Soon after this Alan began to win his matches again, and by the same comfortable margin as before. The experts all noted that he had entirely regained his old fire and aggressiveness, and they confidently expected him to win back the championship the following year.
All this time, Humphrey, being trained to await patiently the outcome of his experiments, waited patiently. It may be asked how he knew that both of them would take the potion. The answer is, he was completely indifferent as to whether both of them took it, or one of them, or neither. It was his opinion that a good marriage would survive the phial, and a bad one would be wrecked by it, whichever way it happened.
Very late one evening his doorbell rang three or four times in rapid succession. He raised his eyebrows, and hurried to open it. There stood Caroline. Her hat, hair, dress, and all the rest of it looked just as usual; yet she gave the impression of having run all the way. Humphrey gave her his ugly smile, and, saying never a word, he led her through into the living-room, where she sat down, got up, walked about a little, and at last turned to him. «I've left Alan,» she said.
«These things happen,»said Humphrey.
«It's your fault,» she said. «Not really yours, perhaps, but it was that horrible stuff you gave us. Humphrey, I'm the lowest, the most despicable rat; I'm such a hypocrite and traitor as you can't ever imagine.»
«I very much doubt it,» said Humphrey. «I suppose this means you drank the stuff.»
«Yes, behind his back,»
«And what did he say when you told him?»
«I haven't told him, Humphrey. I wouldn't dare. No. I filled the thing up with water and put some quinine in it, and …»
«Tell me why you put quinine in it.»
«To give it that bitter taste.»
«I see. Go on.»
«Oh, I felt so horrible afterwards. I can't tell you how awful I felt. I tried, I tried so hard to love him more than ever to make up for it. But you can't make up for a thing like that. Besides …»
«Yes?»
«Oh, it just ruined everything, in all sorts of ways. I suppose I've been watching him — you can't help watching a person who's aging in front of your eyes. And when you watch anyone like that you see all sorts of things wrong with them. And I know he's felt it because he … well, he hasn't been very nice lately. But it's my fault, because I don't love him any more. Maybe I never did.» With that she began to weep, which showed a very proper feeling. «Don't tell me,» said Humphrey, «that you don't want to be young forever.»
«Not if I can't ever love anyone again.»
«There's always yourself, you know.»
«It's cruel of you to say that. It's cruel even if it's true.»
«It's lonely being like this,» said Humphrey. «But that's the price we pay for our little immortality. You, and me, and of course old Vingleberg. We're animals of a new species. There's us» — his hand swept a little circle around them —«and the rest of the world.» They sat for quite a long time in silence, alone together in this imaginary circle. The sensation was not at all unpleasant. «Of course,» added Humphrey, «I used to think we were like that for quite a different reason.»
«If it could … Oh, but I'm so worthless! I let you down. Now I've let him down.»
«The first was a mistake. It can be put right.»
«But not the second. That we can't live with.»
«Yes, I think so. You say the stuff tasted bitter? There's no mistake about that, I suppose?»
«No, oh, no, it was very bitter.»
«You see, that has far-reaching implications. I used nothing but ordinary salt in the water.»
POSSESSION OF ANGELA BRADSHAW
There was a young woman, the daughter of a retired colonel, resident in one of London's most select suburbs, and engaged to be married to Mr. Angus Fairfax, a solicitor who made more money every year. The name of this young woman was Angela Bradshaw; she wore a green sweater and had an Aberdeen terrier, and when open-toed shoes were in fashion, she wore open-toed shoes. Angus Fairfax was as ordinary as herself, and pleasant and ordinary were all the circumstances of their days.
Nevertheless, one day in September this young woman developed symptoms of a most distressing malady. She put a match to the curtains of the drawing-room, and kicked, bit, and swore like a trooper when restrained.
Everyone thought she had lost her reason, and no one was more distressed than her fiancé. A celebrated alienist was called in; he found her in a collected frame of mind. He made a number of little tests, such as are usual in these examinations, and could find none of the usual symptoms of dementia.
When he had done, however, she burst into a peal of coarse laughter, and, calling him a damned old fool, she reminded him of one or two points he had overlooked. Now these points were extremely abstruse ones, and most unlikely to be known to a young girl who had never studied psychoanalysis, or life, or anything of that sort.
The alienist was greatly shocked and surprised, but he was forced to admit that while such knowledge was most abnormal, and while the term she had applied to him was indicative of ignorance and bad taste, he did not feel that she could be certified on these grounds alone.
«But cannot she be certified for setting fire to my curtains?» asked her mother.
«Not unless I find symptoms of insanity,» said the specialist. «You can, of course, charge her with arson.»
«What? And have her go to prison?» cried her mother. «Think of the disgrace!»
«I could undertake her defence, free of charge, and doubtless get her off with a caution,» said Mr. Fairfax.
«There would still be the newspapers,» said the Colonel, shaking his head. «At the same time, it seems extraordinary that nothing can be done about it.» Saying this, he gave the eminent alienist his cheque and a look. The alienist shrugged his shoulders and departed.
Angela immediately put her feet on the table (her legs were extremely well turned) and recited a string of doggerel verses, celebrating the occasion in great detail, and casting scorn on her parents and her fiancé. These verses were very scurrilous, or I would reproduce them here.
During the next few days, she played some other tricks, all of them troublesome and undignified; above all, she rhymed away like the principal boy in a pantomime. A whole string of doctors was called in. They all said her misbehaviour was not due to insanity.
Her parents then tried a few quacks, who, powerless to certify, were also impotent to cure. In the end they went to a seedy Madame who claimed to see into the soul. «The whole thing is perfectly clear,» said this unprepossessing old woman. «Your daughter is possessed of a devil. Two guineas.»
They asked her to exorcise the intrusive fiend, but that was ten, so they said they would think the matter over, and took Angela home in a taxi.
On the way, she said to them with a smile, «If you had had the decency to ask me, I could have told you that was the trouble, all along.»
When they had finished rating her for allowing them to go to so much expense unnecessarily, they asked her how she knew.
«In the simplest way,» she said. «I see him very frequently.»
«When?» cried the Colonel.
«Where?» cried her mother.
«What is he like?» cried her fiancé.
«He is young and not at all bad-looking,» replied Angela, «and he talks most amusingly. He generally appears to me when I am alone. I am seldom alone but in my bedroom, and it is there that I see him, between eleven at night and seven in the morning.»