The Professor's House Page 3

was becoming a little grey. The tints of her face and hair and lashes

  were so soft that one did not realize, on first meeting her, how very

  definitely and decidedly her features were cut, under the smiling

  infusion of colour. When she was annoyed or tired, the lines became

  severe. Rosamond, the elder daughter, resembled her mother in feature,

  though her face was heavier.

  Her colouring was altogether different; dusky black hair, deep dark

  eyes, a soft white skin with rich brunette red in her cheeks and lips.

  Nearly everyone considered Rosamond brilliantly beautiful. Her father,

  though he was very proud of her, demurred from the general opinion. He

  thought her too tall, with a rather awkward carriage. She stooped a

  trifle, and was wide in the hips and shoulders. She had, he sometimes

  remarked to her mother, exactly the wide femur and flat shoulder-blade

  of his old slab-sided Kanuck grandfather. For a tree-hewer they were an

  asset. But St. Peter was very critical. Most people saw only Rosamond's

  smooth black head and white throat, and the red of her curved lips that

  was like the duskiness of dark, heavy-scented roses.

  Kathleen, the younger daughter, looked even younger than she was--had

  the slender, undeveloped figure then very much in vogue. She was pale,

  with light hazel eyes, and her hair was hazel-coloured with distinctly

  green glints to it. To her father there was something very charming in

  the curious shadows her wide cheekbones cast over her cheeks, and in the

  spirited tilt of her head. Her figure in profile, he used to tell her,

  looked just like an interrogation point.

  Mrs. St. Peter frankly liked having a son-in-law who could tot up

  acquaintances with Sir Edgar from the Soudan to Alaska. Scott, she saw,

  was going to be sulky because Sir Edgar and Marsellus were talking about

  things beyond his little circle of interests. She made no effort to draw

  him into the conversation, but let him prowl like a restless leopard

  among the books. The Professor was amiable, but quiet. When the second

  maid came to the door and signalled that dinner was ready--dinner was

  signalled, not announced--Mrs. St. Peter took Sir Edgar and guided him

  to his seat at her right, while the others found their usual places.

  After they had finished the soup, she had some difficulty in summoning

  the little maid to take away the plates, and explained to her guest that

  the electric bell, under the table, wasn't connected as yet--they had

  been in the new house less than a week, and the trials of building were

  not over.

  "Oh? Then if I had happened along a fortnight ago I shouldn't have found

  you here? But it must be very interesting, building you own house and

  arranging it as you like," he responded.

  Marsellus, silenced during the soup, came in with a warm smile and a

  slight shrug of the shoulders. "Building is the word with us, Sir Edgar,

  my--oh, isn't it! My wife and I are in the throes of it. We are building

  a country house, rather an ambitious affair, out on the wooded shores of

  Lake Michigan. Perhaps you would like to run out in my car and see it?

  What are your engagements for to-morrow? I can take you out in half an

  hour, and we can lunch at the Country Club. We have a magnificent site;

  primeval forest behind us and the lake in front, with our own beach--my

  father-in-law, you must know, is a formidable swimmer. We've been

  singularly fortunate in architect,--a young Norwegian, trained in Paris.

  He's doing us a Norwegian manor house, very harmonious with its setting,

  just the right thing for rugged pine woods and high headlands."

  Sir Edgar seemed most willing to make this excursion, and allowed

  Marsellus to fix an hour, greatly to the surprise of McGregor, whose

  look at his wife implied that he entertained serious doubts whether this

  baronet with walrus moustaches amounted to much after all.

  The engagement made, Louie turned to Mrs. St. Peter. "And won't you come

  too, Dearest? You haven't been out since we got our wonderful

  wrought-iron door fittings from Chicago. We found just the right sort of

  hinge and latch, Sir Edgar, and had all the others copied from it. None

  of your Colonial glass knobs for us!"

  Mrs. St. Peter sighed. Scott and Kathleen had just glass-knobbed their

  new bungalow throughout, yet she knew Louie didn't mean to hurt their

  feelings--it was his heedless enthusiasm that made him often say

  untactful things.

  "We've been extremely fortunate in getting all the little things right,"

  Louie was gladly confiding to Sir Edgar. "There's really not a flaw in

  the conception. I can say that, because I'm a mere onlooker; the whole

  thing's been done by the Norwegian and my wife and Mrs. St. Peter. And,"

  he put his hand down affectionately upon Mrs. St. Peter's bare arm,

  "and we've named our place! I've already ordered the house stationary.

  No, Rosamond, I won't keep our little secret any longer. It will please

  your father, as well as your mother. We call our place 'Outland,' Sir

  Edgar."

  He dropped the announcement and drew back. His mother-in-law rose to

  it--Spilling could scarcely be expected to understand.

  "How splendid, Louie! A real inspiration."

  "Yes, isn't it? I knew that would go to your hearts." The Professor had

  expressed his emotion only by lifting his heavy, sharply uptwisted

  eyebrow.

  "Let me explain, Sir Edgar," Marsellus went on eagerly. "We

  have named our place for Tom Outland, a brilliant young American

  scientist and inventor, who was killed in Flanders, fighting with the

  Foreign Legion, the second year of the war, when he was barely thirty

  years of age. Before he dashed off to the front, this youngster had

  discovered the principle of the Outland vacuum, worked out the

  construction of the bulkheaded vacuum that is revolutionizing aviation.

  He had not only invented it, but, curiously enough for such a hot-headed

  fellow, had taken pains to protect it. He had no time to communicate his

  discovery or to commercialize it--simply bolted to the front and left

  the most important discovery of his time to take care of itself."

  Sir Edgar, fork arrested, looked a trifle dazed. "Am I to understand

  that you are referring to the inventor of the Outland vacuum?"

  Louie was delighted. "Exactly that! Of course you would know all about

  it. My wife was young Outland's fianc�e--is virtually his widow. Before

  he went to France he made a will in her favour; he had no living

  relatives, indeed. Toward the close of the war we began to sense the

  importance of what Outland had been doing in his laboratory--I am an

  electrical engineer by profession. We called in the assistance of

  experts and got the idea over from the laboratory to the trade. The

  monetary returns have been and are, of course, large."

  While Louie paused long enough to have some intercourse with the roast

  before it was taken away, Sir Edgar remarked that he himself had been in

  the Air Service during the war, in the construction department, and that

  it was most extraordinary to come thus by chance upon the genesis of the

  Outland vacuu
m.

  "You see," Louie told him, "Outland got nothing out of it but death and

  glory. Naturally, we feel terribly indebted. We feel it's our first duty

  in life to use that money as he would have wished--we've endowed

  scholarships in his own university here, and that sort of thing. But our

  house we want to have as a sort of memorial to him. We are going to

  transfer his laboratory there, if the university will permit,--all the

  apparatus he worked with. We have a room for his library and pictures.

  When his brother scientists come to Hamilton to look him up, to get

  information about him, as they are doing now already, at Outland they

  will find his books and instruments, all the sources of his

  inspiration."

  "Even Rosamond," murmured McGregor, his eyes upon his cool green salad.

  He was struggling with a desire to shout to the Britisher that Marsellus

  had never so much as seen Tom Outland, while he, McGregor, had been his

  classmate and friend.

  Sir Edgar was as much interested as he was mystified. He had come here

  to talk about manuscripts shut up in certain mouldering monasteries in

  Spain, but he had almost forgotten them in the turn the conversation had

  taken. He was genuinely interested in aviation and all its problems. He

  asked few questions, and his comments were almost entirely limited to

  the single exclamation, "Oh!" But this, from his lips, could mean a

  great many things; indifference, sharp interrogation, sympathetic

  interest, the nervousness of a modest man on hearing disclosures of a

  delicately personal nature. McGregor, before the others had finished

  dessert, drew a big cigar from his pocket and lit it at one of the table

  candles, as the horridest thing he could think of to do.

  When they left the dining-room, St. Peter, who had scarcely spoken

  during dinner, took Sir Edgar's arm and said to his wife: "If you will

  excuse us, my dear, we have some technical matters to discuss." Leading

  his guest into the library, he shut the door.

  Marsellus looked distinctly disappointed. He stood gazing wistfully

  after them, like a little boy told to go to bed. Louie's eyes were

  vividly blue, like hot sapphires, but the rest of his face had little

  colour--he was a rather mackerel-tinted man. Only his eyes, and his

  quick, impetuous movements, gave out the zest for life with which he was

  always bubbling. There was nothing Semitic about his countenance except

  his nose--that took the lead. It was not at all an unpleasing feature,

  but it grew out of his face with masterful strength, well-rooted, like a

  vigorous oak-tree growing out of a hill-side.

  Mrs. St. Peter, always concerned for Louie, asked him to come and look

  at the new rug in her bedroom. This revived him; he took her arm, and

  they went upstairs together.

  McGregor was left with the two sisters. "Outland, outlandish!" he

  muttered, while he fumbled about for an ashtray. Rosamond pretended not

  to hear him, but the dusky red on her cheeks crept a little farther

  toward her ears.

  "Remember, we are leaving early, Scott," said Kathleen. "You have to

  finish your editorial to-night."

  "Surely you don't make him work at night, too?" Rosamond asked. "Doesn't

  he have to rest his brain sometimes? Humour is always better if it's

  spontaneous."

  "Oh, that's the trouble with me," Scott assured her. "Unless I keep my

  nose to the grindstone, I'm too damned spontaneous and tell the truth,

  and the public won't stand for it. It's not an editorial I have to

  finish, it's the daily prose poem I do for the syndicate, for which I

  get twenty-five beans. This is the motif:

  "'When your pocket is under-moneyed and your fancy is over-girled, you'll

  have to admit while you're cursing it, it's a mighty darned good old

  world.' Bang, bang!"

  He threw his cigar-end savagely into the fireplace. He knew that

  Rosamond detested his editorials and his jingles. She had fastidious

  taste in literature, like her mother--though he didn't think she had

  half the general intelligence of his wife. She also, now that she was

  Tom Outland's heir, detested to hear sums of money mentioned, especially

  small sums.

  After the good-nights were said, and they were outside the front door,

  McGregor seized his wife's elbow and rushed her down the walk to the

  gate where his Ford was parked, breaking out in her ear as they ran:

  "Now what the hell is a virtual widow? Does he mean a virtuous widow, or

  the reverseous? Bang, bang!"

  Chapter 3

  St. Peter awoke the next morning with the wish that he could be

  transported on his mattress from the new house to the old. But it was

  Sunday, and on that day his wife always breakfasted with him. There was

  no way out; they would meet at compt.

  When he reached the dining-room Lillian was already at the table, behind

  the percolator. "Good morning, Godfrey. I hope you had a good night."

  Her tone just faintly implied that he hadn't deserved one.

  "Excellent. And you?"

  "I had a good conscience." She smiled ruefully at him. "How can you let

  yourself be ungracious in your own house?"

  "Oh, dear! And I went to sleep happy in the belief that I hadn't said

  anything amiss the whole evening."

  "Nor anything aright, that I heard. Your disapproving silence can kill

  the life of any company."

  "It didn't seem to last night. You're entirely wrong about Marsellus. He

  doesn't notice."

  "He's too polite to take notice, but he feels it. He's very sensitive,

  under a well-schooled impersonal manner."

  St. Peter laughed. "Nonsense, Lillian!" If he were, he couldn't pick up

  a dinner party and walk off with it, as he almost always does. I don't

  mind when it's our dinner, but I hate seeing him do it in other people's

  houses."

  "Be fair, Godfrey. You know that if you'd once begun to talk about your

  work in Spain, Louie would have followed it up with enthusiasm. Nobody

  is prouder of you than he."

  "That's why I kept quiet. Support can be too able--certainly too

  fluent."

  "There you are; the dog in the manger! You won't let him discuss your

  affairs, and you are annoyed when he talks about his own."

  "I admit I can't bear it when he talks about Outland as his affair. (I

  mean Tom, of course, not their confounded place!) This calling it after

  him passes my comprehension. And Rosamond's standing for it! It's brazen

  impudence."

  Mrs. St. Peter frowned pensively. "I knew you wouldn't like it, but they

  were so pleased about it, and their motives are so generous--"

  "Hang it, Outland doesn't need their generosity! They've got everything

  he ought to have had, and the least they can do is to be quiet about it,

  and not convert his very bones into a personal asset. It all comes down

  to this, my dear: one likes the florid style, or one doesn't. You

  yourself used not to like it. And will you give me some more coffee,

  please?"

  She refilled his cup and handed it across the table. "Nice hands," he

  murmured, looking critically at them as he took it, "always such n
ice

  hands."

  "Thank you. I dislike floridity when it is beaten up to cover the lack

  of something, to take the place of something. I never disliked it when

  it came from exuberance. Then it isn't floridness, it's merely strong

  colour."

  "Very well; some people don't care for strong colour. It fatigues them."

  He folded his napkin. "Now I must be off to my desk."

  "Not quite yet. You never have time to talk to me. Just when did it

  begin, Godfrey, in the history of manners--that convention that if a man

  were pleased with his wife or his house or his success, he shouldn't say

  so, frankly?" Mrs. St. Peter spoke thoughtfully, as if she had

  considered this matter before.

  "Oh, it goes back a long way. I rather think it began in the Age of

  Chivalry--King Arthur's knights. Whoever it was lived in that time, some

  feeling grew up that a man should do fine deeds and not speak of them,

  and that he shouldn't speak the name of his lady, but sing of her as a

  Phyllis or a Nicolette. It's a nice idea, reserve about one's deepest

  feelings: keeps them fresh."

  "The Oriental peoples didn't have an Age of Chivalry. They didn't need

  one," Lillian observed. "And this reserve--it becomes in itself

  ostentatious, a vain-glorious vanity."

  "Oh, my dear, all is vanity! I don't dispute that. Now I must really go,

  and I wish I could play the game as well as you do. I have no enthusiasm

  for being a father-in-law. It's you who keep the ball rolling. I fully

  appreciate that."

  "Perhaps," mused his wife, as he rose, "it's because you didn't get the

  son-in-law you wanted. And yet he was highly coloured, too."

  The Professor made no reply to this. Lillian had been fiercely jealous

  of Tom Outland. As he left the house, he was reflecting that people who

  are intensely in love when they marry, and who go on being in love,

  always meet with something which suddenly or gradually makes a

  difference. Sometimes it is the children, or the grubbiness of being

  poor, sometimes a second infatuation. In their own case it had been,

  curiously enough, his pupil, Tom Outland.

  St. Peter had met his wife in Paris, when he was but twenty-four, and

  studying for his doctorate. She too was studying there. French people

  thought her an English girl because of her gold hair and fair

  complexion. With her really radiant charm, she had a very interesting

  mind--but it was quite wrong to call it mind, the connotation was false.

  What she had was a richly endowed nature that responded strongly to life

  and art, and very vehement likes and dislikes which were often quite out

  of all proportion to the trivial object or person that aroused them.

  Before his marriage, and for years afterward, Lillian's prejudices, her

  divinations about people and art (always instinctive and unexplained,

  but nearly always right), were the most interesting things in St. Peters

  life. When he accepted almost the first position offered him, in order

  to marry at once, and came to take the chair of European history at

  Hamilton, he was thrown upon his wife for mental companionship. Most of

  his colleagues were much older than he, but they were not his equals

  either in scholarship or in experience of the world. The only other man

  in the faculty who was carrying on important research work was Doctor

  Crane, the professor of physics. St. Peter saw a good deal of him,

  though outside his specialty he was uninteresting--a narrow-minded man,

  and painfully unattractive. Years ago Crane had begun to suffer from a

  malady which in time proved incurable, and which now sent him up for an

  operation periodically. St. Peter had had no friend in Hamilton of whom

  Lillian could possibly be jealous until Tom Outland came along, so well

  fitted by nature and early environment to help him with his work on the