The conversation passed to the topic of Stephen’s health, as conversations in Stephen’s house had a habit of doing. Mr Bittenger listened with grave interest.
‘I know, I know!’ said Mr Bittenger. ‘I used to be exactly the same. I guess I understand how you feel—SOME! Don’t I?’
‘And you are cured?’ Stephen demanded, eagerly, as he nibbled at dry toast.
‘You bet I’m cured!’ said Mr Bittenger.
‘You must tell me about that,’ said Stephen, and added, ‘some time tonight.’ He did not care to discuss the bewildering internal economy of the human frame at his dinner-table. There were details…and Mr Bittenger was in a mood that it was no exaggeration to describe as gay.
Shortly afterwards, there arose a discussion as to their respective ages. They coquetted for a few moments, as men invariably will, each diffident about giving away the secret, each asserting that the other was younger than himself.
‘Well,’ said Mr Bittenger to Vera, at length, ‘what age should you give me?’
‘I—I should give you five years less than Stephen,’ Vera replied.
‘And may I ask just how old you are?’ Mr Bittenger put the question at close range to Stephen, and hit him full in the face with it.
‘I’m forty,’ said Stephen.
‘So am I!’ said Mr Bittenger.
‘Well, you don’t look it,’ said Stephen.
‘Sure!’ Mr Bittenger admitted, pleased.
‘My husband’s hair is turning grey,’ said Vera, ‘while yours—’
‘Turning grey!’ exclaimed Mr Bittender. ‘I wish mine was. I’d give five thousand dollars today if mine was.’
‘But why—?’ Vera smiled.
‘Look here, my dear lady,’ said Mr Bittenger, in a peculiar voice, putting down his glass.
And with a swift movement he lifted a wig of glorious chestnut hair from his head—just lifted it for an instant, and dropped it. The man was utterly and completely bald.
III
Vera did nothing foolish. She neither cried, screamed, turned deadly pale, clenched her fragile hands, bit her lips till the blood came, smashed a wine-glass, nor fell with a dull thud senseless to the floor. Nevertheless, she was extremely perturbed by this astounding revelation of Mr Bittenger’s. Of course, dreams are nonsense. But still—The truth is, one tries to believe that dreams are nonsense, and up to a certain point one may succeed in believing. But it seemed to Vera that circumstances had passed that point. She could not but admit, also, that if the dream went on being fulfilled, within forty-eight hours Mr Bittenger would have made love to her, and would have killed her husband.
She was so incensed against Stephen that she really could not decide whether she wanted the dream to be fulfilled or not. No one would have imagined that that soft breast could conceal a homicidal thought. Yet so it was. That pretty and delightful woman, wandering about in the edifice of her terrific grievance against Stephen, could not say positively to herself that she would not care to have Stephen killed as a punishment for his sins.
After dinner, she found an excuse for retiring. She must think the puzzle out in solitude. Matters were really going too far. She allowed it to be understood that she was indisposed. Mr Bittenger was full of sorrow and sympathy. But did Stephen show the slightest concern? Stephen did not. She went upstairs, and she meditated, stretched on the sofa at the foot of the bed, a rug over her knees and the fire glinting on her face. Yes, it was her duty as a Christian, if not as an outraged wife, to warn Stephen that the shadow of death was creeping up behind him. He ought at least to be warned. But how could she warn him? Clearly she could not warn him in the presence of Mr Bittenger, the prospective murderer. She would, therefore, have to warn him when they were alone. And that meant that she would have to give way in the great conjugal sulking match. No, never! It was impossible that she should give way there! She frowned desperately at the leaping flames, and did ultimately decide that Stephen’s death was preferable to her defeat in that contest. Of such is human nature.
After all, dreams were nonsense.
Surely Stephen would come upstairs to inquire about her health, her indisposition? But no! He came not. And, as he continued not to come, she went downstairs again and proclaimed that she was better.
And then she learned that she had been worrying herself to no purpose whatever. Mr Bittenger was leaving on the morrow, the morrow being Christmas Eve. Stephen would drive him to Bursley in the morning. He would go to the Five Towns Hotel to get his baggage, and catch the Liverpool express at noon. He had booked a passage on the Saxonia, which sailed at threethirty o’clock. Thus he would spend his Christmas at sea; and, spending his Christmas at sea, he could not possibly kill Stephen in the village of Sneyd on Christmas night.
Relief! And yet a certain vague regret in the superstitious little heart! The little heart went to bed again. And Stephen and the stranger stayed up talking very late—doubtless about the famous cure.
The leave-taking the next morning increased the vague regret. Mr Bittenger was the possessor of an attractive individuality, and Vera pondered upon its attractiveness far into the afternoon. How nicely Mr Bittenger had thanked her for her gracious hospitality—with what meaning he had charged the expression of his deep regret at leaving her!
After all, dreams WERE nonsense.
She was sitting in the bow-window of the drawing-room, precisely as she had been sitting twenty-four hours previously, when whom should she see, striding masculinely along the drive towards the house, but Mr Bittenger?
This time she was much more perturbed even than she had been by the revelation of Mr Bittenger’s baldness.
After all—
She uprose, the blood having rushed to her head, and retreated she knew not whither, blindly, without a purpose. And found herself in a little morning-room which was scarcely ever used, at the end of the hall. She had not shut the door. And Mr Bittenger, having been admitted by a servant, caught sight of her, and breezily entered her retreat, clad in his magnificent furs.
And as he doffed the furs, he gaily told her what had happened. Owing to difficulties with the Cheswardine mare on the frosty, undulating road between Sneyd and Bursley, and owing to delays with his baggage at the Five Towns Hotel, he had just missed the Liverpool express, and, therefore, the steamer also. He had returned to Stephen’s manufactory. Stephen had insisted that he should spend his Christmas with them. And, in brief, there he was. He had walked from Bursley. Stephen, kept by business, was coming later, and so was some of the baggage.
Mr Bittenger’s face radiated joy. The loss of his twenty-guinea passage on the Saxonia did not appear to cause him the least regret.
And he sat down by the side of Vera.
And Vera suddenly noticed that they were on a sofa—the sofa of her dream—and she fancied she recognized the room.
‘You know, my dear lady,’ said Mr Bittenger, looking her straight in the eyes, ‘I’m just GLAD I missed my steamer. It gives me a chance to spend a Christmas in England, and in your delightful society—your delightful society—’ He gazed at her, without adding to the sentence.
If this was not love-making on a sofa, what could be?
Mr Bittenger had certainly missed the Liverpool express on purpose. Of that Vera was convinced. Or, if he had not missed it on purpose, he had missed it under the dictates of the mysterious power of the dream. Those people who chose to believe that dreams are nonsense were at liberty to do so.