The Imitator Part 10

"No; golf." He looked at her in amazement. Life! What was life compared to golf? Life? For most people it was, at best, a foozle. Nearly everybody pressed; very few followed through, and the bunkers--good Lord, the bunkers!

"I'm thinking of writing a golfing novel," began Orson, after an interval in which he managed to wonder whether one couldn't play golf from horseback.

"Oh," said Miss Vanlief wearily, "how does one set about it!"

He was quite unaware of her weariness. He chirped his answer with blind enthusiasm.

"It's very easy," he declared. "There are always a lot of women, you know, who are aching to do things in that line. You give them the prestige of your name, that's all. One of them writes the thing; you simply keep them from foozling the phrases now and then. Another ill.u.s.trates it."

"And does anyone buy it?"

"Oh, all the smart people do. It's one of those things one is supposed to do. There's no particular reason or sense in it; but smart people expect one another to read things like that. The newspapers get quite silly over such books. Then, after novels, I think, I shall take to having them done over for the stage? Don't you think a golfing comedy, with a sprinkling of profanity and Scotch whiskey, would be all the rage?"

Jeannette Vanlief reined in her mare. She looked at Orson Vane; looked him, as much as she could, through and through. Was it all a stupid jest? She could find nothing but dense earnestness in her face, in his eyes. Oh, the riddle was too tiresome, too hopeless. It was simply not the same man at all! She gave it up, gave him up.

"Do you mind," she said, "if I ride home now? I'm tired."

It should have been a blow in the face, but Orson Vane never so much as noticed it.

"Tired?" he repeated. "Oh; all right. We'll turn about. Rather go back alone? Oh, all right. Wish you'd learn to play golf; you really must!"

And upon that he let her canter away, the groom following, some little wonder on his impa.s.sive front.

As for Jeannette Vanlief she burst into her father's room a little later, and then into tears.

"And I wanted to love him!" she wailed presently, from out her confusion and her distress.

The Professor was patting her hair, and wondering what in all the world was the matter. At her speech, he thought he saw a light.

"And why not?" he asked, soothingly, "He seems quite estimable. He was here only a moment ago?"

"Who was here?" she asked in bewilderment.

"Mr. Moncreith."

At that she laughed. The storm was over, the sunshine peeped out again.

"You dear, blind comfort, you!" she said, "What do I care if a thousand Moncreiths--"

"Then it's Orson Vane," said the Professor, not so blind after all.

"Well, dear, and what has he been doing now?"

He listened to her rather rambling, rather spasmodic recital; listened and grew moody, though he could scarce keep away some little mirth. He saw through these masquerades, of course. Who else, if not he? Poor Jeannette! So she had set her happy little heart upon that young man? A young man who, to serve both their ends, was playing chameleon. A young man who was mining greater secrets from the deeps of the human soul than had ever been mined before. A wonderful young man, but--would that make for Jeannette's happiness? At any rate he, the Professor, would have to keep an eye open for Vane's doings. There was no knowing what strange ways these borrowed souls might lead to. He wondered who it was that, this time, had been rifled of his soul.

Wonder did not long remain the adjuncts of the Professor and his daughter only. The whole world of society began to wonder, as time went on, at the new activities of Orson Vane. Wonder ceased, presently, and there was pa.s.sive acceptance of him in his new role. Fashions, after all, are changed so often in the more external things, that the smart set would not take it as a surprising innovation if some people took to changing their souls to suit the social breeze.

Orson Vane took a definite place in the world of fashion that season. He became the arbiter of golf; he gave little putting contests for women and children; he looked after the putting greens of a number of smart clubs with as much care as a woman gives her favorite embroideries. He took to the study of the Turkish language. There were rumors that he meant to become the Minister to Turkey. He traveled a great deal, and he published a book called "The Land of the Fez." Another little brochure bearing his name was "The Caddy; His Ailments and Diseases." It was rumored that he was busy in dramatization of his novel, "Five Loaves and Two Fishes!" When Storman Pasha made his memorable visit to the States it was Orson Vane who became his guide and friend. A jovial club of newspaper roysterers poked fun at him by nominating him for Mayor. He went through it all with a bland humorlessness and stubborn dignity that nothing could affront. His indomitable energy, his intense seriousness about everything, kept smart society unalterably loyal. He led its cotillions, arranged its more sober functions, and was a household word with the outsiders that reach society only through the printed page. His novels--whether they were his own or done for him hardly matters--were just dull enough to offend n.o.body. The most indolent dweller in Vanity Fair could affect his books without the least mental exertion. The lives of our fashionables are too full, too replete with a mult.i.tude of interests and excitements, to allow of the concentration proper for the reading of scintillating dialogue, or brilliant observations. Orson Vane appeared to gauge his public admirably; he predominated in the outdoor life, in golf, in yachting, in coaching, yet he did not allow anyone else to dispute the region of the intellect, of indoors, with him. He shone, with a severe dimness, in both fields.

Jeannette Vanlief, meanwhile, lost much of the sparkle she had hitherto worn. She drooped perceptibly. The courtship of Luke Moncreith left her listless; he persevered on the strength of his own ambition rather than her encouragement. His daughter's looks at last began seriously to worry Professor Vanlief. Something ought to be done. But what? It was apparently Orson Vane's intention to keep that borrowed soul with him for a long time. In the meanwhile Jeannette.... The Professor, the more he considered the matter, felt the more strongly that just as he was the one who had given Vane this power, so had he the right, if need be, to interfere. The need was urgent. The masquerade must be put an end to.

His resolve finally taken, Professor Vanlief paid a visit to Orson Vane's house. Vane was, as he had hoped, not at home. He cross-questioned Nevins.

The man was only too willing to admit that his master's actions were queer. But Mr. Vane had given him warning to that effect; he must have felt it coming on. It was a malady, no doubt. For his part he thought it was something that Mr. Vane would wish to cure rather than endure. He didn't pretend to understand his master of late, but--

The Professor put a period to the man's volubility with some effort.

"I want you," he urged, "to jog your memory a little. Never mind the symptoms. Give me straightforward answers. Now--did you touch the new mirror, leaving it uncovered, at any time within the past few weeks?"

"Oh," was the answer, "the new mirror, is it! I knows well the uncanny thing was sure to make trouble for me. But I gives you my word, as I hopes to be saved, that I've never so much as brushed the dust off it, much less taken the curtain off. It's fearsome, is that mirror, I'm thinking. It's--"

"Then think back," pressed the Professor, again stemming the tide of the other's talk relentlessly, "think back: was anyone, ever, at any time, alone in Mr. Vane's rooms? Think, think!"

"I disremember," stammered Nevins. "I think not--Oh, wait! It was a long time ago, but I think a gentleman wrote Mr. Vane a note once, and I, having work in the other rooms, let him be undisturbed. But I told the master about it, the minute he came in, sir. He was not the least vexed, sir. Oh, I'm easy in my mind about that time."

"Yes, yes,--but the gentleman's name!" The Professor shook the man's shoulder quite roughly.

"His name? Oh, it was just Mr. Spalding-Wentworth, sir, that was all."

The Professor sat down with a laugh. Spalding-Wentworth! He laughed again.

Nevins had the air of one aggrieved. "Mr. Vane laughed, too, I remember, when I told him. Just the minute I told him, sir, he laughed. I've puzzled over it, time and again, why--"

The Professor left Nevins puzzling. There was no time to be lost. He remembered now that Spalding-Wentworth had for some time been ailing.

The world, in its devotion to Orson Vane, had forgotten, almost, that such a person as Spalding-Wentworth had ever existed. To be forgotten one has only to disappear. Dead men's shoes are filled nowhere so quickly as in Vanity Fair; though, to be paradoxic, for the most part they are high-heeled slippers.

It took some little time, some work, to arrange what the Professor had decided must be done. He went about his plans with care and skill. He suborned Nevins easily enough, using, chiefly, the plain truth. Nevins, with the superst.i.tion of his cla.s.s, was willing to believe far greater mysteries than the Professor half hinted at. By Nevins' aid it happened that Orson Vane slept, one night, face to face with the polished surface of the new mirror. In the morning it was curtained as usual.

That morning Augustus Vanlief called at the Wentworth house. He asked for Mrs. Wentworth. He went to his point at once.

"You know who I am, I dare say, Mrs. Wentworth. You love your husband, I am sure; you will pardon my intrusion when I tell you that perhaps I can do something the best thing of all--for him. It is, in its way, a matter of life and death. Do the doctors give you any hope?"

Mrs. Wentworth, her beauty now tired and touched by traces of spoilt ambition, made a listless motion with her hands.

"I don't know why I should tell you," she said, "or why I should not.

They tell me vague things, the doctors do, but I don't believe they know what is the matter."

"Do you?"

"I?" she looked at Vanlief, and found a challenge in his regard. "It seems," she admitted, "as if--I hardly like to say it,--but it seems as if there was no soul in him any more. He is a sh.e.l.l, a husk. The life in him seems purely muscular. It is very depressing. Why do you think you can do anything for Clarence, Professor? I did not know your researches took you into medicine?"

"Ah, but you admit this is not a matter for medicine, but for the mind.

Will you allow me an experiment madame? I give you my word of honor, my honor and my reputation, that there is no risk, and there may be--perhaps, an entire restoration. There is--a certain operation that I wish to try--"

"An operation? The most eminent doctors have told me such a thing would be useless. We might as well leave my poor husband clear of the knife, Professor."

"Oh, it is no operation, in that sense. Nothing surgical. I can hardly explain; professional secrets are involved. If you did not know that I am but a plodding old man of science--if I were an unknown charlatan--I would not ask you to put faith in me. But--I give you my word, my promise, that if you will let Mr. Wentworth come with me in my brougham I will return with him within the hour. He will be either as he is now, or--as he once was."

"As he once was--!" Mrs. Wentworth repeated the phrase, and the thought brought her a keen moment of anguish that left a visible impress on her features. "Ah," she sighed, "if I could only think such a thing possible!" She brooded in silence a moment or two. Then she spoke.