The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton Part 33

"Mr. Burton," he declared, "you are an artist. Your child has the makings of a great artist. Have you no desire to travel? Have you no desire to see the famous picture galleries and cities of the Continent, cities which have been the birthplaces of the men whose works you and your son in days to come will regard with so much reverence?"

"I should like to travel very much indeed," Burton admitted.

"It is the opportunity to travel which we offer you," Mr. Bomford reminded him. "It is the opportunity to surround yourself with beautiful objects, the opportunity to make your life free from anxieties, a cultured phase of being during which, removed from all material cares, you can--er--develop yourself and the boy in any direction you choose."

Mr. Bomford stopped and coughed. Again he was pleased with himself.

"Money is only vulgar," he went on, "to vulgar minds. And remember this--that underlying the whole thing there is Truth. The beans which you and the boy have eaten do contain something of the miraculous.

Those same const.i.tuents would be blended in the preparation which we shall offer to the public. Have you no faith in them? Why should you not believe it possible that the ingredients which have made so great a change in you and that child, may not influence for the better the whole world of your fellow-creatures? Omit for a moment the reflection that you yourself would benefit so much by the acceptance of my offer.

Consider only your fellow human creatures. Don't you realize--can't you see that in acceding to our offer you will be acting the part of a philanthropist?"

"Mr. Bomford," Burton said, leaning a little forward, "in all your arguments you forget one thing. My stock of these beans is already perilously low. When they are gone, I remain no more what I hope and believe I am at the present moment. Once more I revert to the impossible: I become the auctioneer's clerk--a commonplace, material, vulgar, objectionable little bounder, whose doings and feelings I sometimes dimly remember. Can't you imagine what sort of use a person like that would make of wealth? In justice to him, in justice to the myself of the future, I cannot place such temptations in his way."

Mr. Bomford was staggered.

"I find it hard to follow you," he admitted. "You will not accept my offer because you are afraid that when the effect of these beans has worn off, you will misuse the wealth which will come to you--is that it?"

"That is the entire truth," Burton confessed.

"Have you asked yourself," Mr. Bomford demanded, impressively, "whether you have a right to treat your other self in this fashion? Your other self will a.s.suredly resent it, if you retain your memory. Your other self would hate your present self for its short-sighted, quixotic folly.

I tell you frankly that you have not the right to treat your coming self in this way. Consider! Wealth does not inevitably vulgarize. On the contrary, it takes you away from the necessity of a.s.sociating with people calculated to depress and cramp your life. There are many points of view which I am sure you have not adequately considered. Take the case of our friend Professor Cowper, for instance. He is a poor man with a scientific hobby in which he is burning to indulge. Why deprive him of the opportunity? There is his daughter--"

"I will reconsider the matter," Burton interrupted, hastily. "I cannot say more than that."

Mr. Bomford signified his satisfaction.

"I am convinced," he said, "that you will come around to our way of thinking. I proceed now to the second reason of my visit to you this afternoon. Professor Cowper and his daughter are doing me the honor to dine with me to-night at the Milan. I beg that you will join us."

Burton sat for some time without reply. For a moment the strong wave of humanity which swept up from his heart and set his pulses leaping, set the music beating in the air, terrified him. Surely this could mean but one thing! He waited almost in agony for the thoughts which might fill his brain.

"Miss Cowper," Mr. Bomford continued, "has been much upset since your hasty departure from Leagate. She is conscious of some mistake--some foolish speech."

Burton drew a little sigh of relief. After all, what he had feared was not coming. He saw the flaw, he felt even now the revulsion of feeling with which her words had inspired him. Yet the other things remained.

She was still wonderful. It was still she who was the presiding genius of that sentimental garden.

"You are very kind," he murmured.

"We shall expect you," Mr. Bomford declared, "at a quarter past eight this evening."

CHAPTER XXIII

CONDEMNED!

To Burton, who was in those days an epicure in sensations, there was something almost ecstatic in the pleasure of that evening. They dined at a little round table in the most desirable corner of the room--the professor and Edith, Mr. Bomford and himself. The music of one of the most famous orchestras in Europe alternately swelled and died away, always with the background of that steady hum of cheerful conversation.

It was his first experience of a restaurant de luxe. He looked about him in amazed wonder. He had expected to find himself in a palace of gilt, to find the prevailing note of the place an unrestrained and inartistic gorgeousness. He found instead that the decorations everywhere were of spotless white, the whole effect one of cultivated and restful harmony. The gla.s.s and linen on the table were perfect.

There was nowhere the slightest evidence of any ostentation. Within a few feet of him, separated only by that little s.p.a.ce of tablecloth and a great bowl of pink roses, sat Edith, dressed as he had never seen her before, a most becoming flush upon her cheeks, a new and softer brilliancy in her eyes, which seemed always to be seeking his. They drank champagne, to the taste and effects of which he was as yet unaccustomed. Burton felt its inspiring effect even though he himself drank little.

The conversation was always interesting. The professor talked of a.s.syria, and there was no man who had had stranger experiences. He talked with the eloquence and fervor of a man who speaks of things which have become a pa.s.sion with him; so vividly, indeed, that more than once he seemed to carry his listeners with him, back through the ages, back into actual touch with the life of thousands of years ago, which he described with such full and picturesque detail. Not at any time during the dinner was the slightest allusion made to that last heated interview which had taken place between the three men. Even when they sat out in the palm court afterwards, and smoked and listened to the band and watched the people, Mr. Bomford only distantly alluded to it.

"I want to ask you, Mr. Burton," he said, "what you think of your surroundings--of the restaurant and your neighbors on every side?"

"The restaurant is very beautiful," Burton admitted. "The whole place seems delightful. One can only judge of the people by their appearance.

That, at any rate, is in their favor."

Mr. Bomford nodded approvingly.

"I will admit, Mr. Burton," he continued, leaning a little towards him, "that one of my objects in asking you to dine this evening, apart from the pleasure of your company, was to prove to you the truth of one of my remarks the other evening--that the expenditure of money need not necessarily be a.s.sociated with vulgarity. This is a restaurant which only the rich could afford to patronize save occasionally, yet you see for yourself that the prominent note here is a subdued and artistic tastefulness. The days of loud colors and of the flamboyant life are past. Money to-day is the handmaiden to culture."

Exceedingly pleased with his speech, Mr. Bomford leaned back in his chair and lighted a half-crown cigar. Presently, without any visible co-operation on their part, a little scheme was carried into effect by the professor and Mr. Bomford. The latter rose and crossed to the other side of the room to speak to some friends. A few moments later he beckoned to the professor. Edith and Burton were alone. She drew a deep sigh of relief and turned towards him as though expecting him to say something. Burton, however, was silent. He had never seen her quite like this. She wore a plain white satin dress and a string of pearls about her neck, which he saw for the first time entirely exposed.

The excitement of the evening had brought a delicate flush to her face; the blue in her eyes was more wonderful here, even, than out in the sunlight. Amid many toilettes of more complicated design, the exquisite and entire simplicity of her gown and hair and ornaments was delightful.

"You are quiet this evening," she whispered. "I wish I could know what you are thinking of all the time."

"There is nothing in my thoughts or in my heart," he answered, "which I would not tell you if I could. Evenings like this, other evenings which you and I have spent together in still more beautiful places, have been like little perfect epochs in an imperfect life. Yet all the time one is haunted. I am haunted here to-night, even, as I sit by your side. I move through life a condemned man. I know it for I have proved it.

Before very long the man whom you know, who sits by your side at this moment, who is your slave, dear, must pa.s.s."

"You can never altogether change," she murmured.

His hands clasped the small silver box in his pocket.

"In a few months," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "unless we can find the missing plant, I shall be again the common little clerk who came and peered over your hedge at you in the summer."

She smiled a little incredulously.

"Even when you tell me so," she insisted, "I cannot believe it."

He drew his chair closer to hers. He looked around him nervously, the horror was in his eyes.

"Since I saw you last," he continued, "I have been very nearly like it.

I couldn't travel alone, I bought silly comic papers, I played nap with young men who talked of nothing but their 'shop' and their young ladies.

I have been to a public-house, drunk beer, and shaken hands with the barmaid. I was even disappointed when one of them--a creature with false hair, a loud, rasping voice and painted lips--was not there. Just in time I took one of my beans and became myself again, but Edith, I have only two more. When they are gone there is an end of me. That is why I sit here by your side at this moment and feel myself a condemned man. I think that when I feel the change coming I shall throw myself over into the river. I could not bear the other life again!"

"Absurd!" she declared.

"If I believed," he went on, "that I could carry with me across that curious boundary enough of decency, enough of my present feelings, to keep us wholly apart, I would be happier. It is one of the terrors of my worst moments when I think that in the months or years to come I may again be tempted--no, not I, but Alfred Burton of Garden Green may be tempted--to look once more across the hedge for you."

She smiled rea.s.suringly at him.

"You do not terrify me in the least. I shall ask you in to tea."

He groaned.

"My speech will be c.o.c.kney and my manners a little forward," he said, in a tone of misery. "If I see your piano I shall want to vamp."

"I think," she murmured, "that for the sake of the Alfred Burton who is sitting by my side to-night, I shall still be kind to you. Perhaps you will not need my sympathy, though. Perhaps you will adapt yourself wholly to your new life when the time comes."

He shook his head.