The Undiscovered Country. William Dean HowellsЧитать онлайн книгу.
on the afternoon of the seance." He teamed upon Ford, and then turned his triumphantly amiable face upon Phillips.
"Ford," said the latter, "this is very handsome!"
"Not at all, not at all!" cried Boynton; "simple duty,—self-interest, even. For I have a request to make of Mr. Ford,-—a favor to ask. I wish Mr. Ford not only to continue steadfast in his opposition to my theories, but to assist me in a public exhibition, by antagonizing to the utmost of his power their application. I have learned from my daughter that she had no agency in the phenomena which we witnessed the other night, and of whose verity I am now perfectly convinced; and I wish Mr. Ford to join me in testing her supernatural gifts, either before a popular audience, or such persons, in considerable number, as we may select in common."
"I must refuse, Dr. Boynton," said Ford, gently.
Boynton's face fell. "I hope," he said, "you do not refuse because I have been remiss in not coming to you sooner."
"No," began Ford; but Boynton interrupted him.
" I started almost immediately upon your departure from my lodgings, to follow you up and make this application. But I was delayed by an accident: a child was run over in the street almost before my eyes, and was carried into the next apothecary's. The force of habit is strong; I remembered that I was a physician, and forgot the larger in the lesser duty, till other attendance could be procured."
Ford frowned. " It has nothing to do with your delay. What you propose is quite out of my way. I could not consent to it on any conditions. I went to your seance the other day out of an idle whim. I don't care anything about the matter. I don't care whether there is any truth in your opinions, or any error in mine. I refuse because I am thoroughly indifferent to the whole thing."
Boynton rose, and buttoned his threadbare coat across his plump chest. "And you consider, sir," he said, "that you have incurred no responsibility towards me, towards humanity, by going as far as you have, and then refusing to proceed?"
"That is my feeling," said Ford respectfully.
Boynton stood as if stupefied. "And— and— Excuse me, sir," he said, coming to himself, "if I remark upon the suddenness of your indifference. One hour ago, you threatened that if I pursued my inquiries in this city you would expose me, as I understood, in the public prints. You left me with that threat upon your lips."
Phillips looked inquiringly at Ford, who said, "I left you in a passion that I'm ashamed of. I have no idea of carrying out that threat."
"Poh, sir!" cried Boynton, with mounting scorn. "You refuse, not from indifference, but from the sense of your inability to cope with me in this test."
"I am willing you should think that," assented Ford.
"I call this gentleman to witness," said Boynton, "that you have slunk out of a contest which you have provoked, and that you are afraid to meet me upon terms even of your own choosing. An hour ago I parted with you in hate; I now leave you in contempt. Good-morning, Mr. Phillips." Boynton had already turned his back upon Ford; he now strutted from the room without looking at him again.
"Our friend is violent," observed Phillips, when the door had closed upon him. Ford made no reply, and Phillips continued: "I fancied his accident rather too opportune."
"Very likely," said Ford.
"And you won't go with me to Mrs. Burton's?"
"No."
"I don't wonder at your indifference to society, with such really dramatic excitements in your own life. The matinee has been extraordinarily brilliant — for a matinee. They're apt to be tame."
VI.
IN spite of the defiant temper in which Boynton had quitted Ford's lodging, he reached his own in extreme dejection. He found Hatch with Egeria in the parlor.
"Well, my friend," he said, wringing Hatch's hand, as he passed him on his way from the door to the sofa, "I have met with a great disappointment." Neither Hatch nor Egeria questioned him, but after an exchange of anxious glances waited silently. "It isn't that I care for the frustration of my hopes; I do care for that; but that is a small matter compared with the loss of my faith in human nature, my reliance upon the willingness of man to make sacrifices tending to—to — solve, to unravel our common riddle." He let his head fall upon his breast.
"Oh, father," pleaded Egeria tremulously, after the little dramatic pause which Boynton had let follow upon his period, "did you go to see him?"
"Yes," said her father.
"And did he—is he going to do it?"
Boynton lifted his head. "No," he said, solemnly; "he refuses." Egeria drew a long breath, and turned very pale. She seemed about to fall from her chair, which she had drawn next the corner of the sofa on which he had thrown himself. Hatch made a movement toward her, but she recovered herself, and sat strongly upright.
"He refused?" she gasped.
"My dear friend," said her father, looking toward Hatch, while he took her cold hand and gently smoothed it, "I must explain that I have had two interviews with this man, and what their nature has been. He came here this morning to boast that it was he who caught Egeria's hand in the seance that day. I drove him from the house. Afterwards, upon conversing with Egeria, I learnt that the manifestations were really genuine, and that at the moment he caught her hand she had no agency whatever in their production."
Hatch looked at Egeria. "I could have bet my soul on that!"
"On learning this," pursued Boynton, "I at once determined to challenge him to a new test, in which he should pit his influence over Egeria against mine, and the public should decide upon the result. He has just refused the challenge, peremptorily and finally, and I have branded him as a coward in the presence of Mr. Phillips."
Boynton flung his daughter's hand away. Hatch and Egeria had the effect of refraining from looking at each other. At last the young fellow said, recovering something of his wonted cheery audacity, "Well, of course it's a disappointment, doctor, but why not look at the bright side of it?"
"What bright side of it?" asked the doctor, tragically.
"Oh, it has its bright side," said Hatch, undauntedly. "It saves Miss Egeria from a good deal, and I'm glad of that, for one."
The doctor mistook the word. "Ordeal! There is no ordeal; there could have been no question about the result!"
"Not with you or me. But there's no use trying to deny it,—the public is against you, and would be glad to have her fail."
"Oh, yes, father; you know how it has always been," cried Egeria.
"The circumstances had never been propitious before; but now they were all with us. We could not have failed!" replied her father.
"Well, you might," said Hatch. " What do you think did produce the manifestations that day, doctor?"
"Do you ask that question?" demanded the doctor, in astonishment. "I answer, with an absolute certainty, such as I never reached before, the disembodied spirits of the dead!'
"I doubt it," said Hatch, quietly.
"You doubt it?" shouted Boynton, in amaze.
"Dr. Boynton, you 've told me twenty times that you wouldn't give a straw for manifestations that took place in the presence of a dozen persons. Now, what makes you pin your faith to what happened the other day?" Boynton was silent; all his reasons, so prompt and facile, seemed to have forsaken him. " There were too many people on hand that day for me. You know I'm as much interested in these things, doctor, as anybody, and I should be the last to give aid and comfort to the enemy; but I couldn't go those materializations, and the dark seance was rather too dark for me. I'll tell you what, doctor, I wish you'd go back home, and start new." Hatch planted himself directly in front of Boynton, who looked at him with astonishment and