“To answer it is superfluous,” she said, facing him in trembling wrath. “Of course I have kept them. You know how utterly I love my husband.”
“You regard your vows as sacred?” he asked relentlessly. “Of course,” she said wearily.
“Why then,” he demanded, “do you attach less sanctity to your verbal compact with your husband? Your duty as a wife is to keep one compact as well as the other. Keep both. Do not be recalcitrant against the terms of your agreement. Endure his indifference and strive patiently to win his love. It is your duty, as much as it is your duty to keep your marriage vows.”
“You assume a role,” she said, “very unsuitable for you. Preaching misfits you, and it has no effect on me. I know and feel all this. But there is the plain meaning of that message. I shall open that grave.”
“I have done all I can,” he said dispiritedly. “I cannot dissuade you.”
“You cannot,” she said.
“How then can I serve you?” he asked. “I have not yet discovered to what I owe the honor of this second visit. Why are you here?”
“I wish you to be present at the opening of the coffin,” she said.
“Are you sure,” he demanded, “that that would not he most unseemly? The first Mrs. Llewellyn, I believe, left no near relatives. But would not even her cousins resent such an intrusion as my presence there? Would not your husband still more resent it? Would it not be in very bad taste?”
“I do not make requests,” she said, “that are in bad taste. As for my husband, he resents and will resent nothing, as he approves and will approve of nothing. My brother will be there and he will not find anything unseemly in your presence.”
“Nevertheless I hesitate to agree,” said Vargas.
“You have expressed,” said she, “a very deep regard for me, will you not do this since I ask it?”
“I will,” he said with an effort.
“Then whenever I write you and send a carriage for you, you will be there at the time named?”
“I promise,” he said.
Sometime before the appointed hour, at that spot where a driveway approached nearest to the Llewellyn monument, Vargas painfully emerged from a closed carriage, the blue shades of which were drawn down. He spoke to some one inside and shut the door. He had taken but two or three hobbling steps, when another carriage closely followed his stopped where his had stopped. Its shades were also drawn down. When its door opened a well dressed man got out. As Vargas had done he spoke to some one inside and closed the door. When he turned Vargas saw a man of usual, very conventional appearance, the sort of man visible by scores in fashionable clubs. His build and carriage were those of a man naturally jaunty in his movements. His well- fleshed, healthy face, smooth shaven except for a thick brown mustache, was such a face as lends itself naturally to expressions of good fellowship and joviality. His brown eyes were prone to merriment. But there was no sparkle in them, no geniality in his air, no springiness in his movements. He wore his brown derby a trifle, the merest trifle, to one side, but his expression was careworn, he looked haggard. He had the air of a man used to having his own way, but he held himself now without any elasticity. He looked the deformed clairvoyant up and down with one quick glance, fixed him with a direct gaze as he approached and greeted him with an engaging air of easy politeness, neither stiff nor familiar.
“My name is Palgrave,” he said, “I presume you are Mr. Vargas.”
“The same,” said the clairvoyant, with not a little constraint.
“Pleased to meet you,” said the other holding out his hand and diminishing Vargas' embarrassment by the heartiness of his handshake. “Glad to have a chance for a talk with you. My sister has told me of her visits to you.”
Vargas controlled his expression, but shot one lightning glance at the other's face, reading there instantly how much Mrs. Llewellyn had told her brother and how much she had not told him.
There was something very taking about Mr. Palgrave's manner, which put Vargas completely at his ease. It was more than conciliatory, it was almost friendly, almost sympathetic. It not so much expressed readiness to admit to a confidential understanding, as gave the impression of continuing a well-established natural attitude of entire trust and complete comprehension. It had an unmistakable tinge, as unexpected as gratifying, of level esteem and unspoken gratitude.
There was a rustic seat by the path and by a common impulse both moved toward it. At the club-man's courteous gesture, the cripple, with his unavoidable wrenching jolt, lowered himself painfully to the level of the bench. Mr. Palgrave seated himself beside him, crossed his knees and half turned toward him. He rested his left elbow on the back of the bench. His other hand held his cane, which he tapped against the side of his foot. The waiting carriages, one behind the other, were under a big elm some distance off; their drivers lay on the grass beside them. No one else was in sight except where, rather farther off in another direction, six laborers, their coats off, sat with a superintendent near them, in the shade of a Norway maple, near the Llewellyn monument; which dominated the neighborhood from its low, broad knoll.
The brief silence Mr. Palgrave broke.
“If you will pardon my saying it, you don't look at all like my idea of a clairvoyant.” Vargas smiled a wan smile. The tone of the words was totally disarming.
“I don't feel like my idea of a clairvoyant,” he said, “I am usually clear-sighted in any matter I take up; usually so clear-sighted in respect to any personality that my advice, as it often is, seems to my clients a mere echo of their own thoughts, a mere confirmation of their own judgments, a mere additional reason for what they would have done anyhow. I am used to touching unerringly the strongest springs of action. So far I have utterly failed to gain that clue to Mrs. Llewellyn's character necessary to make my advice acceptable.”
“In every other respect you seem to have been as clear-sighted as possible,” Mr. Palgrave told him. “No advice could have been better nor more judiciously urged, nor more entirely disinterested.”
“Rather utterly interested,” said Vargas.
“In an altogether different sense,” said the other. “She told me. Until I saw you I was astonished that she had not resented it.”
“She did resent it, and of course,” said the cripple.
“Not as she would from any other man,” said Mr. Palgrave. “There are some things — ” Vargas began. His voice thinned out and he broke off.
“Yes, I understand,” said her brother, “and I want to say that I feel under much obligation to you for the way you behaved and for the manliness and the straightforwardness of your whole attitude.”
“I am greatly complimented,” Vargas replied.
“You deserve complimenting,” said Mr. Palgrave. “You acted admirably. Your consideration, I might say your gentleness shows that you really have her best interests at heart.”
“I truly have,” said Vargas fervently, “and I am more disturbed in mind than I can express.”
“That must be a great deal,” said the clubman, a momentary gleam of his usual self, fading instantly from his eyes. “I certainly cannot express how much I am upset. I hate worry or anxiety and always put such troubles away and forget them. I can't forget this. I have idolized my sister since we were babies. I have hardly slept since she talked to me. She won't hear of a doctor. She don't admit that there could be any pretext for her consulting a doctor, and I can't talk to any one about her. I can talk to you. You seem a very sensible man. I should like to hear your opinion of her condition. Do you think her mind is unsettled?”
“Not as bad as that,” Vargas told him.
“This grave-opening idea seems to me out and out lunacy,” said the other. “Not as bad as that,” Vargas repeated. “It shows a trend of thought which may develop into something worse; but in itself it is only a foolish whim. The worst of it is that it produces a situation of great delicacy, and high tension which may have almost any sort of bad result.”