The Professor's Mystery

  CHAPTER VII

  SENTENCE OF BANISHMENT CONFIRMED WITH COSTS

  I went to bed with my natural pleasure in the unexpected surfeited intoa baffled irritation. I was the more annoyed when the morning brought noanswer to my note; nor did the arrival of Doctor Reid about the middleof the forenoon tend to improve my state of mind. I found him fidgetingon the veranda, winding his watch and frowning at the furniture.

  "Good morning, Mr. Crosby, good morning," he began. "I came down to havea few minutes' talk with you, but," he looked again at his watch, "I'mon my way down to my office and I find I'm a little late. Would ittrouble you too much to walk along with me? Sorry to ask you, but I'mlate already."

  I got my hat, and we hurried out into the glaring sunshine. Reid gavethe impression, I discovered, of being a much faster walker than heactually was; I had no difficulty in keeping up with him. Something ofthe same quality was noticeable in his conversation.

  "Beautiful morning. I always like to get in a little exercise beforework. Beautiful morning for a walk. Fine. Fine. Now about that note ofyours. No reason at all for your coming back here, you know.Acquaintance must be entirely broken off. No excuse whatever for goingon with it. Impossible. Perfectly impossible."

  I bristled at once. "Is that a message from Miss Tabor or an objectionon the part of the family? I'd like to understand this."

  "By my--Miss Tabor's authority, of course. Certainly. She regrets thenecessity you impose on her of telling you that she can't receive yourcall. Maid told you yesterday she was not at home. Civil answer. Nooccasion for carrying the matter any further. Nothing more to be said.Nothing." He looked at his watch again and kicked the head off afeathery dandelion.

  "Mr. Tabor told me," I said, made deliberate by his jerkiness, "that Iwas not a fit acquaintance for his family. That was absurd, and by thistime he knows it. If I'm forbidden to call, that settles the matter; butthere's got to be some sensible reason."

  "Certainly that settles the matter. Nothing more to be said. Nothing atall against your character. I don't know anything about that. Haven'theard a word about it. Nothing against you. Mrs.--Miss Tabor doesn'twish to see you, that's all. Very unpleasant position for you. I seethat. Very unpleasant for me to say so. But you bring it on yourself.Ought to have stayed away. Nothing else to do."

  "Do you mean to say," I demanded, "that now that my reputation iscleared that makes no difference?"

  "Exactly. No objection to you, whatever. Must have been all a mistake.Very unfortunate. Very much to be regretted. Simply, you aren't wanted.Very distressing to have to say this. You ought to have seen it. Nothingfor you to come back for. Nothing to do but to drop it. Drop it rightwhere it is. Nothing to be done."

  The situation opened under me. Indefinite slander had been at leastsomething to fight about, but to this there was simply no answer. I feltlike a fool, and what was worse, like an intrusive fool; and I had asickening sense that all the delightful kindliness of the days at thebeach might have been the exaggeration of unwilling courtesy. Butanother moment of that memory brought back my faith. For me, I wascertainly in the wrong, and probably an officious idiot. Yet the onething of which I could be sure was Lady's honesty. I was not runningfrom my guns just yet.

  "You make me out an intruder," I retorted. "Well, that's been the wholecase from the first. All along, I've done nothing out of the ordinarycourse of acquaintance with an ordinary family. But your family isn'tordinary. You put up invisible fences and then accuse me of trespassing.I don't want to drag your skeleton out of the closet; but a blind mancan see that it's there. If you had a counterfeiting plant in the house,for instance, I could understand all this nonsense. It's too palpablymanufactured."

  I could see that I had hit him, for he grew jerkier than ever."Counterfeiting, nonsense. Absolutely absurd. Insult to suggest such athing. Now, let's drop this and come right down to the facts. May aswell be practical. Nothing more to say. You're not to call. Told you soalready. Very disagreeable business. But, of course, you won't make anyfurther trouble. Absolutely impossible. Hard on you, of course, butnothing to be done."

  "Very well," said I, "you tell me this matter is between Miss Tabor andmyself. We'll keep it so, and the rest of you may toast in Tophet. Itell you plainly I don't doubt your literal word, but I do doubt yourmotives and your authority. If Miss Tabor herself tells me to go, I'llgo. Otherwise, I'll await my chance to see her; and if that's intruding,why, I'll intrude. Now, be as practical as you please."

  He gave way with a suddenness that astonished me. "Just as you say, Mr.Crosby, just as you say. No difference whatever to me. Glad to berelieved of the business. Better call this afternoon, and have it overwith. Always best to settle things at once. She'll be in all day.Quickest way of ending the whole trouble."

  "I'll call this afternoon."

  "Right. Say about three-thirty. I go in here. Sorry to have brought youso far. Sorry to have had this to do at all. Very unpleasant for both ofus, but life's full of unpleasantness. Sorry I shan't see you again.Can't be helped. Good-by."

  I made the best of my way back, with an indistinct sense of havingfought with a small tornado, and wondering whether I had won a minorvictory or sealed an irrevocable defeat. True, I had gained the pointof receiving my dismissal in person, but Reid's very readiness ofacquiescence indicated the completeness of his confidence in mydiscomfiture. I spent the interim planning things to say which I knew Ishould miserably forget when the time came to say them; and I went tokeep my appointment with Miss Tabor feeling illogically like amalefactor going up for trial, and remembering with sickly lucidityevery word of the skeptical common sense that I had been flouting fromthe first.

  She was sitting near the great Dutch fireplace, and as I crossed theroom she slid her book upon the table and stood up. She did not offer meher hand, nor did she notice mine.

  "How do you do, Mr. Crosby?" she said.

  There was an acid formality about the meaningless little sentence thattook the color out of all I had intended to say. There was no answerexcept that I was very well; and the hollow inanity of that under thecircumstances left me standing speechless, defeated before thebeginning. She was standing very straight, and her eyes looked beyond meblankly, as they had on the Ainslies' veranda. Now she brought them tomine for an instant, and motioned me to a chair that faced hers at alittle distance as if it had been placed there beforehand.

  "We had better sit down," she said. "I want to talk quietly to you, Mr.Crosby."

  "Your brother told me that this would be a good time for me to come,"said I unmeaningly.

  For a long time she was silent, turning over and over with reflectivefingers a little ivory paper cutter. The handle of it was carved torepresent a fish with its mouth open grasping the blade. Somewhere inthe room a clock ticked twice to every three of my heart-beats. Finallyshe looked up decisively.

  "You wanted to see me, Mr. Crosby. I suppose it is about something inparticular. Please tell me what it is."

  "You must know as well as I do," I answered, trying to steady my tone."I have been told that my attempt to call is an intrusion, and that youdo not wish to see me again. I preferred to be told that by you,yourself."

  Her eyes rested steadily upon mine. "Well," she said, "I tell you nowthat it is perfectly true."

  There was the same formality about it all, the same sense of mechanicalarrangement; not as if she were playing a part, but as if she weregoing through with an unpleasant purpose according to a preconceivedplan. I tried to shift the burden of the situation.

  "Why?" I asked. "It seems to me that this part of intruder has been madeup and put upon me. Except for crossing lines that need never have beendrawn, I don't understand what I have done."

  "Perhaps not. If you think a little, you will remember that when I askedyou to go that night when--when you brought me here, I told you toforget us--that you were not to ask questions, nor try to see me again.I thought I made it very clear at that time. Are you the judge of myright to close my own door?"


  For a moment I was too much bewildered to answer. "When we met at theAinslies'," I blurted, "you met me as a friend, as though nothing hadbroken what we began in the holidays. I can't believe that you were onlyplaying a courteous part. You were your own open self. Everything wasall right, I am very sure, until--until this man, this--your brothercame for you."

  She gave a scornful little laugh, leaning back indolently in her chair.

  "Really, Mr. Crosby, aren't you rather overstating the case? Have webeen such very great friends? I have known you ten days--twelve days."

  I nodded dumbly.

  "I have no wish to hurt you," she went on more gently, "but we havereally nothing like a friendship to appeal to. I am not breakinganything, because there is nothing to break. When you left here--Ithought that you understood me. I don't know what my family disliked inyou, and I don't think I care to know. It has nothing to do with me. Butthis is what I dislike. You called up my father the next morning, anddemanded reasons. You went to the beach, where you knew I was invited.Was I to cut you there? Was I to explain to mutual friends that I didn'twant to meet you? I don't think you have treated our acquaintanceshipparticularly well, or that you have shown much regard for my plainrequest."

  I sat stunned, the bulk of my offense looming stark before me. Then,with a great surge, the memory came back of the girl who had stood withme by the water's edge, who had run childishly hand in hand with me uponthe beach, who had walked with me and talked with me, who had shown meunembarrassed her gay and sweet imaginings. These things had been thetruth; this was the unreality.

  Perhaps she saw something of what was passing in my mind, for she shookher head. "Don't think that because I had no heart to mar your outing, Idid not mean what I had said. It was easier to be friends for alittle--easier for us both. But surely you should have played your part.At the Ainslies' I wanted to treat you as I should have treated anybody.Do you think that you have been fair? Do you think you should haverisked following me? For it was a risk. You have come back here where weare the only people you know, and as soon as you come you ask for me. Idon't like to say it, Mr. Crosby, but you have acted inconsiderately. Iam very anxious that this time you should clearly understand."

  I got to my feet in silence. Something had happened that I could nothelp; and as I stood there, I knew that my world had come to an end, andas in the first shock of a physical injury, felt numbly conscious of thedeliberate suffering that was to follow. She had risen too, lookingsomehow curiously small and frail. Then, of a sudden, my manhood caughtat me. The wall was without seam or crevice, darkening the sky; and Iknew that I could break it with a breath.

  "I will go," I said, "when I am sure. Look at me, Lady, for you knowthat I know."

  There was a sharp snap. She glanced at her hands, then dropped thebroken paper knife at her feet and faced me haughtily. "Know?" she said,with a dry tension in her voice, "I only know that this is to begood-by." She held out a rigid hand.

  I took it and stood looking soberly down at her.

  "Is that all?" I asked.

  "Yes," she answered. "Don't make it hard for me." Then her eyes grewsuddenly afraid. She caught away her hand and shrank back a step,catching at the chain about her throat.

  "Oh, don't, don't," she begged. "Please, please go--you don'tunderstand."

  I held myself with all my strength. "No, I don't understand," Iwhispered.

  She caught her breath with half a sob, forlornly and as a child might.

  "You must not understand. You are never to see me again."

  "You know I can't do that," I said.

  "You must do it," she answered very gravely. "Be kind to me--" shepaused, "because it's hard for me to send you away."

  "You must tell me one thing more than that," said I; "is there--is thereany one else?"

  Her eyes fell. "That is it," she said at last, "there is somebody else."

  "That is all, then," I said quietly. "I shall stay away until you sendfor me;" and I left her.

  I have no remembrance of the walk back to the inn; but I closed my doorbehind me softly, as if I were shutting a door upon my dreams. Now Iknew that the dull round of daily life, of little happenings and usualdays, stretched before me, weary and indefinite. It made littledifference to think that I might some day be sent for. Evidently it wasto be Europe this summer after all. My only desire was to make my goinga thing immediate and complete; to rupture so absolutely the threads ofthe woof that we had woven that I could feel myself separated from all,enough aloof from love to think of life. I did not stop to ask myselfquestions or to wonder precisely what was the nature of theimpossibility that was driving me away. There would be time enough forthat.

  I began to pack feverishly, gathering my belongings from theirdisposition about the room. I felt tired, as a man feels tired who haslost a battle; so that after I had packed a little I sank wearily intothe chair before my bureau. Then after what may have been a minute or anhour of dull unconscious thought, I fell again to my task; pulling openthe drawers from where I sat, and searching their depths for little oddsand ends which I piled upon the bureau top. The bottom of the seconddrawer was covered with an old newspaper; and I smiled as I noticed thatits fabric was already turning brittle and yellowish, and read theobsolete violence of the head-lines. Then a name half-way down the pagecaught me with a shock, and I slowly read and re-read the lines of tinyprint, forming the empty phrases in my mind with no clear sense of theirmeaning. They were like the streams of silly words that run throughone's head in a fever, or half-way along the road to sleep; and it wasan eternity before they meant anything.

  "REID-TABOR. On May 24, at the home of the bride's parents, Miriam, daughter of George and Charlotte Bennett Tabor, to Doctor Walter Reid."