortification and rage knew no bounds. I was ready to die of shame. What on earth had induced me to mew? I looked wildly about for escape--I would leap up--rush home to bury my burning face in my pillows, and, later, in the friendly cabin of a homeward-bound steamer. I would fly--fly at once! Woe to the man who blocked my way!

I started to my feet, but at that moment I caught Miss Wyeth's eyes fixed on mine.

"'Don't go,' she said.

"What in Heaven's name lay in those blue eyes? I slowly sank back into my chair.

"Then the professor spoke: 'Wilhelmina, I have just received a despatch.'

"'Where from, papa?'

"'From India. I'm going at once.'