Athalie Part 45

"Some clients ask for it."

"And you see things in it?"

"Yes," said the girl simply.

"And when your clients do not demand a crystal-reading?"

"I can see perfectly well without it--when I can see clearly at all."

"Into the future?"

"Sometimes."

"The past, too, of course."

"Not always."

She fascinated the non-scientific side of this famous physician; he interested her intensely.

"Do you know," she ventured with a faint smile, "that you are really quite as psychically endowed as I am?"

His handsome, sanguine features flushed deeply, but he smiled in appreciation.

"Not in the manner you so saucily imply, Miss Greensleeve," he said gaily. "My work is sound, logical, reasonable, and based on fundamental truths capable of being proven. I never saw an apparition in my life--and believed that it was really there!"

"Oh! So you _have_ seen an apparition?"

"None that could have really existed independently of my own vision.

In other words it wouldn't have been there at all if I hadn't supposed I had seen it."

"You _did_ suppose so?"

"I knew perfectly well that I didn't see it. I didn't even think I saw it."

"But you _saw_ it?"

"I imagined I did, and at the same time I knew I didn't."

"Yes," she said quietly, "you did see it, Dr. Westland. You have seen it more than once. You will see it again."

A heavier colour dyed his face; he started impatiently as though to check her--as though to speak; and did not.

She said: "If what I say is distasteful to you, please stop me." She waited a moment; then, as he evinced no desire to check or interrupt her: "I _am_ very diffident about saying this to you--to a man so justly celebrated--pre-eminent in the greatest of all professions. I am so insignificant in comparison, so unimportant, so ignorant where you are experienced and learned.

"But may I say to you that nothing dies? I am not referring to a possible spiritual world inhabited perhaps by souls. I mean that here, on this earth, all around us, nothing that has ever lived really dies.... Is what I say distasteful to you?"

He offered no reply.

"Because," she said in a low voice, "if I say anything more it would concern you. And what you saw.... For what you saw was alive, and real--as truly living as you and I are. It is nothing to wonder at, nothing to trouble or perplex you, to see clearly--anybody--you have ever--_loved_."

He looked up at her in a silence so strained, so longing, so intense, that she felt the terrific tension.

"Yes," she said, "you saw clearly and truly when you saw--her."

"Who? in G.o.d's name!"

"Need I tell you, Dr. Westland?"

No, she had no need to tell him. His wife was dead. But it was not his wife he had seen so often in his latter years.

No, she had no need to tell him.

Athalie had never been inclined to care for companions of her own s.e.x.

As a child she had played with boys, preferring them. Few women appealed to her as qualified for her friends.h.i.+p--only one or two here and there and at rare intervals seemed to her sufficiently interesting to cultivate. And to the girl's sensitive and shy advances, here and there, some woman responded.

Thus she came to know and to exchange occasional social amenities with Adele Millis, a youthful actress, with Rosalie Faithorn, a handsome girl born to a formal social environment, but sufficiently independent to explore outside of it and snap her fingers at the opinions of those peeping over the bulwarks to see what she was doing.

Also there was Peggy Brooks, a fascinating, breezy, capable young creature who was Dr. Brooks to many, and Peggy to very few. And there were one or two others, like Nina Grey and Jeanne Delauny and Anne Randolph.

But of men there would have been no limit and no end had Athalie not learned very early in the game how to check them gently but firmly; how to test, pick, discriminate, sift, winnow, and choose those to be admitted to her rooms after the hours of business had ended.

Of these the standards differed, so that she herself scarcely knew why such and such a one had been chosen--men, for instance, like Cecil Reeve and Arthur Ensart--perhaps even such a man as James Allys, 3rd.

Captain Dane, of course, had been a foregone conclusion, and John Lyndhurst was logical enough; also W. Grismer, and the jaunty, obese Mr. Welter, known in sporting circles as Helter Skelter Welter, and more briefly and profanely as Hel. His running mate, Harry Ferris had been included. And there was a number of others privileged to drift into the rooms of Athalie Greensleeve when she chose to be at home to anybody.

From Clive she heard nothing: and she wrote to him no more. Of him she did hear from time to time--mere sc.r.a.ps of conversation caught, a word or two volunteered, some careless reference, perhaps, perhaps some sc.r.a.p of intentional information or some comment deliberate if not a trifle malicious.

But to all who mentioned him in her presence she turned a serene face and unclouded eyes. On the surface she was not to be read concerning what she thought of Clive Bailey--if indeed she thought about him at all.

Meanwhile he had married Winifred Stuart in London, where, it appeared, they had taken a house for the season. All sorts of honourables and notables and n.o.bles as well as the resident and visiting specimens of a free and sovereign people had been bidden to the wedding. And had joyously repaired thither--the bride being fabulously wealthy and duly presented at Court.

The American Amba.s.sador was there with the entire staff of the Emba.s.sy; also a king in exile, several famished but receptive dukes and counts and various warriors out of jobs--all magnetised by the subtle radiations from the world's most powerful loadstone, money.

They said that Mrs. Bailey, Sr., was very beautiful and impressive in a gown that hypnotised the peeresses--or infuriated them--n.o.body seemed to know exactly which.

Cecil Reeve, lounging on the balcony by the open window one May evening, said to Hargrave--and probably really unconscious that Athalie could hear him if she cared to: "Well, he got her all right--or rather his mother got her. When he wakes up he'll be sick enough of her millions."

Hargrave said: "She's a cold-blooded little proposition. I've known Winifred Stuart all my life, and I never knew her to have any impulse except a fishy one."

"Cold as a cod," nodded Cecil. "Merry times ahead for Clive."

And on another occasion, later in the summer, somebody said in the cool dusk of the room:

"It's true that the Bailey Juniors are living permanently in England.

I saw Clive in Scotland when I was fis.h.i.+ng out Banff way. He says they're remaining abroad indefinitely."

Some man's voice asked how Clive was looking.