The Undiscovered Country. William Dean Howells
people. I would do anything I could for him. He's got a heart as tender as a child."
"Very likely," said Ford, with irony. "But I fail to see why I should let this childlike philanthropist go about preying upon the public. I may have my own opinion of his innocence. What if I told you I had detected them in a trick the other night?"
"I shouldn't believe you," answered Hatch, promptly.
Phillips half started out of his chair, but Ford smoked on unperturbed, and asked, as if the question were a pure abstraction, "Why?"
" Because I know that they couldn't cheat."
"But if I told you they did, should you consider them innocent?"
"I shouldn't doubt them in the least. And let me tell you "—
Ford turned his back upon Hatch, and knocked the ashes of his pipe out against the corner of the chimney-piece. "Mr. Hatch, you said, a moment ago, that you were a spiritualist, but not a fool. I shall not say whether I will or will not refuse Dr. Boynton's proposition."
Ford began to fill his pipe again, and paid not enough regard to Hatch's presence to seem to wish him away; it was quite as if he were not there, so far as Ford was concerned.
"Look here," Hatch began, "I am sorry that I offended you. I'm anxious to get you to say that you won't accept Dr. Boynton's challenge."
"I perceive that you are anxious," assented Ford.
"Oh, if I only— It's a very serious matter,—it is indeed! I would do anything to get you to say that. Come, now! The young lady is in delicate health; she will do whatever her father tells her, and if she does this I believe it will kill her."
Ford made no reply.
"I can see the thing from your point of view. I suppose you feel that you have a public duty to perform, and all that sort of thing. Well, now, I'm going to make a strong move to get Dr. Boynton out of this business any way; and I ask you just to hold on till I have a chance to try. Can't you tell him that you'll think it over? Can't you go so far as to put him off a day, or half a day?"
Ford took a book, and going to a chair at the window began to look into it.
"Come," pleaded the other, "give me some sort of answer."
Ford seemed not to have heard him.
"Well, sir," said Hatch, "I've done with you!" He stared at Ford in even more amaze than anger, and after waiting a moment, as if searching his mind for some fitting reproach, he turned and went out of the room.
Phillips rose from his chair with a shrug. "My dear fellow," he said, "I hope you'll let me know when this ordeal takes place."
"What ordeal?" asked Ford, without looking up from his book.
"Surely I needn't specify your public test seance with the Pythoness and her papa."
"I am not going to meet Dr. Boynton in the way you mean," returned Ford, quietly.
" No? Why, this is magnanimity!"
"I've no doubt it's inconceivable to you."
"Not at all! I know you better; you could be magnanimous to carry a point. But it must be inconceivable to our friend who has just left us. I fancied he was something in leather. Should you say shoes, or leather generally?"
Ford scorned to notice the conjecture as to Hatch's business. "Are you fool enough to suppose that Dr. Boynton ever intended to come to me on such an errand!"
"Why, I fancied so."
"You had better bridle your fancy, then. He has too much method in his madness for that. What he wanted was my refusal, beforehand, for professional use. He didn't get it. This fellow is part of the game. But I don't wonder you sympathize with him. He is a brother dilettante, it seems. He dabbles in ghosts as you dabble in bric-a-brac. He believes as much in ghosts as you believe in your Bonifazios. They may be genuine; in the meantime, you like to talk as if they were. Upon the whole, I believe I prefer blind superstition."
"Why, so do I," said Phillips. "The trouble is to get your blind superstition. I confess that when I was at Mrs. Le Roy's, —what an uncommonly good factitious name for the profession!—and saw the performances of the phantom-like Egeria,—that'« a good name, too!—I experienced a very agreeable sensation of fear. It was really something to be proud of. But it wouldn't last. It haunted me for a night or two; but I'm no more afraid in the dark now than I was before. And the worst of it is that my interest in the affair is gone with my terrors. Apparitions have palled upon me. It is quite as the good doctor said: people bore themselves with seances very soon. The question at present is, Will you go with me to Mrs. Burton's to lunch?"
"No," said Ford.
"You're in the wrong, Ford," argued Phillips. "You would please Mrs. Burton by coming; but it won't matter to her if you don't. That's the attitude of society towards the individual, and upon the whole one can't complain of it. You had better come. Mrs. Burton is really making a very pretty fist at a salon. In the first place, she keeps Burton out of the way: it's essential to a salon not to have the husband in it. You will meet the passing Englishman there, whoever he is; you stand a chance of seeing the starring actor or actress,—operatic or dramatic; authors we have always with us, and painters, of course. Mrs. Burton is so far from pretty herself that she is not afraid to ask charming women who are also beautiful; you've no idea what decorative qualities beautiful women have. And then she introduces the purely American element, the visiting young lady. Really, she has an uncommon feeling for pretty girls; I'll never knew her to have an inharmonious young person staying with her yet; with her sense of values, the composition of her salon is delightful. Will you come? She told me to bring you; what excuse shall I make?"
"Tell her that I'm not the sort of person to he brought."
"Oh, there you do yourself wrong. I shall be more just to her ideal of you. Good-bye."
A knock was heard at the door, and Ford, without rising, growled, "Come in."
The door flew open, and Boynton burst into the room in the face of Phillips, who was just going out. He caught him by the hand.
"Why, Mr. Phillips, is it possible! This is doubly fortunate. Finding you and Mr. Ford together,—it's more than I could have hoped! I consider it a privilege—a privilege, in the old religious sense—to be allowed to say in your presence what I wish to say to our good friend here. Mr. Ford, I wish Mr. Phillips to hear me ask your pardon— humbly ask your pardon—for the violent language I used towards you at my lodging an hour ago." Phillips grinned his triumph at Ford, but softened the derision to a smile, as he turned again to Boynton.
"Will you sit down?" said Ford, with grave kindness, and without any token of surprise.
"Thanks, thanks! But not till I have taken you by the hand." Boynton stretched forth his small hand, and took the mechanically granted hand of Ford. "I wish to say that I have unexpectedly been enabled to see the subject-matter of our difference from your point of view, and that I now recognize not only the justice, but the necessity—the necessity by operation of an inflexible law— of your attitude. In all these things," continued Boynton, placing himself luxuriously in Ford's deep chair, and didactically pressing the tips of his fingers together, " there is a law which I had quite lost sight of,— the law of progression through the antagonism of opposites."
Phillips made an ironical murmur of assent and admiration; Ford remained silent.
"We are both, outside of our mere individual consciousness, blind forces. I affirm, you deny. We grind upon each other in the encounter of life, and a spark of light is evoked by the attrition. It was just so this morning: light was evoked by which I shall always see the correctness of your position and the error of mine. Understand me: I do not at all agree with you in your opinion of the phenomena; and I have come, so far as that is concerned, to cement our enmity, if I may so speak." He smiled upon Ford with caressing suavity. " But what I have come for first is to withdraw all offensive expressions, and to say that I approve, even in its extreme,