Robert W. Chambers

“ But now, halting, bewildered, lost amid the strange maze of byways whither impulse had lured and abandoned him, he looked out into a world of wilderness and unfamiliar stars and shadow shapes undreamed of, and he knew not which way to turn—not even how to return along the ways his impetuous feet had trodden in this strange and hopeless quest of his.
"How can you help me?" he said bluntly, while the quivering undertone rang in spite of him. "Yes, I am in love; but how can any living man help me?"
"Are you in love with the dead?" asked the Tracer gravely. ”

“ I'm a decent citizen. I awake in the rosy dawn with a song on my lips; I softly whistle rag time as I button my collar; I warble a few delicious vagrant notes as I part my sparse hair; I'm not murderous before breakfast; I go down town, singing, to my daily toil; I fish for fat contracts in Georgia marble; I return uptown immersed in a holy calm and the evening paper. I offer myself a cocktail; I bow and accept; I dress for dinner with the aid of a rascally valet, but—do I swear at him? No, dear friend; I say, 'Henry, I have known far, far worse scoundrels than you. ”

“ And it was only when she again bent very gravely over her pad that he cautiously eased a cramped muscle or two, and drew a breath—a long, noiseless, deep and timid respiration. He realised the enormity of what he had been doing—how close he had come to giving unpardonable offence by drawing a perfect portrait of herself as the person he desired to find through the good offices of Keen and Co.
But there was no such person!—unless this girl had a double; for what more could a man desire than the ideal traits he had been able to describe only by using her as bis inspiration. ”

“ Even in the midst of his fright his artist's eyes noted that: noted the perfect figure, too, and the witchery of its grace and contour, and the fascinating poise of her head, and the splendid color of her hair; noted mechanically the flowing lines of her gown, and the dainty modeling of arm and wrist and throat and ear.
Then, as she reached her bench and seated herself, she raised her eyes and looked at him. And for the first time in his life he realized that ideal beauty was but the pale phantom of the real and founded on something more than imagination and thought ”

“ Here is a wide and unknown field for medical men to investigate. It is safe to say that the physician who first discovers the bacillus of Lamour's Disease and the proper remedy to combat it will reap as his reward a glory and renown imperishable. Lamour's Disease is a disease not yet understood—a disease whose termination is believed to be fatal—a strange disease which seems to render radiant and beautiful the features of the patient, brightening them with the forewarning of impending death and the splendid resurrection of immortality. ”

“ You talk of pistol range, but you are thinking of something more fatal than bullets, Mr. Burke. You are thinking of love—of the first, great, absorbing, unreasoning passion that has ever shaken you, blinded you, seized you and dragged you out of the ordered path of life, to push you violently into the strange and unexplored! That is what stares out on the world through those haunted eyes of yours, when the smile dies out and you are off your guard ”

“ Flushed, earnest, a trifle out of breath with his own eloquence, Gatewood waved his hand to indicate a Ciceronian period, adding, as Kerns's incredulous smile broadened: "Say splash again, and I'll put you at his mercy!"
"Ker-splash! dear friend," observed Kerns pleasantly. "If a man doesn't want to marry, the army, the navy, the Senate, the white wings, and the great White Father at Washington can't make him."
"I tell you I want to see you happy!" said Gatewood angrily.
"Then gaze upon me. I'm it!"
"You're not! You don't know what happiness is." ”

“ Almost all you have said is true enough, I fancy. I amount to nothing; I am idle, cynical, selfish. The emptiness of such a life requires a stimulant; even a fool abhors a vacuum. So I drink—not so very much yet—but more than I realize. And it is close enough to a habit to worry me. . . . Yes, almost all you say is true; Kerns knows it; I know it—now that you have told me. You see, he couldn't tell me, because I should not have believed him. But I believe you—all you say, except one thing. And that is only a glimmer of decency left in me—not that I make any merit of it. ”

“ Atwood! I want him, please! I—you helped me to discover him, you see. And his malady is to be my specialty. Please, do you mind if I keep him all to myself and study him?"
"But you refused, child."
"I didn't mean to. I—I didn't exactly see how I was to study him. But I must study him! Oh, I must! There will surely be some way. Please let me. You discovered him, I admit, but I will promise you faithfully to devote my entire life to studying him, as the great Lamour devoted his life for forty years to his single patient."
"But Dr. Lamour married his patient," said the Tracer mildly. ”

“ The bronzed young man smiled, glanced at the date of appointment written on his card, which also bore his own name followed by the letters U.S.A., then his amused gray eyes darkened and he glanced leisurely around the room, where a dozen or more assorted people sat waiting their turns to interview Mr. Keen: all sorts and conditions of people—smartly gowned women, an anxious-browed business man or two, a fat German truck driver, his greasy cap on his knees, a surly policeman, and an old Irishwoman, wearing a shawl and an ancient straw bonnet. Harren's eyes reverted to the darky. ”

“ Keen gazed dreamily at the sunny window. “She thought she had found your—er—the person. So I said you would meet her on the bridle-path, near—but that's of no interest now——”
“Near where?” demanded Gatewood, suppressing inexplicable excitement. As Mr. Keen said nothing, “I'll go; I want to go, I really do! Can't—can't a man change his mind? Oh, I know you think I'm a lunatic, and there's plenty of reason, too!”
Keen studied him calmly; “Yes, plenty of reason, plenty of reason, Mr. Gatewood. But do you suppose you are the only one? I know another who was perfectly sane two weeks ago.” ”

“ I mean a phantom—a real phantom—in the sunlight—standing before my very eyes in broad day! . . . Now do you feel inclined to go on with my case, Mr. Keen?"
"Certainly," replied the Tracer gravely. "Please continue, Captain Harren."
"All right, then. Here's the beginning of it: Three years ago, here in New York, drifting along Fifth Avenue with the crowd, I looked up to encounter the most wonderful pair of eyes that I ever beheld—that any living man ever beheld! ”

“ I know there's no woman alive fit to wed me and spend her life in stealing kisses from me. I have no ideal. You have an ideal."
"I haven't!"
"Oh, yes, dear friend, there's a stub in your check book to prove it. You simply bet $5,000 that your ideal existed. You've won. Go and be her joy and sunshine."
"I'll put an end to this whole business," said Gatewood wrathfully, "and I'll do it now!"
"Bet you that you're engaged within the week!" said Kerns with a placid smile.
The other swung around savagely: "What will you bet, Tommy? You may have what odds you please. I'll make you sit up for this." ”

“ Atwood, do you believe that young man is really afflicted with Lamour's Disease?"
"There is but one way to be absolutely certain," said the old gentleman in a solemn voice, "and that is to study him; corroborate your suspicions by observing his pulse and temperature, as did Dr. Lamour."
"But—how can I?" she faltered. "I—he would probably object to becoming a patient of mine—"
"Ask him, child! Ask him."
"I have not courage—"
"Courage should be the badge of your profession," said the old gentleman gravely. "When did a good physician ever show the white feather in the cause of humanity?" ”

“ Gatewood glared.
"You have a pleasant way of putting things this morning, haven't you?"
"I don't want to be pleasant: I want to jar you. Don't I care enough about you to breakfast with you? Then I've a right to be pleasantly unpleasant. I can't bear to watch your mental and spiritual dissolution—a man like you, with all your latent ability and capacity for being nobody in particular—which is the sort of man this nation needs. Do you want to turn into a club-window gazer like Van Bronk? ”

“ Kerns paused, partly to light a cigarette, partly for diplomatic reasons.
"What has all this to do with me?" inquired Gatewood curiously; and diplomacy scored one.
"Why not try Keen & Co.?"
"Try them? Why? I haven't lost anybody, have I?"
"You haven't, precisely lost anybody, but the fact remains that you can't find somebody," returned Kerns coolly. "Why not employ Keen & Co. to look for her?"
"Look for whom, in Heaven's name?"
"Your ideal."
"Look for—for my ideal! Kerns, you're crazy. How the mischief can anybody hunt for somebody who doesn't exist?"
"You say that she does exist." ”

“ Lamour dwells on: the symmetry of feature and limb, the curiously spiritual beauty. Do you not notice these? Or is my sight so dim that I only imagine it?"
"He is certainly symmetrical—and—in a certain way—almost handsome in regard to features," she admitted, looking at Carden.
"Poor, poor boy!" muttered the old gentleman, wagging his gray whiskers. "I am too old to help him—too old to dream of finding a remedy for the awful malady which I am now convinced has seized him. I shall study him no more. It is useless. ”

“ If you do find the woman you could love—in the Park—to-day—come back to me some day and let me tell you all those foolish, trite, tiresome things that I should have told a son of mine: I am so old that you will not take offence—you will not mind listening to me, or forgetting the dull, prosy things I say about the curse of idleness, and the habit of cynical thinking, and the perils of vacant-minded indulgence. ”

“ Kerns," began Gatewood; "I want to see him happy, and the idiot won't be. Now, Mr. Keen, you know what happiness you and he brought to me! You know what sort of an idle, selfish, aimless, meaningless life you saved me from? I want you to do the same for Mr. Kerns. I want to ask you to take up his case at once. Besides, I've a bet on it. Could you attend to it at once?"
"To-night?" asked the Tracer, laughing.
"Why—ah—well, of course, that would be impossible. I suppose—"
"My profession is to overcome the impossible, Mr. Gatewood. Where is Mr. Kerns?" ”

“ I deeply regret that my new shirts do not fit you, Henry!' And my smile is a benediction upon that wayward scullion. Then, dear friend, why, why do you desire to offer me up upon the altar of unrest? What is a little wifey to me or I to any wifey?"
"Because," said Gatewood irritated, "you offered me up. I'm happy and I want you to be—you great, hulking, self-satisfied symbol of supreme self-centered selfishness—"
"Oh, splash!" said Kerns feebly.
"Yes, you are. What do you do all day? Grub for money and study how to make life agreeable to yourself! ”

“ I don't want to marry and increase, but she's trying to make me. At all events, I am not going to marry any woman inferior to the type I have created with my pencil—what the public calls the 'Carden Girl.' And now you see that your discovery of this living type comes rather late. In two days I must be legally married if I want my Aunt Tabby's legacy; and to-day for the first time I hear of a girl who, you assure me, compares favorably to my copyrighted type, but who has a mission and an aversion to men. So you see, Mr. Keen, that the matter is perfectly hopeless. ”

“ Every minute of the day you are occupied in having a good time! You've admitted it! You wake up singing like a fool canary; you wear imported hosiery; you've made a soft, warm wallow for yourself at this club, and here you bask your life away, waddling downtown to nail contracts and cut coupons, and uptown to dinners and theaters, only to return and sprawl here in luxury without one single thought for posterity. Your crime is race suicide! ”

“ His dreamy eyes met the gaze of the Tracer, unseeing; he rested his sunburned face between both palms, speaking in the same vague monotone:
"Everywhere dust, ashes, decay, the death of life, the utter annihilation of the living—save only the sparkle of reborn waters slowly covering the baked bed of the stone-edged pool—strange, luminous water, lacking the vital sky tint, enameled with a film of dust, yet, for all that, quickening with imprisoned brilliancy like an opal. ”

“ Carden, if she comes to love you she may think it very fine that you bring to her your love, yourself, your fame, your talents, your success, your position, your gratifying income. But I tell you it's not enough to balance the account. It is never enough—no, not all your devotion to her included! You can never balance the account on earth—all you can do is to try to balance it materially and spiritually. ”

“ Why, Jack, I'd rather see you in bankruptcy—I'd rather see you trying to lead a double life in a single flat on seven dollars and a half a week—I'd almost rather see you every day at breakfast than have it come to that!
"Wake up and get jocund with life! Why, you could have all good citizens stung to death if you chose. ”

“ He opened his palm and rose, his narrowing eyes clear and dangerous.
"At the bazaar I learned enough to know what had been done. I traced the white men to the coast. They sailed on the Scythian Queen, taking with them all that I care for on earth or in heaven! And you ask me why I measure their distance from me by a bullet's flight!"
The Tracer also rose, pale and grave.
"Wait!" he said. "There are other things to be done before you prepare to face a jury for double murder."
"It is for them to choose," said Burke. ”

“ Keen?”
“To save you from yourself!” retorted the girl in a low, exasperated voice. “He did not say what threatened you; he is a good friend for a man to have. But we soon found out what you were—a man well born, well bred, full of brilliant possibility, who was slowly becoming an idle, cynical, self-centred egoist—a man who, lacking the last of need or the spur of ambition, was degenerating through the sheer uselessness and inanity of his life. ”

“ But Smiles turned furiously on the Tracer. "You lie, you old gray rat!" he cried. "That ain't no mummy; that's a plain dead girl! And there ain't no extrydition for body snatchin', so I guess them niggers at Cairo won't get us, after all!"
"Perhaps," said the Tracer, looking at Burke, who had risen, pale and astounded. "Sit down, Mr. Burke! There is no need to question these men; no need to demand what they robbed you of. For," he added slowly, "what they took from the garden grotto of Saïs, and from you, I have under my own protection." ”

“ Keen produced a make-up box and, walking over to Carden, calmly darkened the skin under his eyes.
"I look as though I had been on a bat!" exclaimed Carden, surveying himself in a mirror. "Do you think any girl could find any attraction in such a countenance?"
"She will," observed the Tracer meaningly. "Now, Mr. Carden, one last word: The moment you find yourself in love with her, and the first moment you have the chance to do so decently, make love to her. She won't dismiss you; she will repulse you, of course, but she won't let you go. ”

“ I do not know what the accepted meaning of beauty may be if it was not there under my eyes. Flawless as palest amber ivory and rose, the smooth-flowing contours melted into exquisite symmetry; lashes like darkest velvet rested on the pure curve of the cheeks; the closed lids, the mouth still faintly stained with color, the delicate nose, the full, childish lips, sensitive, sweet, resting softly upon each other—if these were not all parts of but one lovely miracle, then there is no beauty save in a dream of Paradise. ”

“ Don't you know that from the moment I looked into your eyes I loved you?"
"How—how dare you!" she stammered, crimsoning.
"God knows," he said wistfully. "I am a coward. I don't know how I dared. Good-by. . . ."
He walked his horse a little way, then launched him into a gallop, tearing on and on, sun, wind, trees swimming, whirling like a vision, hearing nothing, feeling nothing, save the leaden pounding of his pulse and the breathless, terrible tightening in his throat. ”

“ Thank you. Here is the town of Sa-el-Hagar, here are the ruins, here is the wall, and somewhere hereabouts should be the buried temple of Neith, which nobody has found." He shifted his pencil. "Here is the lake of Saïs; here, standing all alone on the plain, are those great monolithic pillars stretching away into perspective—four hundred of them in all—a hundred and nine still upright. There were one hundred and ten when I arrived at El Teb Wells."
He looked across at the Tracer, repeating: "One hundred and ten—when I arrived. One fell the first night—a distant pillar far away on the horizon. ”

“ I've a notion that my business with that sort of a girl ends when I've drawn her picture."
"But surely," said the Tracer mildly, "you have some natural curiosity to see the living copy of your charming but inanimate originals, haven't you, Mr. Carden?"
"Yes—oh, certainly. I'd like to see one of them alive—say out of a window, or from a cab. I should not care to be too close to her."
"But merely seeing her does not commit you," interposed Mr. Keen, smiling. "She is far too busy, too much absorbed in her own affairs to take any notice of you. ”