The Imitator: A Novel

  CHAPTER V.

  A young man so prominent in the town as Orson Vane had naturally a verylarge list of acquaintances. He knew, in the fashionable phrase,"everybody," and "everybody" knew him. His acquaintances ranged beyondthe world of fashion; the theatre, the turf, and many other regions haddenizens who knew Orson Vane and held him in esteem. He had always liveda careful, well-mannered life; his name had never been in the newspaperssave in the inescapable columns touching society.

  When he was ready to proceed with the experiment of the mirror, thelargeness of his social register was at once a pleasure and a pain.There were so many, so many! It was evident that he must use the typesmost promising in eccentricity; he must adventure forth in company withthe strangest souls, not the mere ordinary ones.

  Sitting in the twilight of his rooms one day, it occurred to him that hewas now ripe for his first decision. Whose soul should he seize? Thatwas the question. He had spent a week or so perfecting plans, stallingoff awkward episodes, schooling his servants. There was no telling whatmight not happen.

  He picked up a newspaper. A name caught his eye; he gave a little laugh.

  "The very man!" he told himself, "the very man. Society's court fool; itwill be worth something to know what lies under his cap and bells."

  He scrawled a note, enclosed it, and rang for Nevins.

  "Have that taken, at once, to Mr. Reginald Hart. And then, presently,have a hansom called and let it wait nearby."

  "Reggie will be sure to come," he said, when alone. "I've told him therewas a pretty woman here."

  He felt a nervous restlessness. He paced his room, fingering the framesof his prints, trying the cord of his new mirror, adjusting the blindsof the windows. He tingled with mental and physical expectation. Hewondered whether nothing, after all, would be the result. How insane itwas to expect any such thing to happen as Vanlief had vapored of! Thiswas the twentieth century rather than the tenth; miracles neverhappened. Yet how fervently he wished for one! To feel the soul ofanother superimposing itself upon his own; to know that he had committedthe grandest larceny under heaven, the theft of a soul, and to gain,thereby, complete insight into the spiritual machinery of anothermortal!

  Nevins returned, within a little time, bringing word that Mr. Hart hadbeen found at home, and would call directly.

  Vane pushed the new mirror to a position where it would face the door.He told Nevins not to enter the room after Mr. Hart; to let him enter,and let the curtain fall behind him.

  He took up a position by a window and waited. The minutes seemed heavyas lead. The air was unnaturally still.

  At last he heard Nevins, in gentle monosyllables. Another voice, highalmost to falsetto, clashed against the stillness.

  Then the curtain swung back.

  Reginald Hart, whom all the smart world never called other than ReggieHart, stood for a moment in the curtain-way, the mirror barring hispath. He caught his image there to the full, the effeminate, full face,the narrow-waisted coat, the unpleasantly womanish hips. He put out hisright hand, as if groping in the dark. Then he said, shrilly,stammeringly.

  "Vane! Oh, Vane, where the de--"

  He sank almost to his knees. Vane stepping forward, caught him by theshoulder and put him into an arm-chair. Hart sat there, his head hunchedbetween his shoulders.

  "Silly thing to do, Vane, old chappy. Beastly sorry for this--stunt ofmine. Too many tea-parties lately, Vane, too much dancing, too much--"his voice went off into a sigh. "Better get a cab," he said, limply.

  He had quite forgotten why he had come: he was simply in collapse,mentally and physically. Vane, trembling with excitement and delight,walked up to the mirror from behind and sent the veil upon its faceagain. Then he had Nevins summon the cab. He watched Hart tottering out,upon Nevins' shoulder, with a dry, forced smile.

  So it was real! He could hardly believe it. In seconds, in the merestflash, his visitor had faded like a flower whose root is plucked. Theman had come in, full of vitality, quite, in fact, himself; he had goneout a mere husk, a shell.

  But there was still the climax ahead. Had he courage for it, now that itloomed imminent? Should he send for Hart and have him pick up his soulwhere he had dropped it? Or should he, stern in his first purpose, fitthat soul upon his own, as one fits a glove upon the hand? There was yettime. It depended only upon whether Hart or himself faced the mirrorwhen the veil was off.

  He cut his knot of indecision sharply, with a stride to the mirror, ajerk at the cord and a steady gaze into the clear pool of light,darkened only by his own reflection.

  * * * * *

  Strain his eyes as he would, he could feel no change, not the fainteststir of added emotion. He let the curtain drop upon the mirrorlistlessly.

  Walking to his window-seat again, he was suddenly struck by his image inone of the other glasses. He was really very well shaped; he felt a wishto strip to the buff; it was rather a shame to clothe limbs as fine asthose. He was quite sure there were friends of his who would appreciatephotographs of himself, in some picturesque costume that would hide aslittle as possible. It was an age since he had any pictures taken. Hecalled for Nevins. His voice struck Nevins as having a taint of tenor init.

  "Nevins," he said, "have the photographer call to-morrow, like a goodman, won't you? You know, the chap, I forget his name, who does all thesmart young women. I'll be glad to do the fellow a service; do him noend of good to have his name on pictures of me. I'm thinking ofsomething a bit startling for the Cutter's costume ball, Nevins, so havethe man from Madame Boyer's come for instructions. And see if you canfind me some perfume at the chemist's; something heavy, Nevins. Theperfumes at once, that's a dear man. I want them in my pillows tonight."

  When the man was gone, his master went to the sideboard, opened it, andgave a gentle sigh of disappointment.

  "Careless of me," he murmured, "to have no Red Ribbon in the place. Howcan any gentleman afford to be without it? Dear, dear, if any of thegirls and boys had caught me without it. Another thing I must tellNevins. Nothing but whisky! Abominably vulgar stuff! Can't think,really, 'pon honor I can't, how I ever came to lay any of it in. And nocigarettes in the place. Goodness me! What sweet cigarettes those areMrs. Barrett Weston always has! Wonder if that woman will ask me to hercottage this summer."

  He strolled to the window, yawned, stretched out his arms, drawing hishands towards him at the end of his gesture. He inspected the fingersminutely. They needed manicuring. He began to put down a little list ofthings to be done. He strolled over to the tabouret where invitationslay scattered all about. That dear Mrs. Sclatersby was giving astudio-dance; she was depending on him for a novel feature. Perhaps ifhe did a little skirt-dance. Yes; the notion pleased him. He would sitdown, at once, and write a hint to a newspaper man who would be sure tomake a sensation of this skirt-dance.

  That done, he heard Nevins knocking.

  "Oh," he murmured, "the perfumes. So sweet!" He buried his nose in ahandful of the sachet-bags. He sprayed some Maria Farina on hisforehead. Perfumes, he considered, were worth worship just as much asjewels or music. The more sinful a perfume seemed, the more stimulatingit was to the imagination. Some perfumes were like drawings byBeardsley.

  He looked at the walls. He really must get some Beardsleys put up. Therewas nothing like a Beardsley for jogging a sluggish fancy; if you wantedto see everything that milliners and dressmakers existed by hiding, allyou had to do was to sup sufficiently on Beardsley. He thought ofinventing a Beardsley cocktail; if he could find a mixture that wouldmake the brain quite pagan, he would certainly give it that name.

  His mind roved to the feud between the Montagues and Capulets of thetown. It was one of those modern feuds, made up of little socialfrictions, infinitesimal jealousies, magnified by a malicious press intoa national calamity. It was a feud, he told himself, that he would haveto mend. It would mean, for him, the lustre from both houses. And therewas nothing, in the smart world, like plenty of lustre. There wereseveral sorts
of lustre: that of money, of birth, and of public honors.Personally, he cared little for the origin of his lustre; so it put himin the very forefront of smartness he asked for nothing more. Of course,his own position was quite impeccable. The smart world might narrow yearby year; the Newport set, and the Millionaire set, and the Knickerbockerset--they might all dwindle to one small world of smartness; yet nothingthat could happen could keep out an Orson Vane. The name struck him, asit shaped itself in his mind, a trifle odd. An Orson Vane? Yes, ofcourse, of course. For that matter, who had presumed to doubt theposition of a Vane? He asked himself that, with a sort of defiance. AnOrson Vane, an Orson Vane? He repeated the syllables over and over, in awhisper at first, and then aloud, until the shrillness of his tone gavehim a positive start.

  He rang the bell for Nevins.

  "Nevins," he said, and something in him fought against his speech, "tellme, that's a good man,--is there anything, anything wrong with--me?"

  "Nothing sir," said Nevins stolidly.

  Orson Vane gave a sort of gasp as the man withdrew. It had come to himsuddenly; the under-self was struggling beneath the borrowed self. Hewas Orson Vane, but he was also another.

  Who? What other?

  He gave a little shrill laugh as he remembered. Reggie Hart,--that wasit,--Reggie Hart.

  He sat down to undress for sleep. He slipped into bed as daintily as awoman, nestling to the perfumed pillows.

  Nevins, in his part of the house, sat shaking his head. "If he hadn'tgiven me warning," he told himself, "I'd have sent for a doctor."