Perkins, the Fakeer

Before I could utter another word, Caroline had cut me off, and I turned from the 'phone, despondently. For a moment, it seemed to me that the library was surrounded by an iron grating and that I wore a ball and chain attached to my legs. Caroline and "the Old Crowd!" I am forced to confess that the hot tears came into my wife's eyes as I seated myself in a reading-chair and found myself face to face with a loneliness that was provocative of despair.

Jones was hot on the scent. He strode into the library and bore down upon me relentlessly, carrying a tray upon which rested two calling-cards.

"They are in the drawing-room, madame," said the butler, indifferently.

Caroline's toast came ringing to my ears. "Here's to you, good as you are, and here's to me, bad as I am!" And here I sat, bullied by Jones and the plaything of a lot of light-headed women of all ages. For one wild, feverish, moment the thought of revolt darted through my mind. I might faint, or have a fit, and Jones would be forced to dismiss my callers. But I quickly realized that I was not up to a brilliant histrionic effort. Even as it was, I was playing another's role with but indifferent success.

Two elderly women, richly garbed, arose as I reentered the drawing-room.

"I'm so glad to see you–ah–my dears," I said, in a voice pitched to indicate cordiality. One of my callers tossed her head haughtily, while the prim mouth of her companion fell open. This was not encouraging, and I remained silent. We stared at each other for a long, agonizing moment.

"How do you do?" I began again, with much less assurance. "Go away, little girls," kept running through my mind from that diabolical, tinkling "Mikado."

"We are very well, I believe," remarked Mrs. Martin, as she proved to be, coldly. "I think I may answer for Mrs. Smythe's health."

"I am in perfect health," exclaimed Mrs. Smythe, with emphasis, staring at me in a superior kind of way.

"There's nothing like perfect health–ah–my friends," I said, in a high, almost hysterical, falsetto. "Who is it who says that a man is as old as he feels and a woman as old as she looks?"

"Whoever said it, Mrs. Stevens, did us a great injustice," commented Mrs. Martin, with some warmth. "I am as young in spirit as I was ten years ago, but I don't look it."

"No, you don't look it," I hastened to remark, cordially; but my comment was not well received. Mrs. Martin glanced at Mrs. Smythe, and they stood erect on the instant.

"You're not going–ah–my dears?" I cried, thinking it too good to be true.

"You will pardon the liberty that I am about to take, Mrs. Stevens," began Mrs. Martin, sternly, "but it seems only fair to you that we should ask a question before leaving you. You are out of sorts to-day? Not quite yourself, are you?"

"Not quite," I answered, drawing myself up to Caroline's full height and struggling against an inclination to give vent to wild, feverish laughter. "I may say–Mrs.–ah–my dear–that I'm not quite myself. Not quite! It'll pass off. I have every reason to believe it'll pass off. But you're right. I'm not quite myself."

My frankness, which appalled me as I thought of it afterward, seemed to have a soothing effect upon my callers.

"You really do too much, Mrs. Stevens," remarked Mrs. Smythe, in a motherly way. "You should try to get a nap at once."

"Your nerves are affected," Mrs. Martin added, speaking gently. "You are overdoing things. Did you ever try the rest cure?"

"Yes. I've been giving it a chance to-day," I confessed. "But it doesn't work. I can't sleep in the daytime. Bear that in mind–ah–my dear. Don't talk to me about a nap. As I said to Caroline–ah–Reginald, I'm up for all day. But you know what nerves are, do you not?"

Mrs. Martin again glanced furtively at Mrs. Smythe, and without more ado they swept out of the drawing-room.

I dropped into a chair, a feeling of relief mingled with self-disgust sweeping over me. I realized that I had been making a sad botch of the part that I had attempted to play. At that moment, heavy footsteps behind me aroused me from my black-and-white revery. Two large, hot hands were placed over my eyes, and the end of a beard tickled Caroline's forehead.

"Guess who it is?" I heard my deep voice saying. "Here's to you, good as you are!"

"Caroline!" I exclaimed, conflicting emotions agitating my soul.

"Guess again, little woman," said my wife, playfully, in my voice. "They call me 'Reggie' at the club."

CHAPTER X.

RECRIMINATIONS

We know these things are so, we ask not why,But act and follow as the dream goes on.--Milnes.

"Yes, I've had a simply perfect day, my dear," remarked Caroline, frankly, as we left the library to ascend to our second-story suite. "I've made twenty thousand dollars–by not taking your advice–and as to the 'Old Crowd' at the 'Varsity Club, I think they're really charming. I've been doing a good deal of miscellaneous thinking, my dear, and I'm convinced that women have a great future before them."

"What women?" I cried, impatiently, as I tripped against the top stair and caught my better half by the tail of my coat.

"You'll do better with practice," remarked Caroline, soothingly. "I'm sure you enjoyed the day. Who has been here?"

"That'll keep," I answered, resisting an inclination to tweak my own nose. "Where's Jenkins?"

Caroline indulged in a hoarse chuckle.

"Jenkins has gone to Hoboken. He won't be back for at least a month. I think I can get on without a man. How's Suzanne?"

We had come to a standstill in the upper hall, just outside of the main door to our private rooms.

"How'll you manage to dress for dinner?" I asked, gazing at my flushed, triumphant face with sharply contrasted emotions. I was glad to see it again, but I did not like Caroline's way of using it.

"I'm very quick to learn," answered my voice, tauntingly. "You must admit, my dear, that I've been a success to-day. You don't think that I'm to be overcome by a man's dinner costume?"

A chill ran through me, and Caroline's voice trembled as I said:

"What do you–ah–think I'd better wear to-night? Suzanne'll ask me presently."

A jovial laugh greeted my words. The humorous side of our horrible plight seemed to be always apparent to Caroline.

"You must be sure to do me credit, my dear boy," said my wife, gruffly. "You've glanced over my wardrobe, have you not?"

The hot blood came into my adopted cheeks at the suggestion.

"I–I've been too–ah–busy to look into the–ah–matter," I faltered. "Damn it, Caroline, don't be so confoundedly superior! I'm crushed and discouraged. That's straight. Give me a word of advice, will you? What shall I wear to-night? I don't want to make a fool of myself before Suzanne."

"Poor Suzanne!" growled Caroline, somewhat irrelevantly, I thought. "She must have had a day of it! Tell her you'll wear the dress I wore at the Leonards' dinner-party last week. You needn't say much about my hair. Suzanne'll know what to do with it."

Her hand, or rather mine, was on the knob of the door, when a hideous and persistent horror that had haunted me for some time forced me to say, in Caroline's most insistent treble:

"Why–oh, why–did you allow Edgerton to ask that infernal Yamama to come here to-night? It was madness, Caroline."

"Call me Reginald," interposed my wife, coolly.

"It was madness, I say–ah–Reginald. It was that–or worse."

My heart beat fast in Caroline's bosom.

"What do you mean?" asked my wife, thrusting my face forward, and transfixing me with my own eyes.

"You've enjoyed the day, haven't you?" I asked, my temper overcoming my prudence. "Well, I haven't. I've been driven nearly crazy by a lot of fool women, while you've had the time of your life."

"I don't follow you," remarked my wife, severely.

"That's just it," I cried, angrily. "You lead me, and I'm forced to follow you. I tell you frankly that I've grown suspicious. You've been studying Oriental mysticism. You've been to lectures and séances, and, for all I know, you may be a favorite pupil of this chocolate-drop, Yamama."

My wife drew herself up to my full height, and gazed down at me, freezingly.

"You mean to imply, Mrs. Stevens," she remarked, with studied coldness, "that I was deliberately responsible for what happened this morning, or last night?"

"Don't dare to call me Mrs. Stevens, Caroline," I whispered, shaking with futile rage. "If I have suspected you, have I not had sufficient circumstantial evidence? Mrs. Taunton tells me that this rascally fakir Yamama turns people into pigs, frogs, any old thing. And you've allowed Edgerton to bring him here to-night! I don't believe that you have the slightest desire to–ah–change back again."

My wife laughed aloud in my most disagreeable manner.

"Here's to you, good as you are, and here's to me, bad as I am!" she cried, with most untimely geniality, and, without more ado, threw open the door to our apartments. In the center of the room stood Suzanne, pale but self-contained, awaiting my advent. For a moment, a mad project tempted me. If I rushed downstairs and had a fit in the lower hall, I might escape many of the horrors that the evening threatened to bring with it. But if I took this heroic course a doctor would be called in. On the whole, I preferred Suzanne to a physician.

I realize, clearly enough, that I lack the ability to keep or reject data with the unerring judgment of the professional story-teller. I should like to give to my testimony a somewhat artistic structure, but I am hampered in this inclination by the necessity of following the actual sequence of events. Being neither a novelist nor a scientist, I am in danger of making an amorphous presentment of facts that shall fail either to convince the psychologist or entertain the idle reader of an empty tale. On the whole, I am prone to make sacrifices in behalf of the latter. My natural inclination is toward Art rather than toward Science, and for this reason I shall remain silent regarding the petty episodes of the hour that followed my talk with Caroline. As it is, my narrative is overweighted with what may be called details of the toilet.

At half-after six my wife and I entered our drawing-room under a flag of truce. The annoyances that had hampered Caroline's unaided efforts to don my evening clothes had had a beneficial effect upon her exultant, overbearing tendencies. She was subdued in manner to the verge of gloom.

"Why are you so downhearted, my dear?" I asked. "Don't you like–ah–my appearance?"

"Which appearance?" growled Caroline, glaring at me. "Are the studs in the right place?"

"Of course they are," I answered cheerfully. "I never looked better, I'm sure. I congratulate you. And Suzanne tells me that this costume is very becoming to you. The one I have on, I mean. Have you noticed, Caroline, what an infernal nuisance pronouns have become? I'm glad our nouns have no gender. What did you say to young Van Tromp at the Cromptons' dance?"

My beard seemed to fairly bristle with Caroline's anger and astonishment.

"Van Tromp!" she exclaimed, in a surly basso. "What has he been doing now? Horrid little thing! He's not one of the boys, is he, my dear?"

I had seated myself with some difficulty, annoyed at Suzanne for lacing Caroline so tightly, but rather pleased, inwardly, at my feminine beauty and Parisian costume. Caroline stood not far away, six feet tall, broad-shouldered, a manly figure in black and white.

"Van Tromp," I remarked, in the soft musical tones that had at last reconciled me to my borrowed voice, "Van Tromp is a wandering minstrel, a troubadour out of his time, an age-end Romeo, who haunts Juliet's balcony at all hours of the day and night playing a hurdy-gurdy and reciting his own rhymes. Van Tromp is the one bright gleam in a black and starless night. He would atone for a dreary day were not Yamama coming too."

"I don't understand you, Caroline," growled my wife, shifting my feet uneasily.

"You haven't told me what Van Tromp said to you at the Cromptons' dance," I said, relentlessly. "I'll return to the subject later on. Now tell me–ah–Reginald, what you know about Yamama. You intimated, unless I am mistaken, that my suspicions as to your collusion with this Oriental fakir were unfounded?"

"Unfounded!" exclaimed my wife, scornfully. "Absurd! ridiculous! Do you imagine that I would choose this clumsy body of yours in preference to mine? Look at me, and then glance at the mirror, my dear. I'll admit that I've had a very enjoyable day. But I assure you I know little more about Yamama than you do. I am very nervous about him. I don't know what he'll do to us. But I have a horrible fear that he will read our secret at a glance."

"If he does–ah–Caroline," I cried, excitedly, "slug him! Never mind about hospitality. Hit him a crack on the nose. You can apologize to Edgerton afterward."

"That's just like a man," grumbled Caroline. "You think you can defeat esoteric Buddhism with your fists. I'm rather ashamed of you, my dear."

I felt the blood coming into Caroline's cheeks.

"It won't do, of course," I murmured, presently. "We must use diplomacy, not force, in dealing with this Oriental nuisance. Perhaps Yamama will find little Van Tromp sufficiently amusing to enable us to escape detection. I'm inclined to think that Van Tromp is the outward and visible sign of a love-sick tadpole. His sister, the débutante, is not so bad. I suppose she'll fall to Edgerton at dinner?"

"We must have a rehearsal, you and I," remarked Caroline, gruffly. "I escort Mrs. Edgerton, of course, and you'll take Van Tromp's arm. You'll like that."

"Do you see these violets–ah–Reginald?" I cried, dramatically, making a gesture toward Van Tromp's floral offering, now bedecking my corsage. "He sent them to you. What was Van Romeo's little game? You were to wear the violets to-night, if you really meant what you said to him at the Cromptons' dance. As you always mean what you say, my dear, I have hung out the sign of your–ah–veracity, so to speak. There's more to come, of course. There's a poem, for one thing. I'll read it aloud when we get our coffee."

I saw that my heavy face was flushed and that my eyes glowed with anger as I glanced upward at my wife. She strode toward me menacingly, and laid a heavy hand upon her bare shoulder. Seizing Van Tromp's violets, before I could recover from my astonishment, she tore them from their fastenings, and hurled them toward a remote corner of the drawing-room.

"You carry a joke too far," she growled, menacingly. "If you dare to read that poem I'll–I'll tell Yamama the whole story when he comes. I know what to say to him, and he'll do what I ask him to do. I give you fair warning."

I fell back in my chair, cold and disheartened. My worst suspicions seemed to be confirmed. Caroline was in league, as I had feared, with that sunburnt fakir from the Far East! At that moment, Jones entered the room.

"Mr. and Mrs. Edgerton," he announced, and, an instant later, "Miss Van Tromp, Mr. Van Tromp."

CHAPTER XI.

A DINNER AND A DISCUSSION

Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare:To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair.Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why.Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.--Omar Kháyyám.

It is always, under the best of conditions, uncertain how a dinner-party will "go off." People are not unlike the ingredients of a salad-dressing. The smoothness of the dressing depends upon a mysterious chemical affinity that is recognized by the salad-maker but never wholly understood. All the arts are closely related to each other. A dinner-party, a salad-dressing or an epic poem demands creative effort, and is successful in so far as its creator has made an effective fusion of its separate parts.

Caroline had been inclined to believe that her fame as a dinner-giver was no more than her due. She had reached an altitude as a triumphant hostess from which she could make experiments of a more or less interesting kind. She enjoyed bringing together around our board seemingly antagonistic social molecules to see if they would fuse. She had planned to-night's dinner much as a chemist prepares his materials for a novel combination. Edgerton and Mrs. Edgerton, Van Tromp and Miss Van Tromp formed the basis for an experiment that might produce either a perfume or an explosion.

What the result would have been had Caroline's effort not been hampered by a soul-transposition that made many things awkward to us that were unobserved by our guests, I cannot say. A large portion of the function, especially its earlier stages, is a blur and a buzz in my memory. It had been like this from the first, whenever I had come into the butler's sphere of influence. Van Tromp and Edgerton were not especially terrifying. I knew their limitations. But Jones impressed me as a mystery, concealing in a wooden exterior most frightful possibilities for mischief. I did not fully recover my self-control, if such it could be called, until after the fish had been served. By that time, the situation in the dining-room was about as follows:

Caroline, playing the rôle of host, was doing nicely, but was, I feared, inclined to over-act the part a bit. Little Van Tromp, a blue-eyed, insignificant-looking man, with a tender mustache, pointed blond beard and too much hair on his head, was lowspirited and inclined to wander in his talk. He would glance at my corsage, and then cast a reproachful, languishing glance at Caroline's eyes, into which I found it possible, now and then, to throw an expression of coquetry that revived the poet's drooping spirits for a time. Mrs. Edgerton, a handsome mondaine, was always self-poised, animated and self-satisfied. Miss Van Tromp, unlike her sister, Mrs. Taunton, was petite, vivacious and rather pretty, but somewhat in awe of her brother's genius. Edgerton was a typical New Yorker of the prosperous type, possessing blood, breeding and a pleasing exterior.

Mrs. Edgerton thought that I looked somewhat fagged.

"I've had such a busy day, don't you know–ah–my dear," I exclaimed, glancing at my face across the table, and flushing at the gleam of merriment that Caroline flashed at me from my eyes.

"You and Mrs. Edgerton really do too much," commented Edgerton, politely. "We are apt to underestimate a woman's cares and burdens, Reggie," he added, addressing Caroline.

"Indeed we are," Caroline asserted, readily, in my deep voice. "I'm inclined to think, Edgerton," she continued, giving a splendid imitation of my most impressive manner, "that we do scant justice to our wives, while we are forever harping upon our own importance."

"Hear! hear!" cried little Van Tromp, playfully. I manfully resisted an inclination to hurl a wine-glass at his too picturesque head.

Mrs. Edgerton smiled at me. "What has happened to Mr. Stevens, Caroline?" she cried, jocosely. "Unless my memory is at fault, I have heard him say that you and I are 'long on leisure and short on work.'"

"An epigram!" piped the poet, rolling his eyes in exaggerated rapture.

"Did I ever make that remark?" I heard my voice asking in surprise. "I'm afraid, Mrs. Edgerton, that you have misrepresented the source of what Mr. Van Tromp has mistaken for an epigram. It sounds to me, who never said it, more like a Wall street bull."

"I can't bear that," I ventured, in Caroline's merriest tones, and Miss Van Tromp giggled.

"The point at issue, as I understand it," began Edgerton, genially, "is whether Reggie is making a confession. Did you cry 'Peccavi!' old man?"

"You are as great a sinner in this matter as I am," answered Caroline, seriously, looking at Edgerton. "How often have I heard you complain of overwork, my dear fellow! They were saying at the club this afternoon that you seldom reached there before four o'clock."

A flush came into Edgerton's face, and Mrs. Edgerton laughed aloud.

"Betrayed! betrayed!" she exclaimed, gleefully. "Reggie has deserted you, hubbie dear."

"This is absolutely shocking!" cried Miss Van Tromp. "I shall never marry."

"Let us change the subject," I suggested, suppressing a shudder as Jones glided past me. "We have become a horrible warning to our two unmarried guests–ah–Reginald."

"I am not easily frightened, Mrs. Stevens," the poet dared to say, looking at me courageously.

"Discretion is the better part of bachelorhood," I retorted, and Van Romeo collapsed at once.

"I am so excited at the prospect of meeting Yamama," said Mrs. Edgerton, presently. "He says such wonderful things!"

"And does 'em, too," I murmured, under my breath, and flashing a glance at my smiling face across the table.

"What does he say?" asked Miss Van Tromp, with youthful curiosity.

"Oh, I can't begin to tell you," protested Mrs. Edgerton, and then began: "He says that poetry suffices; that he cannot understand why prose was invented."

"Hear! hear!" cried little Van Tromp, with enthusiasm.

"He abhors egotism. Intellectual self-satisfaction is hideous, he says."

"He ought to know," I exclaimed, and Caroline had the audacity to laugh.

"Go on, Mrs. Edgerton," cried the Van Tromps with one voice.

"Yamama tells us that our Western world is not only self-satisfied, but ignorant. We are contented with half-truths. Science makes a discovery, as it imagines, and, behold! it is something that the East has known for ages."

"But how about the famine in India?" asked Edgerton, argumentatively. "If they know so much, these Eastern wise men, why don't they make grain grow in a dry season? They are great frauds, eh, Reggie?"

"I don't agree with you, Edgerton," I heard my voice in answer. "You fail to get their point of view."

"Betrayed again, Edgerton," laughed the poet.

"What's their point of view?" grumbled Edgerton, casting a glance of surprise at Caroline.

"If you believed in reincarnation," exclaimed my wife, in my somewhat overbearing manner, "you would look upon death as merely a stepping-stone to a higher existence. A famine, don't you see, helps a large number of souls up the spiral."

"Mr. Stevens has become a theosophist," cried Mrs. Edgerton, in exaggerated amazement.

"How perfectly lovely," commented Miss Van Tromp, somewhat irrelevantly. I saw Jones pouring wine at the poet's corner, and I thought that his hand trembled. I'm sure that my voice was unsteady as I remarked:

"But–ah–Reginald, what about snakes and–ah–frogs? Starvation is bad enough, but you aren't going up a spiral if you are changed into something that squirms and crawls."

"It's not like climbing a ladder," answered my voice, authoritatively. "You may go down, now and then, but as the ages pass the general trend is upward."

"It's awfully interesting," reflected Miss Van Tromp, aloud. "But how is it done?"

"It isn't done!" exclaimed Edgerton, almost angrily, "it's only half-baked. Of all the absurd nonsense that is talked this Oriental mysticism is the worst. That's why I was glad to get this man Yamama to come here this evening. I want to prove to Mrs. Edgerton that he's just about as significant as a Bab ballad."

"Do you think that Yamama will be inclined to do–ah–stunts, Mr. Edgerton?" I faltered, catching the butler's eye, and wondering why Caroline's toes got cold so easily.

"What do you mean by stunts, my dear?" Caroline asked, using my voice, rather sternly. "Yamama, I imagine, would not understand the word. He is not here to play tricks."

"What is he here for–ah–my dear?" I asked, in a falsetto that was too shrill to be good form. Mrs. Edgerton looked annoyed, and Edgerton said, half-apologetically:

"Really, Mrs. Stevens, I thought that you would be glad to have Yamama come to us to-night. Frankly, I wanted to make a closer study of the man, and your husband assured me that it would be pleasing to you to have him here."

"Don't think me inhospitable and ungrateful, Mr. Edgerton," I began in Caroline's smoothest manner. "I shall enjoy meeting Yamama, of course. But do you really think that a man who prefers poetry to prose can be trusted?"

Van Tromp gasped and glanced furtively at Caroline. The latter raised her wine-glass, smiled at me gaily, and I heard my voice crying:

"Here's to you, my dear, good as you are!"

"What are you staring at, Jones?" I asked, angrily, turning sharply toward the butler. He continued his task of serving the course without noticing my reproof. My wife and guests were gazing at me in surprise.