"A doctor? My father was a doctor."
"Dr. Stuart Devine?"
"Yes, sir." He paused. "Did you say you knew him, Dr. Horker?"
"Slightly," rumbled the other. "Only slightly."
"I don't remember him at all, of course, I was very young when he — and my mother too — died."
"You must have been. Patricia claims you write."
"I try."
"What sort of material?"
"Why — any sort. Prose or poetry; what I feel like writing."
"Whatever inspires you, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir." The lad flushed again.
"Ever have anything published?"
"Yes, sir. In Nation's Poetry."
"Never heard of it."
"It has a large circulation," said Nick apologetically.
"Humph! Well, that's something. Whom do you like?"
"Whom do I like?" The youth's tone was puzzled.
"What authors — writers?"
"Oh." He cast another uncomfortable glance at Pat. "Why — I like Baudelaire, and Poe, and Swinburne, and Villon, and —"
"Decadents, all of them!" sniffed the Doctor. "What prose writers?"
"Well —" He hesitated — "Poe again, and Stern, and Rabelais —"
"Rabelais!" Horker's voice boomed. "Well! Your taste can't be as bad as I thought, then. There's one we agree on, anyway. And I notice you name no moderns, which is another good point."
"I haven't read many moderns, sir."
"That's in your favor."
"Cut it!" put in Pat with assumed sharpness. "You've taken enough whacks at my generation for one day."
"I'm glad to find one of your generation who agrees with me," chuckled the Doctor. "At least to the extent of not reading its works."
"I'll teach him," grinned Pat. "I'll have him writing vess libre, and maybe even dadaism, in a week."
"Maybe it won't be much loss," grunted Horker. "I haven't seen any of his work yet."
"We'll bring some around sooner or later. We will, won't we, Nick?"
"Of course, if you want to. But —"
"He's going to say something modest," interrupted the girl. "He's in the retiring mood now, but he's apt to change any moment, and snap your surly head off."
"Humph! I'd like to see it."
"So'd I," retorted Pat. "You've had it coming all day; maybe I'll do it myself."
"You have, my dear, innumerable times. But I'm like the Hydra, except that I grow only one head to replace the one you snap off." He turned again to Nicholas. "Do you work?"
"Yes, sir. At my writing."
"I mean how do you live?"
"Why," said the youth, reddening again in embarrassment, "my parents —"
"Listen!" said Pat. "That's enough of Dr. Carl's cross examination. You'd think he was a Victorian father who had just been approached for his daughter's hand. We haven't whispered any news of an engagement to you, have we, Doc?"
"No, but I'm acting —"
"Sure. In loco parentis. We know that."
"You're incorrigible, Pat! I wash my hands of you. Run along, if you're going out."
"You'll be telling me never to darken my own door again in the next breath!" She stretched forth a diminutive foot at the extremity of a superlatively attractive ankle, caught Nick's hat on her toe, and kicked it expertly to his lap. "Come on, Nick. There's a moon."
"There is not!" objected the Doctor huffily. "It rises at four, as you ought to know. You didn't see it last night, did you?”
"I didn't notice," said the girl. "Come on, Nick, and we'll watch it rise tonight. We'll check up on he Doctor's astronomy, or is it chronology?"
"You do and I'll know it! I can hear you come home, you imp!"
"Nice neighbor," observed Pat airily, as she stepped to the door. "I'll bet you peek out of the window, too." She ignored the Doctor's irritated rumble as she passed into the hall, where Nick, after a diffident murmur of farewell to Horker, followed. She caught up a light cape, which he draped about her shoulders.
"Nick," she said, "suppose you run out to the car and wait. I think I've stepped too hard on Dr. Carl's corns, and I want to give him a little cheering up. Will you?"
"Of course, Pat."
She darted back into the living room, perching on the arm of the davenport beside the Doctor.
"Well?" she said, running her hand through grizzled hair. "What's the verdict?"
"Seems like a nice kid," grumbled Horker reluctant "Nice enough, but introverted, repressed, and I shouldn't be surprised to find him anti-social. Doesn't adjust easily to his environment; takes refuge in a dream world of his own.
"That's what he accuses me of doing," Pat grinned. "That all you've got against him?"
"That's all, but where's that streak of mastery you mentioned? You lead him around on a leash!"
"It didn't show up tonight. That's the thrill — the unexpectedness of it."
"Bah! You must've dreamed it. There's no more aggressiveness in that lad than in KoKo, your canary.”
"Don't you believe it, Dr. Carl! The trouble is that he's a genius, and that's where your psychology falls flat."
"Genius," said the Doctor oracularly, "is a sublimation of qualities —"
"I'll tell you tomorrow how sublime the qualities are," called Pat as she skipped out of the door.
4
The Transfiguration
HE CAR SLID SMOOTHLY ALONG A STRAIGHT white road that stretched ahead into the darkness like an earth-bound Milky Way. In the dim distance before them, red as Antares, glowed the tail-light of some automobile; except for this lone evidence of humanity, reflected Pat, they might have been flashing through the cosmic depths of innterstellar space, instead of following a highway in the very shadow of Chicago. The colossal city of the lake-shore was invisible behind them, and the clustering suburbs with it.
"Queer, isn't it?" said Pat, after a silence, "how contented we can be with none of the purchased amusement people crave — shows, movies, dancing, and all that."
"It doesn't seem queer to me," answered Nick. "Not when I look at you here beside me."
"Nice of you!" retorted Pat. "But it's never happened to me before." She paused, then continued, "How do you like the Doctor?"
"How does he like me? That's considerably more to the point, isn't it?"
"He thinks you're nice, but — let's see — introverted, repressed, and ill-adjusted to your environment. I think those were the points."
"Well, I liked him, in spite of your manoeuvers, and in spite of his being a doctor."
"What's wrong with being a doctor?"
"Did you ever read "Tristram Shandy’?" was Nick's irrelevant response.
"No, but I read the newspapers!"
"What's the connection, Pat?"
"Just as much connection as there is between the evils of being a doctor and reading 'Tristram Shandy'. I know that much about the book, at least."
"You're nearly right," laughed Nick. "I was just referring to one of Tristram's remarks on doctors and lawyers. It fits my attitude."
"What's the remark?"
"Well, he had the choice of professions, and it occurred to him that medicine and law were the vulture professions, since lawyers live by men's quarrels and doctors by men's misfortunes. So — he became a writer."
"And what do writers live by?" queried Pat mischievously. "By men's stupidity!"
"You're precious, Pat!" Nick chuckled delightedly. "If I'd created you to order, I couldn't have planned you more to taste — pepper, tabasco sauce, vinegar, spice, and honey!"
"And to be taken with a grain of salt," retorted the girl, puckering her piquant, impish features. She edged closer to him, locking her arm through his where it rested on the steering wheel.
"Nick," she said, her tones suddenly gentle, "I think I'm pretty crazy about you. Heaven knows why I should be, but it's a fact."
"Pat, dear!"
"I'm crazy about you in this meek, sensitive pose of yours, and I'm fascinat
ed by those masterful moments you flash occasionally. Really, Nick, I almost wish you flamed out oftener."
"Don't!" he said sharply.
"Why not?"
"Let's not talk about me, Pat. It — embarrasses me."
"All right, Mr. Modesty! Let's talk about me, then. I'll promise we won't succeed in embarrassing me."
"And it's quite the most interesting subject in the world, Pat."
"Well, then?"
"What?"
"Why don't you start talking? The topic is all attention."
He chuckled. "How many men have told you you were beautiful, Pat?"
"I never kept account."
"And in many different ways?"
"Why? Have you, perchance, discovered a new way, Nick?"
"Not at all. The oldest way of any, the way of Shappho and Pindar."
"O-ooh!" She clapped her hands in mock delight. "Poetry!"
"The only medium that could possibly express how lovely you are" said Nick.
"Nicholas, have you gone and composed a poem to me?"
"Composed? No. It isn't necessary, with you here beside me."
"What's that? Some very subtle compliment?"
"Not subtle, Pat. You're the poem yourself; all I need do is look at you, listen to you, and translate."
"Neat!" applauded the girl. "Do I hear the translation?"
"You certainly do." He turned his odd amber-green eyes on her, then bent forward to the road. He began to speak in a low voice.
"In no far country's silent ways
Shall I forget one little thing
The soft intentness of your gaze,
The sweetness of your murmuring
Your generously tender praise,
The words just hinted by a breath —
In no far country's silent way,
Unless that country's name be Death —"
He paused abruptly, and drove silently onward. "Oh," breathed Pat. "Why don't you go on, Nick? Please."
"No. It isn't the mood for this night, Dear. Not this night, alone with you."
"What is, then?"
"Nothing sentimental. Something lighter, something — oh, Elizabethan. That's it."
"And what's stopping you?"
"Lack of an available idea. Or — wait. Listen a moment." He began, this time in a tone of banter.
"When mornings, you attire yourself
For riding in the city,
You're such a lovely little elf,
Extravagantly pretty!
And when at noon you deign to wear
The habit of the town,
I cannot call to mind as fair
A symphony in brown.
Then evenings, you blithely don
A daintiness of white,
To flash a very paragon
Of lightsomeness — and light!
But when the rounds of pleasure cease,
And you retire at night,
The Godling on your mantelpiece
Must know a fairer sight!"
"Sweet!" laughed Pat. "But personal. And anyway, how do you know I've a godling on my mantel? Don't you credit me with any modesty?"
"If you haven't, you should have! The vision I mentioned ought to enliven even a statue,"
"Well," said the girl, "I have one — a jade Buddha, and with all the charms I flash before him nightly, he's never batted an eyelash. Explain that!"
"Easily. He's green with envy, and frozen with admiration, and struck dumb by wonder."
"Heavens! I suppose I ought to be thankful you didn't say he was petrified with fright!" Pat laughed. "Oh Nick," she continued, in a voice gone suddenly dreamy, "this is marvelous, isn't it? I mean our enjoying ourselves so completely, and our being satisfied to be so alone. Why, we've never even danced together."
"So we haven't. That's a subterfuge we haven't needed, isn't it?"
"It is," replied the girl, dropping her glossy gleaming black head against his shoulder. "And besides, it's much more satisfactory to be held in your arms in private, instead of in the midst of a crowd, and sitting down, instead of standing up. But I should like to dance with you, Nick," she concluded.
"We'll go dancing, then, whenever you like."
"You're delightfully complaisant, Nick. But —you're puzzling." She glanced up at him. "You're so — so reluctant. Here we've been driving an hour, and you haven't tried to kiss me a single time, and yet I'm quite positive you care for me."
"Lord, Pat!" he muttered. "You never need doubt that."
"Then what is it? Are you so spiritual and ethereal, or is my attraction for you just sort of intellectual? Or — are you afraid?" As he made no reply, she continued, "Or are those poems you spout about my physical charms just — poetic license?"
"They're not, and you know it!" he snapped. "You've a mirror, haven't you? And other fellows than I have taken you around, haven't they?"
"Oh, I've been taken around! That's what perplexes me about you, Nick. I'd think you were actually afraid of kissing me if it weren't —" Her voice trailed into silence, and she stared speculatively ahead at the ribbon of road that rolled steadily into the headlights' glare.
She broke the interval of wordlessness. "What is it, Nick?" she resumed almost pleadingly. "You've hinted at something now and then. Please — you don't have to hesitate to tell me; I'm modern enough to forgive things past, entanglements, affairs, disgraces, or anything like that. Don't you think I should know?"
"You'd know," he said huskily, "if I could tell you."
"Then there is something, Nick!" She pressed his arm against her. "Tell me, isn't there?"
"I don't know." There was the suggestion of a groan in his voice.
"You don't know! I can't understand."
"I can't either. Please, Pat, let's not spoil tonight; if I could tell you, I would. Why, Pat, I love you —I'm terribly, deeply, solemnly in love with you."
"And I with you, Nick." She gazed ahead, where the road rose over the arch of a narrow bridge. The speeding car lifted to the rise like a zooming plane.
And suddenly, squarely in the center of the road, another car, until now concealed by the arch of the bridge, appeared almost upon them. There was a heart-stopping moment when a collision seemed inevitable, and Pat felt the arm against her tighten convulsively into a bar of steel. She heard her own sobbing gasp, and then, somehow, they had slipped unscathed between the other car and the rail of the bridge.
"Oh!" she gasped faintly, then with a return of breath, "That was nice, Nick!"
Beyond the bridge, the road widened once more; she felt the car slowing, edging toward the broad shoulder of the road.
"There was danger," said her companion in tones as emotionless as the rasping of metal. "I came to save it."
"Save what?" queried Pat as the car slid to a halt on the turf.
"Your body." The tones were still cold, like grinding wheels. "The beauty of your body!"
He reached a thin hand toward her, suddenly seized her skirt and snatched it above the silken roundness of her knees. "There," he rasped. "That is what I mean."
"Nick!" Pat half-screamed in appalled astonishment. "How —" She paused, shocked into abrupt silence, for the face turned toward her was but a remote, evil caricature of Nicholas Devine's. It leered at her out of blood-shot eyes, as if behind the mask of Nick's face peered a red-eyed demon.
5
A Fantasy of Fear
HE SATYR BESIDE PAT WAS LEANING TOWARD her; the arm about her was tightening with a brutal ruthlessness, and while still-staring in fascination at the incredible eyes, she realized hat another arm and a white hand was moving relentessly, exploratively, toward her body. It was the cold touch of this hand as it slipped over her silk-sheathed legs that broke the chilling spell of her fascination.
"Nick!" she screamed. "Nick!" She had a curious sensation of calling him back from far distances, the while she strove with both hands and all her strength to press him back from her. But the ruthless force of his arms was overcoming her
resistance; she saw the red eyes a hand's breadth from her own.
"Nick!" she sobbed in terror.
There was a change. Abruptly, she was looking into Nick's eyes, bloodshot, frightened, puzzled, but indubitably Nick's eyes. The flaming orbs of the demon were no more; it was as if they had receded into Nick's head. The arm about her body relaxed, and they were staring at each other in a medley of consternation, amazement and unbelief. The youth drew back, huddled in his corner of the car, and Pat, breathing in sobs, smoothed out her rumpled apparel with a convulsive movement.
"Pat!" he gasped. "Oh, my God! He couldn't have —" He paused abruptly. The girl gazed at him without reply.
"Pat, Dear," he spoke in a low, tense murmur, "I'm — sorry. I don't know — I don't understand how —"
"Never mind," she said, regaining a vestige of her customary composure. "It's — all right, Nick."
"But — oh, Pat —!"
"It was that near accident," she said. "That upset you — both of us, I mean."
"Yes!" he said eagerly. "That's what it was, Pat. It must have been that, but Dear, can you forgive? Do you want to forgive me?”
"It's all right," she repeated. "After all, you just complimented my legs, and I guess I can stand that. It's happened before, only not quite so—convincingly!"
"You're sweet, Pat!"
"No; I just love you Nick." She felt a sudden pity for the misery in his face. "Kiss me, Nick — only gently."
He pressed his lips to hers, very lightly, almost timidly. She lay back against the seat for a moment, her eyes closed.
"That's you again," she murmured. "This other —wasn't."
"Please, Pat! Don't refer to it, — not ever."
"But it wasn't you, Nick. It was just the strain of that narrow escape. I don't hold it against you."
"You're — Lord, Pat, I don't deserve you. But you know that I — I myself — could never touch you except in tenderness, even in reverence. You're too dainty, too lovely, too spirited, to be hurt, or to be held roughly, against your will. You know I feel that way about you, don't you?”
"Of course. It was nothing, Nick. Forget it."
"If I can," he said somberly. He switched on the engine, backed out upon the pavement, and turned the car toward the glow that marked Chicago. Neither of them spoke as the machine hummed over the arching bridge and down the slope, where, so few minutes before, the threat of accident had thrust itself at them.
The Lost Master - The Collected Works Page 63