The Undiscovered Country. William Dean Howells

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СКАЧАТЬ he returned with as little effusion as he had lavished upon Mr. Eccles

      The lady gave him the slant of a laughing face, turned up at him, as she tripped down the stairs. "Don't disagree with the bird!" she said saucily. She had achieved celebrity among the other ladies by not being afraid of him.

      He seemed not to think any answer necessary, and passed up two more flights to his room, which was small and in the rear of the house. It was cheerlessly furnished with a tumbled bed and two or three chairs and a large table, on which many papers and books, arranged in scrupulously neat order, left a small vacant space at one corner for writing, where some sheets of fresh manuscript lay. On the window seat were some chemical materials and apparatus; on the chimney- shelf some faded photographs; a tobacco-pouch and pipes. Ford's business was with the manuscript leaves, which he took up and tore carefully into small pieces. He flung these into the grate, and then, with a conscious air, lifted one of the pipes, and fingered it a moment before he turned to leave the room. It was as if he had not liked the witness of his wonted environment of this act of his. He went on, down to breakfast, and took his place at a table as yet but sparsely tenanted. The lively lady of the stairs-landing was there; she sat long at meat, morning, noon, and night, not for the material, but for the mental refreshment; for she found that more people could be made to give some account of themselves there than anywhere else. She was sipping her coffee out of her spoon, and looking about her between sips, with a disengaged air, when Ford came in, and she fastened upon him over a good stretch of table, at once.

      "Perhaps you went out so early in order to see a ghost, Mr. Ford?"

      "Very likely," answered Ford, making a listless decision between the steak and the bacon.

      "And did you?"

      "What?"

      "See one?"

      "They always charge people not to say."

      "Ah, not now-a-days! They want you to go and tell all about it. That's what I understand from Mr. Phillips." She sank back a little into herself, with her eyes resting quietly upon Ford's inattentive face, and her elbow brought gracefully to her side, and softly stirred her coffee. She was not of the society in which Mr. Phillips ordinarily moved, but was one of the interesting people on its borders whom his leisure allowed him to cultivate. She thus became in some sort of his world,—enough at least to know what was going on in it, and to be referred to there as Mr. Phillips's bright little friend, by ladies who did not like her. She waited for Ford to speak in response to her last remark; but he was not one of those men who rush like air into any empty place; he had the gift of reticence, and the lady who had planned the vacuum beheld his self-control with admiration. It piqued her to fresh effort; she believed that his speaking was only a question of time. " Mr. Phillips," she went on, beginning to sip her coffee again, "gave me quite a glowing description of the Pythoness, as he called her; quite a Medea-like beauty, I should judge,—if it was her own hair."

      "Mr. Phillips has a very catholic taste in female loveliness," said Ford.

      "But really, now, Mr. Ford," said the lady, in a tone of alluring candor, "weren't you very much frightened?"

      "I am constitutionally timid."

      The lady laughed. "Then you were! What did you make of it all, Mr. Ford? What do you suppose made the cut in her hand? Don't you think she made it herself? You know Mr. Phillips likes mystery, and he wouldn't offer the least suggestion."

      " Then I don't think it would be wise in me to hazard a guess. I don't see Mr. Perham this morning," said Ford, lifting his eyes for the first time, and lazily looking at the vacant places about the lady.

      She visibly honored him for this demonstration upon her weak point. She was a good-natured creature, and she liked skillful maneuvering, especially in men, where it had the piquancy of a surprise. "Oh, no!" she smiled. "Poor Mr. Perham is not equal to these early breakfasts. If you were often down yourself, Mr. Ford, you would have noticed his absence before this. He lets me come down on condition that I bring him his modest chop with my own hand, when I come up. You have no idea what a truly amiable invalid is till you know Mr. Perham well."

      Ford expressed no concern for the intimate character of Mr. Perham, and after some further toying with her spoon Mrs. Perham slipped back to her point of attack: "I don't know but I ought to make my excuses for trying to provoke you to talk of the matter."

      "I don't mind your trying. But I should have been vexed if you had succeeded."

      "Yes, that would have been a dead loss of material. I suppose you intend to write about it."

      A flush passed over Ford's face, which Mrs. Perham gleefully noted. He replied, a little off his balance, that he had no intention of writing of it.

      "Oh, then, you have written!" joyed Mrs. Perham.

      Ford did not answer, but put his napkin into his ring, and rose from his chair, quitting the room with a faintly visible inclination toward the end of the table at which Mrs. Perham sat.

      " Mrs. Perham, I don't see how you can bear to speak to that man," said one of the ladies.

      "His manners are odious!" cried another.

      "Oh, he has manners then—of some sort?" inquired a third. "I hadn't observed."

      "My dears," said Mrs. Perham, "he's charming! He is as natural as the noble savage, and twice as handsome. I like those men who show their contempt of you. At least, they're not hypocrites. And Mr. Ford's insolence has a sort of cold thrill about it that's delicious. Few men can retreat with dignity. He was routed, just now, but he went off like see the conquering hero."

      "He skulked off," said one of the unpersuaded.

      "Skulked? Did he really skulk?" demanded Mrs. Perham. "I wish I could believe I had made him skulk. Mary, have you Mr. Perham's chop ready? I'll take it up,—I said I took it."

      Mrs. Perham laughed, and disappeared with her little tray, like a conjugal Chocolatière, and the ladies continued for a decent space to talk about Ford. Then they began to talk about her.

      III.

      FORD went back to his room, and turned over some new books which he had on his table for review. He could not make his choice among these volumes, or else he found them all unworthy; for after an absent glance at the deep chair in which he usually sat to read, he looked up his hat and went out, taking his way toward the shabbily adventurous street where the Boyntons had their lodgings.

      Dr. Boynton met him at the door of his apartment with a smile of cheerful cordiality; but when Ford mentioned his encounter with Mr. Eccles, and expressed his hope that Miss Boynton was better, "Well, no," answered the doctor, "I cannot say that she is. She has had a shock,—a shock from which she may be days and even weeks in recovering." He rubbed his small, soft hands together, and beamed upon Ford's cold front almost rapturously.

      "I am very sorry to hear it," said the latter, with a glance of misgiving.

      "Yes, yes," admitted the other. "In some respects it is regrettable. But there are in this case, as in all others, countervailing advantages." He settled himself comfortably in the corner of the sofa as he proceeded. "Yes. The whole episode, on its scientific side, has been eminently satisfactory. The character of the manifestations at the seance, the violence with which neglect of the conditions was СКАЧАТЬ