Chapter II: Part 2

"Tell Buttons," I said to Suzanne, "to listen to the 'phone, and if--ah--Mr. Stevens calls me up again, to let me know of it at once. Then come to me up-stairs. And, Suzanne, say to Buttons that if--what was her name?--ah, yes, Louise--rings me up again to tell her I've got an attack of neuralgia in my--ah--astral body, and that I'm writing to Buddha to ask for his advice in the matter. That'll shut her off for all day, I imagine."

"_Oui_, madame," murmured Suzanne, wearily. She was beginning to feel the effects of a great nervous strain. As I reached the door of the library, the effort to carry myself like a lady overcame my momentary infusion of energy.

"Suzanne," I said, "it might be well for you to bring some cracked ice with you. Ask Jones for it. Tell him I have a headache, if he glares at you."

As I mounted the stairs slowly, wondering how women manage to hold their skirts so that their limbs move freely, a feeling of relief came over me. It was pleasant to get away from the floor over which Jones, the phlegmatic and tyrannical, presided. I had lost all fear of Suzanne, but the butler chilled my blood. If Caroline and I failed to obtain a psychical exchange to-night Jones must leave the house to-morrow. Suddenly, I stood motionless in the upper hallway and laughed aloud, nervously. What would Jones think could he learn that he had become unwittingly a horror in livery to a lost soul? The absurdity of the reflection brought a ray of sunshine to my darkened spirit, and I entered Caroline's morning-room in a cheerful mood.

"Pardon me, Mrs. Stevens, but I was told to wait for you here."

A pretty girl confronted me, standing guard over a large pasteboard box that she had placed upon a chair.

"You--ah--have something for me?" I asked, coldly. I was beginning to wonder where Caroline's leisure came in.

"Your new ball-dress, Mrs. Stevens. You promised to try it on this morning, you remember."

"Very well! Leave it, then. I'll get into it later on. I've no doubt it'll fit me like a glove."

The girl stared at me for a moment, then recovered herself and said:

"Madame Bonari will be displeased with me, Mrs. Stevens, if I do not return to her with the report that you find the dress satisfactory. I may await your pleasure, may I not? Madame Bonari would discharge me if I went back to her now."

"Let me see the dress, girl," I muttered, reluctantly. To don a ball-dress in full daylight to save a poor maiden from losing her situation was for me to make a greater sacrifice than this dressmaker's apprentice could realize.

The girl opened the box, and I gazed, awestruck, at a garment that filled me with a strange kind of terror. There was not a great deal of it. It was not its size that frightened me; it was the shape of the thing that was startling.

"That'll do, girl," I exclaimed, somewhat hysterically. "Tell--ah--Madame Bonari that this--ah--polonaise is a howling success. I can see at a glance that it was made for me," and added, under my breath, "to pay for."

The girl stood rooted to the spot, gazing at me in mingled sorrow and amazement.

"But oh, Mrs. Stevens," she cried, the tears coming into her eyes, "you will not dismiss me this way? I will lose my place if you do!"

I sank into a chair, torn by conflicting emotions, as a novelist would say of his distraught heroine.

"Do you want me to climb into that thing, here and now?" I gasped.

"If madame will be so kind," murmured the girl, imploringly.

With joy, I now heard the tinkling of cracked ice against cut-glass. Suzanne, to my great relief, entered the room.

"Suzanne," I said, courageously, "I will trouble you to tog me out in this--ah--silk remnant. Have you got a kodak, girl?" I asked, playfully, turning toward the astonished young dressmaker. "You're not a yellow reporter?"

"Oh, Mrs. Stevens!" cried the girl, deprecatingly, glancing interrogatively at Suzanne. Perhaps the cracked ice and my eccentric manner had aroused suspicions in her mind.

A moment later, I found myself in Caroline's dressing-room alone with Suzanne, who had recovered her spirits in the delight that her present task engendered.

"Madame's neck and arms are so beautiful!" she murmured in French, pulling the skirt of the ball-dress, a dainty affair made of mauve silk, with a darker shade of velvet for trimmings, into position. "Ah, such a wonderful hang! It is worthy of Paris, madame."

"Don't stop to talk, Suzanne," I grumbled. "This is indecent exposure of mistaken identity, and I can't stand much of it; so keep moving, will you?"

"The corsage is a marvel, madame!" exclaimed Suzanne, ecstatically.

"It is, girl," I muttered, glancing at myself in a mirror. "It feels like a cross between a modern life-preserver and a mediaeval breast-plate. Don't lace the thing so tight, Suzanne. I've got to talk now and then!"

Suzanne was too busy to listen to my somewhat delirious comments.

"It is a miracle!" she cried in French. "Madame is a purple dream, is she not?"

"Madame will be a black-and-blue what-is-it before you know it," I moaned. "Does that girl outside there expect to have a look at--ah--this ridiculous costume?" I asked, testily.

"Madame is so strange to-day," murmured Suzanne, wearily. "You are free to go now, madame."

"I clutched at the train that anchored me to my place of torture, and moved clumsily toward the room in which the young dressmaker awaited me.

"Ah!" cried the girl, as I broke upon her vision, a creature of beauty, but very far from graceful. "Madame Bonari will be overjoyed. The dress is perfection, is it not, Mrs. Stevens? I've never seen such a fit."

"It feels like a fit," I remarked, pantingly. "Suzanne," I called out, desperately, "slip a few cogs in front here, will you? This is only a rehearsal, you know. If I must suffocate at the ball I'll school myself for the occasion. But I refuse to be a pressed flower this morning. Thanks, that's better. It's like a quick recovery from pneumonia. You may go, girl. Give my compliments to Madame--ah--Bonari, and tell her I'm on the road to recovery. Good morning!"

Suzanne and I were alone.

"A cocktail, girl. Quick, now! Do you think I wanted that ice as a musical instrument? If I ever needed a stimulant, Suzanne, I need one now. Make the dose stiff, Suzanne, for I'm not as young as I was. Do you hear me? Hurry!"

A rap at the door checked Suzanne in full career. We heard the strident voice of Buttons in the hallway.

"Open the door, Suzanne," I cried, nervously, bracing myself for another buffet from fate.

"Mr. Stevens is asking for Mrs. Stevens on the 'phone," I heard Buttons say to Suzanne. "He seems to be in a hurry, too."

Suzanne hastened back to me.

"I know the worst, girl! Say nothing!" I exclaimed, petulantly. "I must go down-stairs in this infernal ball-dress," and the ordeal before me filled me with consternation. If Jones should find me skulking around his domain in a decollete dress at this time of day the glance of his arrogant eyes would terrify me. But there wasn't time for reflection, nor, alas! for a cocktail. Caroline was calling vainly to me with my voice through an unresponsive telephone. I must go to her at once. Doubtless, she craved immediate advice regarding the manipulation of my margins. Why, oh! why, had I jeopardized my fortune for the sake of quick returns, when my legitimate business was sufficient for my needs?

"I fly, Suzanne!" I cried, as I stumbled toward the hall. "If anybody calls to ask if I'm engaged for the next dance, tell 'em my card is full." Suzanne smiled. "And I wish I was!" I muttered to myself, desperately, as I looked down the staircase and wondered if it would be well to use my mauve train as a toboggan.

How I managed to reach the telephone, I cannot say. In the lower hall, I caught a glimpse of Jones's self-made face, and just saved myself from coming a cropper. To acquire a firm seat in a ball-dress requires practice.

"Hello!" I shouted, desperately, through the 'phone. "Is that you--ah--Reginald?"

"Jenkins is here." I heard my voice saying at the other end of the line. "What'll I do with him?"

"Send him to--ah--Hoboken, will you?" I returned, in a shrill falsetto. "But you have the better of it, my dear. He's not a marker to Jones. What have you done with the specialties?"

"Buying! buying! buying!" cried Caroline, in a triumphant basso that froze my blood. "Rogers gave me an inside tip, as he calls it. It was awfully nice of him, wasn't it?"

"Damn Rogers!" I exclaimed.

"Good-bye!" cried Caroline, with righteous indignation, and my attempt to call her back was futile.

My heart was heavy as I made my way, slowly and clumsily, from the library. Buttons, as bad luck would have it, had just opened the front door to a black-eyed, long-haired little man, who carried a roll of music under his arm. As I hesitated, hoping to make good my retreat to the library, Professor Von Gratz--as he proved to be--hurried toward me. If he was amazed at my costume, he managed to control his mobile face and musical voice.

"Oh, madame, I am zo glad to zee you are eager for de lezzon!" he exclaimed, bowing almost down to his knees. "Ve vill haf grade muzic, nicht war? You vill blay de vonderful Opuz 22! Beethoven, de giant among de pygmies, vill open de gates of baradize to us. It vill be beautiful. You are ready, madame?"

My bosom rose and fell with a conflict of emotions. I felt an almost irresistible longing to throw this detestable little foreigner out of the house. The sudden realization that my biceps, etc., were at my office cooled my ardor for action, and I said, presently, marveling at my own ingenuity:

"I regret to say--ah--Professor, that my doctor has put me upon a very slim musical diet. He says that--ah--Beethoven is ruining my nerves. But if you want to sing 'Danny Deever,' come into the music-room. I think I could manage to knock out the accompaniment."

Von Gratz stared at me in most apparent agitation, pulling at his horrid little black goatee with his left hand.

"I vill pid you gute morgen, madame," he gasped, bowing again. "Ven you are much petter you vill zend for me, nicht war? Gute morgen!"

The gates of paradise were not to be opened to the professor this morning. On the contrary, Buttons, to my great relief, shut the front door behind the hurrying figure of the master-pianist, whose farewell glance of mingled astonishment and anger haunted me as I mounted the stairs.

"Suzanne!" I gasped, as I tottered into the room in which the girl awaited my return. "Suzanne, unbuckle this chain-armor, will you? It's breaking my heart. That's better, Suzanne. Oh, yes, I'm going to a ball, all right. Or, rather, you're going to bring me one at once."

*CHAPTER VI.*

*VERSES AND VIOLETS.*

Oh, my brothers blooming yonder, unto Him the ancient pray
That the hour of my transplanting He will not for long delay.
--_From the Persian_.

Relieved of Caroline's new ball-dress and having swallowed a cocktail, I was horrified to find a feeling of almost irresistible drowsiness stealing over me.

"Suzanne," I cried, "it is imperative that you keep me awake--even if is becomes necessary for you to do the skirt-dance to drive sleep from my eyelids. Not that I approved of these Oriental vagaries. Far from it, Suzanne. Though I may at present come under that head myself--but _n'importe_! You might assert, plausibly enough, that all this is Occidental. In a certain sense, I suppose that it is. But--Great Scott!"

I sank back in an easy-chair, startled by my own flippancy. The uncanny, inexplicable change that had made me what I was must not be revealed to Suzanne! Was it not enough that I had already driven my maid to the very verge of hysteria? And here I sat, talking recklessly to keep awake, and wearing my secret on my sleeve. Should Suzanne learn the truth from my punning tongue, her mind might become unhinged. In that case, another sudden transposition of identities might take place! Frightful possibility! I must not yield to the inclination creeping over me to indulge in a short nap. Perhaps Caroline's mail would revive me!

And just here I found myself confronted by a difficult problem in ethics. Despite the fact that my wife, with a heartless disregard of my wishes in the matter, had seized my letters, captured my business office, and assumed the full possession of all my business affairs, great and small, I could not forget that I still remained a gentleman. That Caroline had taken advantage of a psychical mischance to lay bare my inner life before her prying gaze could not excuse my surrender to a not unfounded but, perhaps, unwholesome curiosity.

"Suzanne," I said presently, and the girl stole softly to my side. "You spoke of a letter that you had received for me. It is--ah--from--ah?"

"Yes, madame," answered Suzanne, eagerly, but somewhat irrelevantly. "Here it is, madame. It is from him, I feel sure."

I gazed at the envelope with Caroline's brilliant eyes, but I was not thankful for my temporary perfection of face and form. It came to me grimly that beauty may be a nuisance, or even a curse. I lacked the courage to open this note--an unconventional, perhaps lawless, tribute to my my wife's powers of fascination. There was an air of Spanish or Italian intrigue about the whole affair that shocked me. My imagination, which had developed wonderfully since early morning, likened myself and Suzanne to Juliet and her nurse.

"O, Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou, Romeo?" I exclaimed, somewhat wildly. Suzanne drew back from me nervously.

"Will you not read the note, madame?"

"Anon, good nurse! But if thou mean'st not well, I do beseech thee--"

"_Mon Dieu!_" gasped Suzanne, gazing at me, awe-struck. But I was pitiless.

"Suzanne," I said, firmly, glancing at the note in my hand, the chirography upon which seemed to be familiar, "Suzanne, I am very beautiful, am I not?"

"_Oui_, madame," assented Suzanne, enthusiastically.

"And I love my husband dearly, do I not?"

"Devotedly, madame."

"Then, surely, Suzanne, I should not receive this epistle. What did I do with his--ah--former notes?"

I had made a most egregious blunder. An expression of amazement came into the French maid's mobile face.

"But, madame, this is the first one, is it not? I know of no others, madame."

There was a gleam of suspicion in the girl's eyes. It was evident that, for a moment, she suspected my dear Caroline of a lack of straight-forwardness. Impulsively I tore Romeo's note into a dozen fragments.

"There, Suzanne." I cried, in a triumphant treble, "my _alibi_ is perfect. Who wrote this note I do not know. What he had to say I do not care. If you can get word to him, girl, tell him that if he comes prowling around my balcony again I'll have--ah--Reginald pull his nose for him. _A bas_ Romeo!"

"But, madame," murmured Suzanne, evidently pained by my flippant fickleness and fickle flippancy, "monsieur, the writer of the note, dines here to-night, you know."

"The deuce he does, girl!" I cried, impulsively, making as if to pull my beard, and bruising my spirit against new conditions. "Who are our guests? Edgerton and his wife. It can't be Edgerton. He's not a blooming idjit. Van Tromp? Dear little Van Tromp! It must be Van Tromp. Oh, Van Tromp, Van Tromp, wherefore art thou, Romeo? Van Tromp's the man, eh, Suzanne?"

Caroline's maid was red and tearful.

"Madame is so strange this morning," she complained. "It was Mr. Van Tromp's man who brought the note, madame."

My soul waxed gay in Caroline's bosom. I warbled a snatch of song from Gounod's "Faust."

"Suzanne," I cried, "gather up the fragments of Romeo's _billet-doux_. Possibly his note is not what I supposed it was. I'll read what the dear little boy has to say. Thank you, Suzanne. I think I can put these pieces together in a way to extract the full flavor of Van Romeo's sweet message. What saith the youth? Ha! I have it.

"'MY DEAR MRS. STEVENS: Is it presumption upon my part to believe that you meant what you said to me at the Cromptons' dance? At all events, I have had the audacity to cherish your words in my heart of hearts. I am sending you a few violets to-day. If you do me the honor of wearing them at dinner to-night, I shall know that there was a basis of earnestness underneath the words that were as honey to my soul.'

"Listen to that, Suzanne," I cried, hysterically. "Is it not worthy of a young poet? I wonder what the dev--what Caro--ah--I said to this--ah--Romeo? Here's richness, Suzanne! I'll wear his flowers--with a string to 'em, eh? We'll have a merry dinner, Suzanne! I told Jones to throw everything wide open. I'll include young Van Tromp in the order. He shall be my special care, Suzanne. Van Tromp's mine oyster! What think you, Suzanne? Should I not quaff a toast to the success of my little game?"

"Madame, I do not understand," murmured the girl, in French. "Madame is feverish. Let me bathe madame's head, and she may get a quieting nap. If you could lose yourself only for an instant, madame!"

"Great Jupiter, Suzanne, will you get that idea out of your head? I don't want to lose myself. On the contrary--but--_n'importe_, as we say when we're feverish. You'll find some cigarettes in the bedroom, girl. Bring 'em to me at once. Don't stare at me that way! If I don't smoke I'll drink another cocktail, and then what'll happen?"

Suzanne shuddered and hurried away. Presently I was blowing smoke into the air, much to my own satisfaction and to Suzanne's ill-disguised amazement.

"Tobacco is quieting, Suzanne; soothing, cheerful. It stimulates hope and calms the perturbed soul. Damn it! what's that? Somebody's knocking, Suzanne. See who it is. If it's anyone for me, tell them that I won't draw cards this morning, but may take a hand later on. Don't stand staring at me, girl! Put a stop to that rapping at once."

"_Mon Dieu!_" groaned Suzanne, as she crossed the room. How much longer she could stand the strain of my eccentricities was becoming problematical. Presently she returned to me, carrying a box of flowers.

"Romeo's violets," I murmured, rapturously. "Tell me, nurse, did Juliet mean what she said to Romeo? Well, rather! I'll wear thy flowers, little boy! What's this? Another note, smothered in violets. Listen, Suzanne! Romeo has dropped into poetry. Listen:

"'Go, purple blossoms, the glory of Spring,
Gladden her eyes with thy velvety hue;
What are the words of the song that I sing?
They came to my heart as the dew came to you.

"'My love is a flower, my song is its scent;
Let it speak to her soul in the violet's breath!
And my spirit with thee, by a miracle blent,
Shall drink deep of life, of love unto death.'

"Take these away, Suzanne! Take them away!" I cried, in a panic. "Haven't I had enough of this theosophical, transmigration idiocy for one day? Take them away! 'By a miracle blent!' Confound the boy! if I got into that little Van Tromp's body through these infernal flowers I could never hold up my head again. What's that, Suzanne? Yes, keep them fresh. Give them water. But don't let me get near them again until I've got my courage back. Perhaps I'll dare to wear them to-night. I can't say yet."

I needed rest. Reclining in my chair, I idly watched Suzanne as she moved restlessly about the room trying to quiet her excitement by action.

"Suzanne," I cried, softening toward the maid, "don't look so sad. All will come right in the end. Brace up, girl. 'While there's life there's hope.'"

"Do I look sad, madame? I am very sorry. I will try to be more cheerful, for madame's sake. But if madame could put herself into my place for a moment--"

"There you go again, Suzanne," I exclaimed, testily. "We'll change the subject, girl. What next?"

"I think it might be well for madame to dress for luncheon," suggested Suzanne, nervously. It was evident that she had begun to lose confidence in my intervals of calm.

"Let me think, Suzanne. Somebody lunches with me. Who is it? Oh, yes, Mrs. Taunton. And now I think of it, Suzanne, Mrs. Taunton is little Van Tromp's sister. That's the reason I never liked her, I suppose."

"But madame and Mrs. Taunton seem to be such good friends," remarked Suzanne, in French, moving about in a way that filled me with foreboding. It was evident that she contemplated changing my costume at once.

"Appearances are often deceptive, Suzanne," I remarked, feelingly, lighting a fresh cigarette, somewhat clumsily. "What are you up to now, girl?"

"Madame must look her best at luncheon," remarked Suzanne, professionally. "Mrs. Taunton has such exquisite taste."

I was not pleased at Suzanne's remark. Mrs. Taunton, an avowed admirer of Caroline, had never disguised the fact that she considered me a nonentity. But fate had vouchsafed to me a great opportunity for proving to Mrs. Taunton that I was not altogether insignificant. Disguised in Caroline's outward seeming I might readily avenge myself for Mrs. Taunton's persistent indifference to my good points. Little Van Tromp had placed a double-edged weapon in my hand.

"Suzanne," I said, gazing grimly at the dress that she had laid out for me, "before you go further with my toilet, I wish you would make a copy of these verses for me. You write English, do you not?"

Suzanne glanced at me, inquisitively.

"Madame knows well that I do," she remarked, mournfully. But the trembling of her slender hand as she grasped Van Tromp's screed to do my bidding augured ill for the copy that she would make of his verses.

*CHAPTER VII.*

*IRRITATION AND CONSOLATION.*

Waste not your hour, nor in the vain pursuit
Of this and that endeavor and dispute;
Better be merry with the fruitful grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter fruit.
--_Omar Khayyam_.

I must get on more rapidly with my narrative. It has been a great temptation to me to indulge in conjectures and surmises regarding the soul-displacement that may make my story a presentment worthy of attentive consideration from the Society for Psychical Research. But from the outset I have endeavored to resist this inclination and to give to the reader merely a bald statement of facts in their actual sequence. It must be apparent by this time, furthermore, that I am not fitted by education to discuss the uncanny problems begotten by the strange affliction that had befallen my wife and myself. That I have become perforce a sadder and wiser man may be true, but, despite my practical experience of what may be called instability of soul, I am not in any sense a psychologist. From various points of view; therefore, it seems best that I should eschew all philosophical or scientific comments on the curious phenomena with which I have been forced to deal, leaving, as it were, the circumference of my story to the care of the erudite, and confining my own endeavors strictly to its diameter.

Behold me, then, fresh from Suzanne's deft hands, confronting Caroline's bosom friend, Mrs. Taunton, across the luncheon-table. Our conversation, if my memory is not at fault, ran something as follows:

"You look flushed and excited, Caroline," said Mrs. Taunton, a large, blond, absurdly haughty woman, strangely unlike little Van Tromp, her poetical brother. "Something has happened to upset you, my dear?"

"Well, rather!" I could not refrain from exclaiming. What the deuce was Mrs. Taunton's given name? If I did not recall it soon she would begin to wonder at Caroline's peculiar bearing. It was not Mrs. Taunton, however, who was driving me toward hysteria. To find myself again in the realm over which the phlegmatic but terrifying Jones presided was to lose confidence in my ability to stem the tide of disaster. Jones was so conservative! Such a radical change as I had undergone would be even more incomprehensible to him than it had been to me. I realized vaguely that I had grown to be supersensitive, and that what I took to be suspicion in the butler's eyes must be a product of my own overwrought nerves. But, struggle as I might against the impression, I could not free myself from the feeling that Jones watched me furtively, questioningly, as if he had gained possession of a clue to a great mystery.

"Tell me all about it, Caroline," urged Mrs. Taunton, sweetly. "If you were not so beautiful, my dear, you would not have so much trouble."

The blood rushed into Caroline's cheeks, and I found myself glaring angrily at Jones, who was serving croquettes to Mrs. Taunton. The latter had displayed the most wretched taste in praising my, or rather Caroline's, appearance before the butler. But Mrs. Taunton evidently looked upon a servant as a mere automaton, not to be considered even in heart-to-heart talks with young women. My growing annoyance made itself manifest in Caroline's voice, as I stammered:

"My--ah--beauty, such as it is, don't you know, is only--ah--skin deep. But my troubles--ah-- Jones! Don't be so slow! Spend as much time outside as you can, will you?"

Mrs. Taunton stared at me in amazement, while Jones, showing no signs of emotion, made a most dignified exit.

"What is the matter with you, Caroline?" asked my _vis-a-vis_, anxiously. "I never heard you speak like that before."

An explanation seemed to be due to my guest.

"It's curious, don't you know," I began, lamely, trying to recall Mrs. Taunton's baptismal name, "it's curious--ah--my dear, what an intense repulsion I feel toward that man Jones. It came upon me suddenly. It's intermittent, not chronic, I think, but it's all there, and means business. Did you ever feel that way?"

"Caroline!" gasped Mrs. Taunton, pained surprise resting upon her patrician face.

"It's beneath me, I acknowledge," I went on, feverishly, making an effort to eat a croquette between sentences. "A butler's merely a necessary piece of movable furniture, and should--ah--not arouse a feeling of antagonism. But Jones has got an eye to--ah--induce intoxication."

"Caroline," queried Mrs. Taunton, solemnly, "have you--forgive me, my dear, for the question--have you been taking anything?"

"A fair exchange is no robbery," I remarked, impulsively, in my own defense, but Mrs. Taunton's face assured me that I had spoken irrelevantly.

"I should advise a cup of black coffee, Caroline," said my guest, in her iciest tone.

"We'll wait a bit, if you don't mind," I ventured to suggest. "No coffee without Jones. I'm not quite up to Jones at this moment--er--my dear."

Mrs. Taunton held my gaze to hers, and her light-gray eyes chilled me. It was evident that little Van Tromp's sister had no poetical nonsense in her make-up. Practical, obstinate, strong-willed she seemed to be, as she endeavored to solve from Caroline's beautiful eyes the mystery of my eccentric demeanor.

"Your sudden and inexplicable aversion to your butler, Caroline," remarked my guest, presently, apparently desirous of soothing my nerves by a poultice of gossip, "reminds me of the lecture upon Buddhism that I heard yesterday morning. An adept from India--Yamama, I think, is his name--talked to us, you know, about our Western blindness, as he called it, to the marvels of soul-sensitiveness."

My fork rattled against my plate, and I gazed down in dismay at Caroline's trembling hand. Mrs. Taunton overlooked my agitation and continued:

"He was so entertaining! But it's all absurd, of course. Louise told me that you were going with her to hear him this morning."

"Yes?" I managed to gasp. "She--ah--Louise called me up by the 'phone. I couldn't get away, you see--ah--my dear."

"It's such utter nonsense, don't you know," went on Mrs. Taunton, evidently convinced that the worst was over with me. "I made notes, just for practice. He--the adept, or whatever he was--was a lovely piece of mahogany, with perfectly stunning eyes. I memorized one of my notes. The dear little brownie said--just listen to this, Caroline: 'The Hindu conception of reincarnation embraces all existence--gods, men, animals, plants, minerals. It is believed that everything migrates, from Buddha down to inert matter. Buddha himself was born an ascetic eighty-three times, a monarch fifty-eight times, the soul of a tree forty-three times, and many other times as an ape, deer, lion, snipe, chicken, eagle, serpent, pig, frog--four hundred times in all!' Isn't it all perfectly silly? Good gracious, Caroline, what is the matter with you? Are you faint?"

"Just a bit rocky," I found sufficient nerve to say. "Are you quite sure--ah--my dear--that he said pigs--and--and--frogs?"

Mrs. Taunton caught her breath, as if she struggled to swallow her amazement.

"You ought to be in bed, Caroline," she said, severely. "If you could get to sleep, my dear--"

"_Et tu, Brute!_" I murmured, with sardonic playfulness. "Look here--ah--my dear! You find a change in your Caroline, eh? You have suspected me of drinking, and now you imply that I need sleep. I swear that the next person who hints that I'm not up for all day shall hear something to--ah--her disadvantage."

Such talk was madness. Mrs. Taunton very naturally resented my childish ultimatum. She arose from her chair with a cool, calm dignity that shocked me like a cold shower-bath.

"I regret, Caroline, that I find my patience exhausted," she remarked, more in sadness than in wrath, transfixing me with her pale-gray eyes. "I shall leave you now, but not in anger. I can see, plainly enough, that you are not yourself."

"Don't you dare to say that in public--ah--Mrs. Taunton," I cried, hotly, fearful that, as it was, Jones might have overheard her remark. Reason assured me that her words were used figuratively, but the undeniable fact that she had hit the target and rung the bell drove me to desperation. Mrs. Taunton gazed at me for a moment in mingled scorn and astonishment, and then swept from the dining-room with head high in air and a rustle of skirts that seemed to sweep Caroline into outer darkness.

The next thing that I remember, as the flamboyant romancers remark, was an entrance even more theatrical than Mrs. Taunton's exit. Jones, impressing my errant fancy as Nemesis in the semblance of an imported butler, strode into the room bearing a tray upon which rested a coffee-pot, the aroma from which stirred hope in my heart. Much as I detested Jones, I welcomed the stimulant that he carried toward me. If Mrs. Taunton's disappearance surprised him, he succeeded in suppressing any outward exhibition of emotion.

Realizing for the moment that my fear of the man was unreasonable, I summoned common sense to my aid and said:

"One good bracer deserves another, Jones. Put a stick into my coffee, will you?"

The butler gave me a furtive glance, a cross between an exclamation and an interrogation.

"Brandy, madam?" he asked, smoothly.

When he had fortified my coffee with a dash of fine old French cognac, I looked him straight in the eye.

"Jones," I said, impressively, "Mr. Stevens has complained of you of late. But I don't want you to lose your place. I shall see to it that my--ah--husband becomes reconciled to you, but you must obey my instructions to the letter. To begin with, you are to leave this room at once, close the door, stand on guard outside and allow no one to disturb me until I give you word. If you open the door before I call to you, you leave the house immediately. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, madam," gasped Jones, thrown out of his orbit for once. But he retained sufficient self-control to make a hurried exit, noisily shutting the door behind him.

I swallowed my coffee--and cognac--at a gulp, and stumbled toward the sideboard. After a short search I came upon a box of excellent cigars. Presently I was seated at the luncheon-table again, sipping a pony of brandy neat and blowing cigar-smoke into the air. For a glorious half-hour, I reflected joyously, I could enjoy myself in my own way. Glancing over my shoulder, I caught sight of my reflection in the sideboard mirror. Caroline, with a long, black panatella between her beautiful lips, held a pony of brandy poised in the air, with the other hand raised to remove the cigar from her mouth. An inexplicable wave of diabolical exultation swept over me. Bowing to my wife's handsome image--which cordially returned the salutation--I removed my cigar and raised the brandy to Caroline's mouth.

"Here's how, my dear!" I cried, gaily. "No heel-taps!"

Caroline's reflection drank the toast, and the warm glow of good-fellowship that crept through my veins reconciled me for the time being to my strange, uncanny fate.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

*NEWS FROM CAROLINE.*

Young and enterprising is the West,
Old and meditative is the East.
Turn, O youth! with intellectual zest
Where the sage invites thee to his feast.
--_Milnes_.

On the whole, I enjoyed my cigar. The waters of affliction had rolled over me and I basked in the sunshine of peaceful comfort for a full half-hour. Under like conditions, many good fellows of my set would have toyed too freely with the cognac. But I was cautious and conservative as regards the liquor. I glanced at Caroline's face, which wore a humorous smile as it gazed at me from the mirror.

"Spirits," I cried, facetiously, winking at Caroline's reflection, and receiving a winking response, "spirits are to be handled with care, my dear. There's no telling what they may do to us."

At first I derived considerable amusement from the grotesque effects that I could obtain from the juxtaposition of my cigar and Caroline's delicate face. If it was a kind of sacrilege to sit there and watch the smoke issuing from my wife's dainty lips, I comforted my better self with the thought that I was in no way to blame for existing conditions. If the sideboard's mirror at that moment framed a picture that might have been taken from the _Police Gazette_, was I not powerless to alter the decrees of fate? I had come into my wife's butterfly-beauty without first sloughing off my gross chrysalis-habits.

I playfully shook my fist at the accusatory mirror.

"It's no reflection on me," I murmured, jocosely. A sickly kind of smile flitted across Caroline's face, driving me to a stimulant again. I poured out a pony of brandy.

"To drink or not to drink--that is the question," I soliloquized; observing with satisfaction that Shakespeare tended to remove the expression of untimely hilarity in my wife's countenance. "O Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?"

A joyful gleam came into Caroline's eyes as I thought of Van Tromp. I swallowed the cognac and presently saw a flush creep into my wife's cheeks. The sight angered me.

"If two or three fingers of old brandy show themselves at once in this--ah--borrowed face of mine," I reflected, "I might as well take the pledge at once. Caroline," I continued, addressing my remarks to the mirror, "I am ashamed of you. If you don't quit this kind of thing, you'll lose your complexion--and what'll poor robin do then? I am ashamed of you, Caroline. I really didn't think that you'd go so far."

It suddenly came to me that I was talking in a most idiotic way, and I turned Caroline's left shoulder to the mirror. Resisting the temptation to follow the changing expressions of her face, I watched the smoke from my cigar as it floated across the luncheon-table or mounted toward the ceiling. At the outset, I derived a good deal of satisfaction from the change of attitude. My thoughts assumed a healthier tendency. The morbid, half-crazy inclinations that my mind had begun to display passed away and something like contentment with the present and hope for the future came gently to me. Even the question that would force itself upon me now and again as to what Caroline might be doing or undoing at my office failed to destroy wholly the pleasurable calm begotten of solitude, cognac and tobacco. I even found myself contemplating Caroline's white, tapering fingers, outstretched to flip the ashes from my panatella, with a satisfaction that was a strange compound of pride and jealousy. I could not refrain from an unworthy sense of delight at the thought that Caroline was being punished for her brazen defiance of my wishes every time she glanced at my hands.

But I had become a creature of changing moods, a prey to errant fancies. As I realized that my cigar--shrinking reminder of happier days--was nearly smoked out, and that my term of comparative freedom drew toward its end, the fever of impotent rebellion burned in my veins--if they were mine. To a practical, energetic individual, accustomed to having his own way in small matters and great, the recurrent conviction that he has become the plaything of mischief-loving powers concerning which he knows little or nothing is not conducive to long intervals of repose. I was growing restless again, eager for action, but afraid to indulge in it; craving news of Caroline, but lacking courage to obtain it.

Suddenly a startling thought flashed upon my darkened mind, illuminating, convincing, explanatory. Caroline and her friends had been dipping into Oriental philosophy. Was it not more than probable that my wife had deliberately planned a soul-transposition that had ensured her freedom and made me a captive?

The longer I contemplated this supposition, the stronger grew my belief that Caroline had attempted a psychical experiment, the success of which accounted for her haughty, domineering manner after breakfast. It was clear enough, now, as I looked back upon the episodes that I have been recording. My wife's horror at the discovery of our soul-transposition had been merely a clever bit of acting. Her seizure of my mail and insistence upon a visit to my office had been parts of a well-laid plan. It was evident that she had become an adept in the theory and practice of transmigration, and had sacrificed me beneath the Juggernaut of her eccentric ambition. If she found the life of a business man attractive, I was at her mercy, doomed to skirts and corsets until she wearied of my career. Furthermore, it was not unreasonable to suppose that, while Caroline had acquired sufficient diabolical power to transpose our identities, she had not gained enough occult wisdom to restore our souls to their respective bodies. If that should prove to be the case, if she was only half-educated as a psychical switch-tender, the future for me became dark indeed. I could see before me a long stretch of weary, hopeless years, down which I tottered toward a welcome grave, solaced only now and then by the creature-comforts that I loved, the while Caroline made merry with my affairs. Beset day after day by Suzanne, Mrs. Taunton and other women in various stages of imbecility, I should be driven to desperation at last and bring disgrace, in some form or other, upon a proud name.

And how cleverly Caroline had played her little game! Had I not often complained loudly of the annoyances appertaining to a business man's life? Could not Caroline silence my accusing tongue with the assertion that she had presented me with a life of luxurious leisure, to take up burdens and responsibilities under which I had always grumbled? Had I not often protested against the new woman's efforts to better her condition, on the ground that woman had long enjoyed more special privileges than fell to the lot of man? I was forced to acknowledge that, even if Caroline was responsible for our psychical interchange, I could not remain consistent and utter any very emphatic complaint. She would fall back upon my own propositions and prove conclusively, quoting my remarks, that, whatever may be the case with his soul, it may profit a man to lose his own body.

A hot wave of impotent anger swept through me, and I turned in a rage toward the mirror. The expression that my rebellious soul had thrust into Caroline's face destroyed the last vestige of my self-control. Seizing a carafe from the table, I hurled it at the sideboard, and my wife's face disappeared in a chaos of broken looking-glass.

Horrified at my recklessness, I hurried toward the door as rapidly as my skirts would permit. In the hall stood Jones, motionless, phlegmatic, gazing at me with a calmness that had in it something of superiority.

"Go in there--ah--butler, and make yourself useful," I cried, angrily, as I brushed past him to seek the library. "Don't be so damned statuesque!"

A few moments later, I had hooked Caroline at the end of a telephone wire.

"When are you coming up-town--ah--my dear?" I managed to gasp, with some show of diplomacy.

"Is that you, Caroline?" asked my wife, with my voice, which I was foolishly glad to hear again. "I've got good news for you. I'm twenty thousand ahead on the day--and every transaction is cleaned out."

"Great Scott!" I exclaimed, forgetting my suspicions and rage in the amazement that her words had caused.

"I'll stop at the club on the way up," went on Caroline, in a deep basso that vibrated with a note of intense self-satisfaction. "Have you had a pleasant day? How's Mrs. Taunton? By the way, my dear, Edgerton was here a few moments ago. Mrs. Edgerton has a treat in store for us to-night."

A chill of apprehension swept over me.

"What do you mean--ah--Reginald?" I faltered.

"She went to the lecture this morning, Caroline," explained my wife, glibly. "She is awfully clever, don't you think? She made him promise to look in on us at nine to-night."

"Him? Who's him?" I cried, cold with dread.

"Yamama," answered my voice, exultantly.

"Good God, Caroline!" I yelled through the 'phone, but my wife had cut me off.

Stumbling into a chair, I rested Caroline's aching head upon her moist, trembling hand.

"Yamama!" I murmured, terror-stricken. "He's the chocolate-colored adept that Mrs. Taunton referred to. Pigs! Frogs! He's the scoundrel that put Caroline up to this. He is coming here to look at me! Damn him!"

Excess of emotion had undone me. I felt the hot tears scorching Caroline's cold hand.

*CHAPTER IX.*

*AFTERNOON CALLERS.*

Still in dreams it comes upon me that I once on wings did soar;
But or e'er my flight commences this my dream must all be o'er.
--_From the Persian_.

As I look back upon it now, that afternoon wears the aspect of a variegated nightmare, from which I could not awaken.

"What will madame wear this afternoon?" Suzanne had asked me when I had returned to my apartments above-stairs.

I kicked viciously at the empty air with one of Caroline's dainty feet. The time had come, evidently, for Suzanne to change my costume again. Should I take a ride or a walk, or remain at home? If I went out for a ride, I should have only my own bitter thoughts for company. If I took a stroll up the Avenue, almost anything unpleasant might happen to me. If I stayed in the house, I must receive callers. No one of these alternatives was alluring, but I was forced to choose the latter. For a number of rather vague reasons, I did not dare to cut off my line of communication with Caroline. She had become, as it were, a flying column not yet out of touch with headquarters.

"And she ought to be shot for disobedience to orders," I mused, aloud.

"Pardon me, madame?" exclaimed Suzanne, interrogatively.

"_N'importe_, girl," I answered, testily. "I shall remain at home, Suzanne. Give orders down-stairs that I have a headache and can receive no one."

"But Madame is looking so much better!" protested Suzanne. "And the debutantes will call to-day. It is madame's afternoon."

"Well, do your worst, then," I grumbled, discontentedly. "Can you get me some cloves, Suzanne?"

An hour later, I entered the drawing-room after a perilous descent from the second story, to confront three young women, who, I had gathered from Suzanne, held Caroline in high esteem as a chaperon. I had committed their names to memory before leaving the dressing-room, but the effort to get down-stairs without spraining my wife's ankles had obliterated from my mind all traces of its recent acquisition. I stood, flushing painfully, gazing into the smiling faces of three handsome, modish girls who were wholly strangers to their vicarious hostess.

"Oh, Mrs. Stevens, what a charming day!"

"How lovely you are looking!"

"Wasn't the Crompton dance perfectly stunning?"

"Mr. Van Tromp made such a pretty epigram about your costume!"

"Just a moment--ah--girls," I gasped, seating myself awkwardly, and inclined to lose my temper. "There's a painful lack of method about all this. Suppose we begin at the beginning. You were saying--ah--my dear--?" I remarked to the calmest of the trio. The latter exchanged puzzled glances with her companions.

"I was speaking of the compliment that Mr. Van Tromp paid to you," explained the maiden, rather dolefully.

"He's a bad lot, that young Van Tromp," I exclaimed, impulsively. "Perhaps I ought not to talk against another man--ah--behind her--I mean his--back, but Van Romeo's too easy, girls. He writes poetry. I have no doubt that he makes puns. Charming--ah--day, isn't it?"

My beautiful callers had lost their vivacity. One of them--a pretty little brunette--had grown pale.

"What about the coaching-party, Mrs. Stevens?" the one I took to be the eldest of the three ventured to ask, presently.

"It's all arranged--ah--my dear," I answered, recklessly. "We're to have a dozen cases of champagne and a brass band of ten pieces. I'm up for all day, you see. If little Van Tromp praised my executive ability--ah--girls, he'd have a career open to him. Merrily we'll bowl along, bowl along--I'm to handle the reins, you know."

There were now three pallid maidens confronting me. In the eyes of the eldest I saw a gleam of mingled suspicion and fear.

"I must be going," she gasped.

"Don't go," I implored her, overacting my hospitable role a bit. There flashed through my mind a scene from a Gilbert-Sullivan opera--"The Mikado"--and I caught myself humming the air of "Three Little Girls from School Are We."

Jones, to my consternation, stalked into the drawing-room, as if about to reprove me for my lack of dignity.

"Pardon me, madame," said my _bete noir_, pompously, "but Mr. Stevens insists upon your coming to the telephone."

My callers were on their feet, instantly. They appeared to be glad of an excuse for leaving me, and, also, somewhat astonished at the butler's choice of words.

"Don't let us keep you a moment," cried the eldest.

"Remember me to Mr. Stevens," urged the little brunette, mischievously.

"Good-bye! We are so grateful to you, Mrs. Stevens," exclaimed the third, with a sigh of relief.

"Be good!" I answered, gaily. "Come again--ah--young ladies. Don't mind Jones. You'll get used to him. Look in next month, won't you? Ta-ta!"

I stumbled over my skirts as I stepped forward, and the little flock of debutantes hurried away in affright, glancing over their shoulders at me in a manner that suggested gossip to come.

"Hello!" I shouted through the 'phone, when I had managed to reach the library. "Is that you--ah--Reginald? Where are you?"

"Yes. This is Reginald," I heard my voice in answer. "I'm at the 'Varsity Club. Charming place. Nice boys here. You seem to be popular, my dear. 'Here's to you, good as you are, and here's to me, bad as I am; but as good as you are, and as bad as I am, I'm as good as you are, bad as I am!'"

"Good Lord--ah--ah--Reginald!" I faltered, horror-stricken.

"Don't worry, Caroline," came my voice, soothingly. "It's all right. I know when to stop. Had any callers? This is your day at home, is it not?"

"I'll send the coupe for you at once--ah--Reginald," I said, with great presence of mind. "Go easy till it arrives, will you?"

"What do you mean to imply, Caroline?" growled my wife, a note of anger in my voice. "I'm going to walk home by-and-bye. You needn't bother about the coupe. I hear the boys calling to me. Here's to you, my dear! Good-bye!"

Before I could utter another word, Caroline had cut me off, and I turned from the 'phone, despondently. For a moment, it seemed to me that the library was surrounded by an iron grating and that I wore a ball and chain attached to my legs. Caroline and "the Old Crowd!" I am forced to confess that the hot tears came into my wife's eyes as I seated myself in a reading-chair and found myself face to face with a loneliness that was provocative of despair.

Jones was hot on the scent. He strode into the library and bore down upon me relentlessly, carrying a tray upon which rested two calling-cards.

"They are in the drawing-room, madame," said the butler, indifferently.

Caroline's toast came ringing to my ears. "Here's to you, good as you are, and here's to me, bad as I am!" And here I sat, bullied by Jones and the plaything of a lot of light-headed women of all ages. For one wild, feverish, moment the thought of revolt darted through my mind. I might faint, or have a fit, and Jones would be forced to dismiss my callers. But I quickly realized that I was not up to a brilliant histrionic effort. Even as it was, I was playing another's role with but indifferent success.

Two elderly women, richly garbed, arose as I reentered the drawing-room.

"I'm so glad to see you--ah--my dears," I said, in a voice pitched to indicate cordiality. One of my callers tossed her head haughtily, while the prim mouth of her companion fell open. This was not encouraging, and I remained silent. We stared at each other for a long, agonizing moment.

"How do you do?" I began again, with much less assurance. "Go away, little girls," kept running through my mind from that diabolical, tinkling "Mikado."

"We are very well, I believe," remarked Mrs. Martin, as she proved to be, coldly. "I think I may answer for Mrs. Smythe's health."

"I am in perfect health," exclaimed Mrs. Smythe, with emphasis, staring at me in a superior kind of way.

"There's nothing like perfect health--ah--my friends," I said, in a high, almost hysterical, falsetto. "Who is it who says that a man is as old as he feels and a woman as old as she looks?"

"Whoever said it, Mrs. Stevens, did us a great injustice," commented Mrs. Martin, with some warmth. "I am as young in spirit as I was ten years ago, but I don't look it."

"No, you don't look it," I hastened to remark, cordially; but my comment was not well received. Mrs. Martin glanced at Mrs. Smythe, and they stood erect on the instant.

"You're not going--ah--my dears?" I cried, thinking it too good to be true.

"You will pardon the liberty that I am about to take, Mrs. Stevens," began Mrs. Martin, sternly, "but it seems only fair to you that we should ask a question before leaving you. You are out of sorts to-day? Not quite yourself, are you?"

"Not quite," I answered, drawing myself up to Caroline's full height and struggling against an inclination to give vent to wild, feverish laughter. "I may say--Mrs.--ah--my dear--that I'm not quite myself. Not quite! It'll pass off. I have every reason to believe it'll pass off. But you're right. I'm not quite myself."

My frankness, which appalled me as I thought of it afterward, seemed to have a soothing effect upon my callers.

"You really do too much, Mrs. Stevens," remarked Mrs. Smythe, in a motherly way. "You should try to get a nap at once."

"Your nerves are affected," Mrs. Martin added, speaking gently. "You are overdoing things. Did you ever try the rest cure?"

"Yes. I've been giving it a chance to-day," I confessed. "But it doesn't work. I can't sleep in the daytime. Bear that in mind--ah--my dear. Don't talk to me about a nap. As I said to Caroline--ah--Reginald, I'm up for all day. But you know what nerves are, do you not?"

Mrs. Martin again glanced furtively at Mrs. Smythe, and without more ado they swept out of the drawing-room.

I dropped into a chair, a feeling of relief mingled with self-disgust sweeping over me. I realized that I had been making a sad botch of the part that I had attempted to play. At that moment, heavy footsteps behind me aroused me from my black-and-white revery. Two large, hot hands were placed over my eyes, and the end of a beard tickled Caroline's forehead.

"Guess who it is?" I heard my deep voice saying. "Here's to you, good as you are!"

"Caroline!" I exclaimed, conflicting emotions agitating my soul.

"Guess again, little woman," said my wife, playfully, in my voice. "They call me 'Reggie' at the club."

*CHAPTER X.*

*RECRIMINATIONS.*