“You here, of all women!”
“You know me!” she exclaimed; “I have never seen you.”
“You are seen of many thousands you never note,” he replied. “Everyone knows Mrs. David Llewellyn. Everyone knew Constance Palgrave.”
“You flatter me,” she said coldly, with the air of one resenting an unwelcome familiarity.
“Flattery is part of my trade,” he replied. “But I do not flatter you. So little that I have forgotten my manners. I should have asked you to step into my consulting room. Pray, enter it.”
She passed him as he held the door open for her. The inner room was not less seemly than the outer. Except for three doors and one broad window looking out on an area, it was walled with bookcases some eight feet high, broken only where there were set into them two small cabinets with drawers below. The glass doors of the bookcases were of small panes, and the books within were in exquisite bindings. Topping the cases were several splendid bronze busts. The furniture was completed by a round mahogany center-table, several small chairs and three tapestried armchairs. When Mrs. Llewellyn had seated herself in one the clairvoyant took another. His agitation was so extreme that had she been capable of fear it would almost have frightened her; her curiosity it greatly piqued. He was as pale as a swarthy man can be, his lips bloodless and twitching, dry and moistening themselves one against the other as he mechanically swallowed in his nervousness. She herself was perturbed in soul, but an eye less practised than his would have discerned no signs of emotion beneath her easy exterior. They faced each other in silence for some breaths; then he spoke:
“For what purpose have you come here?”
“To consult you,” she answered. “Is it astonishing? Do not all sorts of persons come to consult you?”
“All sorts,” he replied. “But none such as you. Never any such as you.”
“I have come, it seems,” she said simply, “and to consult you.”
“In what way do you mean to consult me?” he queried. “People consult me in various ways.”
“I had in mind,” she said, “the answers you give by writing on the inside of a shut slate.”
“You have come to the wrong man,” he said harshly, with an obvious effort that made his voice unnatural. “Go elsewhere,” and he rose.
She gazed at him in astonishment without moving. “Why do you say that?” she demanded.
He opened each of the three doors, looked outside and then made sure that each was latched. He looked out of the window, glancing at each of the other windows visible from it. He hobbled once or twice up and down the room, mopping his forehead and face with his handkerchief; then he seated himself again.
“Mrs. Llewellyn,” he said, “I must request your promise of entire and permanent secrecy for what I am about to tell you.”
“Anyone would suppose,” she said, “that you were the client and I the clairvoyant.”
“Acknowledging that,” he replied. “Let it pass, I beg of you. I have told you that you have come to the wrong man. I bade you go elsewhere. You ask for an explanation. I have fortified myself to give it to you. But I must have your pledge of silence if you desire an explanation.”
“I do desire it and you have my promise.
He looked around the room with the movement of a rat in a cage. His eyes met hers, but shifted uneasily, and his shamefaced gaze fell to the floor. His hands clutched each other upon his lame knee.
“Madame,” he said, “I tell you to go elsewhere because I am a charlatan, an impostor. My trances are mere pretense, the method of my replies a farcical mummery, the answers transparent concoctions from the hints I extract from my dupes.”
“You say this to try me,” she cried; “you are subjecting me to some sort of test.”
“Madame,” he said, “look at me. Am I like a man playing a part? Do I not look in earnest?” She regarded him, convinced.
“But,” she wondered. “Why do you thrust this confession upon me?”
“I fear,” he hesitated, “that a truthful answer to that question would displease you.”
“Your behavior,” she said, “and your utterances are so unexpected and amazing to me, coming here as I have, that I must request an explanation.”
Vargas straightened himself in his chair and looked her in the eyes, not aggressively, but timidly. He spoke in a low voice.
“Madame,” he said solemnly, “I have told you the truth about myself because you are the one human being whom I am unwilling to harm, wrong or cheat.”
“You mean,” — she broke off, bridling. “Ah, Madame,” he cried, “I mean nothing that has in it any tinge of anything that might offend you. What does the north star know or care how many frail, storm-tossed barks struggle to steer by it? Is it any the less radiant, pure, high because so many to whom it is and shall remain forever unattainable strive to win from its rays guidance towards havens of safety? A woman such as you cannot guess, much less know, to how many she is the one abiding heavenly beacon. How could you, who need no such help from without, realize what the mere sight of you afar off must mean to natures not blest with such a heritage of goodness? How many have been strengthened at sight of your face, wherein they could not but see the visible outward expression of that inward peace and serenity that comes from right instincts unswervingly adhering to noble ideals? You have been to me the incarnate token of the existence of that righteousness to which I might not attain.”
Mrs. Llewellyn had borne his torrent of verbiage with a look of intolerant toleration, of haughty displeasure curbed by astonishment. When he paused for breath she said, in a voice half angry, half repressed:
“I quite understand you, I have heard enough, I have heard altogether too much of this; we will change the subject, if you please.”
“I spoke at your command,” Vargas apologized, abashed, “and only to convince you of my sincerity in telling you that I am not worthy of being consulted by you.”
“But,” she protested, carried away by her surprise, “you are called the greatest clairvoyant on earth.”
“And I have schemed, advertised lavishly, spent money like water, bribed reporters, bought editors, cajoled managers, hoodwinked owners and won over their wives and daughters through laborious years to produce that impression. It is no growth of accident, no spontaneous recognition of self-evident merit.
“But,” she argued, “are you a fiend doing all this for the delight of deceiving for deception's sake? Are you a man wealthy by inheritance and choosing this form of activity for the pleasure it gives you?”
“By no means Madame,” he denied, “I live by my wits.”
“Your surroundings tell me that you live well,” she suggested. “Better than my surroundings reveal,” he rejoined.
“Then your wits are good wits,” she ventured.
“None better of their kind on earth,” he naïvely admitted, wholly off his guard. “And they are not overtaxed?” she asked.