Professional Documents
Culture Documents
VI
His first action on awakening was always to stretch out his hand
for the letters that his silent man would have placed by his side, and
to glance at the clock on his dressing table to see how many hours
he had slept. And, indeed, next morning his first sensation was one
of bodily well-being and of satisfaction because the clock appeared
to inform him that he had slept for three hours longer than was his
habit. But with a slight feeling of uneasiness he remembered how
late he had been the night before, and stretching out his hand for the
letters, he heard a voice say:
“Are you 4,259 Mayfair?”
He had answered “What?” before he realized that this question
was nothing more than a very vivid recollection. But even when he
had assured himself that it was only a very vivid recollection, he lay
still and discovered that his heart was beating very quickly. And so
afraid was he that the motion of stretching out his arm would bring
again the voice to his ears, that he lay still, his hand stretched along
the counterpane. And suddenly he got up.
He opened one white-painted cupboard, then the other. Finally,
he went to the door of the room and peered out. His man,
expressionless, carrying over his arm a pair of trousers, and in one
hand a white letter crossed with blue, was slowly ascending the
staircase at the end of the corridor.
“You didn’t ask me a question,” Dudley Leicester said, “about
two minutes ago?”
Saunders said: “No, sir, I was answering the door to the
postman. This, sir.” And he held out the registered letter.
It was as if Dudley Leicester recoiled from it. It bore Pauline’s
handwriting, a large, round, negligent scrawl.
“Did he ask our number?” Dudley inquired eagerly; and
Saunders, with as much of surprise as could come into his impassive
face, answered:
“Why, no, sir; he’s the regular man.”
“Our telephone number, I mean,” Dudley Leicester said.
Saunders was by this time in the room, passing through it to the
door of the bath-cabinet.
“As a matter of fact, sir,” he said, “the only thing he asked was
whether Mrs. Leicester’s mother was any better.”
“It’s very odd,” Dudley Leicester answered. And with Saunders
splashing the water in the white bath-cabinet, with a touch of sun
lighting up the two white rooms—in the midst of these homely and
familiar sounds and reflections, fear suddenly seized Dudley
Leicester. His wife’s letter frightened him; when there fell from it a
bracelet, he started as he had never in his life started at a stumble of
his horse. He imagined that it was a sort of symbol, a sending back
of his gifts. And even when he had read her large, sparse words, and
discovered that the curb chain of the bracelet was broken, and
Pauline desired him to take it to the jeweller’s to be repaired—even
then the momentary relief gave way to a host of other fears. For
Dudley Leicester had entered into a world of dread.
II
III
“No,” she commenced, “do not put down this form of obstinacy
to mental aberration. It is rather to be considered as a manifestation
of passion. You say that Kitty is not of a passionate disposition. I
imagine it may prove that she is actually of a disposition passionate
in the extreme. But all her passion is centred in that one desire—the
desire to excite concern. The cure for this is not medical; it is merely
practical. Nerve treatment will not cure it, nor solicitude, but feigned
indifference. You will not touch the spot with dieting; perhaps by ...
But there, I will not explain my methods to you, old Ellida. I
discussed Kitty’s case, as you set it forth, very fully with the chief in
Philadelphia, and between us we arrived at certain conclusions. I
won’t tell you what they were, not because I want to observe a
professional reticence, but simply so that, in case one treatment
fails, you may not be in agonies of disappointment and fear. I haven’t
myself much fear of non-success if things are as you and Dr.
Tressider say. After all, weren’t we both of us as kiddies celebrated
for fits of irrational obstinacy? Don’t you remember how one day you
refused to eat if Calton, the cat, was in the dining-room? And didn’t
you keep that up for days and days and days? Yet you were awfully
fond of Calton.... Yes; I think I can change Kitty for you, but upon one
condition—that you never plead for Robert Grimshaw, that you never
mention his name to me. Quite apart from any other motive of mine
—and you know that I consider mother’s example before anything
else in the world—if he will not make this sacrifice for me he does
not love me. I do not mean to say that you are to forbid him your
house, for I understand he dines with you every other day. His
pleadings I am prepared to deal with, but not yours, for in you they
savour of disrespect for mother. Indeed, disrespect or no disrespect,
I will not have it. If you agree to this, come to our hotel as soon as
you have read it. If you disagree—if you won’t, dear, make me a
solemn promise—leave me three days in which to make a choice out
of the five patients who wish to have me in London, and then come
and see me, bringing Kitty.
“Not a word, you understand—not one single word!
“On that dreadful day when Robert told us that father had died
intestate and that other—I was going to add ‘horror,’ but, since it was
mother’s doing, she did it, and so it must have been right—when he
told us that we were penniless and illegitimate, I saw in a flash my
duty to mother’s memory. I have stuck to it, and I will stick to it.
Robert must give in, or I will never play the part of wife to him.”
She folded her letter into the stamped envelope, and, having
dropped it deliberately into the ship’s letter-box, she rejoined Mrs.