The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton Part 21

One afternoon there came a timid knock at his door. He turned in his chair a little impatiently. Then his pen slipped from his fingers. His left hand gripped the side of the table, his right hand the arm of his chair. It was a dream, of course!

"I hope we do not disturb you, Mr. Burton?" the professor inquired, with anxious amiability. "My daughter and I were in the neighborhood and I could not resist the visit. We had some trouble at first in finding you."

Burton rose to his feet. He was looking past the professor, straight into Edith's eyes. In her white muslin gown, her white hat and flowing white veil, she seemed to him more wonderful, indeed, than any of those cherished fancies of her which had pa.s.sed through his room night and day to the music of his thoughts.

"I am glad," he said simply. "Of course I am glad to see you! Please come in. It is very untidy here. I have been hard at work."

He placed chairs for them. The professor glanced around the room with some satisfaction. It was bare, but there was nothing discordant upon the walls or in the furniture. There were many evidences, too, of a scholarly and cultivated taste. Edith had glided past him to the window and was murmuring her praises of the view.

"I have never seen a prettier view of the river in my life," she declared, "and I love your big window. It is almost like living out of doors, this. And how industrious you have been!"

She pointed to the sea of loose sheets which covered the table and the floor. He smiled. He was beginning to recover himself.

"I have been working very hard," he admitted.

"But why?" she murmured. "You are young. Surely there is plenty of time? Is it because the thoughts have come to you and you dared not daily with them? Or is it because you are like every one else--in such a terrible hurry to become rich and famous?"

He shook his head.

"It is not that," he said. "I have no thought of either. Alas!" he added, looking into her eyes, "I lack the great incentive!"

"Then why is it?" she whispered.

"You must not ask our young friend too many questions," the professor interrupted, a trifle impatiently. "Tell me, Mr. Burton, has there been any change--er--in your condition?"

Burton shivered for a moment.

"None at present," he admitted. "It is scarcely due as yet."

Mr. Cowper drew his chair a little nearer. His face betokened the liveliest interest. Edith stood in the window for a moment and then sank into a chair in the background.

"With reference to your last remark," the professor went on, "it has yet, I think, to be proved that these beans are of equal potency. You understand me, I am sure, Mr. Burton? I mean that it does not in the least follow that because one of them is able to keep you in an abnormal condition for two months, the next one will keep you there for the same period."

Burton was frankly startled.

"Is there anything about that in the translation, sir?" he asked.

"There is this sentence which I will read to you," the professor p.r.o.nounced, drawing a roll of paper from his pocket and adjusting his spectacles. "I have now a more or less correct translation of the sheets you left with me, a copy of which is at your disposal. Here it is:--'_The formula is now enunciated and proved. The secret which has defied the sages of the world since the ages of twilight, has yielded itself to me, the nineteenth seeker after the truth in one direct line.

One slight detail alone baffles me. So far as I have gone at present, the const.i.tuent parts, containing always the same elements and producing, therefore, the same effect, appear in variable dimensions or potencies, for reasons which at present elude me. Of my formula there is no longer any doubt. This substance which I have produced shall purify and make holy the world._'"

The professor looked up from his paper.

"Our interesting friend," he remarked, "seems to have been interrupted at this point, probably by the commencement of that illness which had, unfortunately, a fatal conclusion. Yet the meaning of what he writes is perfectly clear. This substance, consolidated, I believe, into what you term a bean, is not equally distributed. Therefore, I take it that you may remain in your present condition for a longer or shorter period of time. The potency of the first--er--dose, is nothing to go by. You have, however, already learned how to render your present condition eternal."

Burton sighed.

"The knowledge came too late," he said. "The tree had disappeared. It was given away, by the Mr. Waddington I told you of, to a child whom he met in the street."

"Dear me!" Mr. Cowper exclaimed gravely. "This is most disappointing.

Is there no chance of recovering it?

"We are trying," Burton replied. "Mr. Waddington has engaged a private detective and we are also advertising in the papers."

"You have the beans still, at any rate," the professor remarked, hopefully.

"We have the beans," Burton admitted, "but it is very awkward not knowing how long one's condition is going to last. I might go out without my beans one day, and find myself a.s.sailed by all manner of amazing inclinations."

"My dear young man," the professor said earnestly, "let me point out to you that this is a wonderful position in which you have been placed.

You ought to be most proud and grateful. Any trifling inconveniences which may result should be, I venture to say, utterly ignored by you.

Now come, let me ask you a question. Are you feeling absolutely your--how shall I call it--revised self to-day?"

"Absolutely, thank Heaven!" Burton declared, fervently.

The professor nodded his head. All the time his eyes were roving about Burton's person, as though he were longing to make a minute study of his anatomy.

"It would be most interesting," he said, "to trace the commencement of any change in your condition. I am here with a proposition, Mr. Burton. I appeal to you in the name of science as well as--er--hospitality. The change might come to you here while you are alone. There would be no one to remark upon it, no one to make those interesting and instructive notes which, in justice to the cause of progress, should be made by some competent person such as--forgive me--myself. I ask you, therefore, to pack up and return with us to Leagate. You shall have a study to yourself, my daughter will be only too pleased and proud to a.s.sist you in your work, and I have also a young female who comes to type-write for me, whose services you can entirely command. I trust that you will not hesitate, Mr. Burton. We are most anxious--indeed we are most anxious, are we not, Edith?--to have you come."

Burton turned his head and glanced toward the girl. She had raised her veil. Her eyes met his, met his question and evaded it. She studied the pattern of the carpet. When she looked up again, her cheeks were pink.

"Mr. Burton will be very welcome," she said.

There was a short silence in the room. The sunshine fell across the dusty room in a long, quivering shaft. Outside, the branches of an elm tree swinging in the wind cast a shadow across the floor. The professor, with folded arms, sat alert and expectant. Burton, pale and shrunken with the labors of the last ten days, looked out of his burning eyes at the girl. For a single moment she had raised her head, had met his fierce inquiry with a certain wistful pathos, puzzling, an incomplete sentiment. Now she, too, was sitting as though in an att.i.tude of waiting. Burton felt his heart suddenly leap. What might lie beyond the wall was of no account. He was a man with only a few brief months to live, as he had come to understand life. He would follow the eternal philosophy. He would do as the others and make the best of them.

"It is very kind of you," he said. "I am not prepared to make a visit,--I mean my clothes, and that sort of thing,--but if you will take me as I am, I will come with pleasure."

Mr. Cowper's face showed the liveliest satisfaction. Edith, on the other hand, never turned her head, although she felt Burton's eyes upon her.

"Capital!" the professor declared. "Now do not think that we are trying to abduct you, but there is a motor-car outside. We are going to take you straight home. You can have a little recreation this beautiful afternoon--a walk on the moors, or some tennis with Edith here. We will try and give you a pleasant time. You must collect your work now and go and put your things together. We are not in the least hurry. We will wait."

Burton rose a little unsteadily to his feet. He was weary with much labor, carried a little away by this wonderful prospect of living in the same house, of having her by his side continually. It was too amazing to realize. His heart gave a great leap as she moved towards him and looked a little shyly into his face.

"May I not help you to pick up these sheets? I see that you have numbered them all. I will keep them in their proper order. Perhaps you could trust me to do that while you went and packed your bag?"

"Quite right, my dear--quite right," the professor remarked, approvingly. "You will find my daughter most careful in such matters, Mr. Burton. She is used to being a.s.sociated with work of importance."

"You are very kind," Burton murmured. "If you will excuse me, then, for a few moments?"

"By all means," the professor declared. "And pray suit yourself entirely, Mr. Burton, as to the clothes you bring and the preparations you make for your visit. If you prefer not to change for the evening, I will do the same. I am renowned in the neighborhood chiefly for my shabbiness and my carpet slippers."

Burton paused on the threshold and looked back. Edith was bending over the table, collecting the loose sheets of ma.n.u.script. The sunlight had turned her hair almost to the color of flame. Against the background of the open window, her slim, delicate figure, clad in a fashionable mist of lace and muslin, seemed to him like some wonderful piece of intensely modern statuary. Between them the professor sat, with his arms still folded, a benevolent yet pensive smile upon his lips.

CHAPTER XVI

ENTER MR. BOMFORD!

"I have decided," Edith remarked, stopping the swinging of the hammock with her foot, "to write and ask Mr. Bomford to come and spend the week-end here."