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a good deal in the fourth dimension, Dr. Archie. It's that
you notice in their faces."
The doctor was interested. "The fourth dimension," he
repeated slowly; "and is that slang, too?"
"No,"--Fred shook his head,--"that's merely a
figure. I mean that life is not quite so personal here as it
is in your part of the world. People are more taken up by
hobbies, interests that are less subject to reverses than
their personal affairs. If you're interested in Thea's voice,
for instance, or in voices in general, that interest is just the
same, even if your mining stocks go down."
The doctor looked at him narrowly. "You think that's
about the principal difference between country people and
city people, don't you?"
Fred was a little disconcerted at being followed up so
resolutely, and he attempted to dismiss it with a pleasantry.
"I've never thought much about it, doctor. But I should
say, on the spur of the moment, that that is one of the
principal differences between people anywhere. It's the
consolation of fellows like me who don't accomplish much.
The fourth dimension is not good for business, but we think
we have a better time."
Dr. Archie leaned back in his chair. His heavy shoulders
were contemplative. "And she," he said slowly; "should
you say that she is one of the kind you refer to?" He in-
clined his head toward the shimmer of the pale-green dress
beside him. Thea was leaning, just then, over the balcony
rail, her head in the light from the chandeliers below.
"Never, never!" Fred protested. "She's as hard-headed
as the worst of you--with a difference."
The doctor sighed. "Yes, with a difference; something
that makes a good many revolutions to the second. When
she was little I used to feel her head to try to locate it."
Fred laughed. "Did you, though? So you were on the
track of it? Oh, it's there! We can't get round it, miss,"
as Thea looked back inquiringly. "Dr. Archie, there's a
fellow townsman of yours I feel a real kinship for." He
pressed a cigar upon Dr. Archie and struck a match for him.
"Tell me about Spanish Johnny."
The doctor smiled benignantly through the first waves
of smoke. "Well, Johnny's an old patient of mine, and he's
an old admirer of Thea's. She was born a cosmopolitan,
and I expect she learned a good deal from Johnny when she
used to run away and go to Mexican Town. We thought
it a queer freak then."
The doctor launched into a long story, in which he was
often eagerly interrupted or joyously confirmed by Thea,
who was drinking her coffee and forcing open the petals of
the roses with an ardent and rather rude hand. Fred set-
tled down into enjoying his comprehension of his guests.
Thea, watching Dr. Archie and interested in his presenta-
tion, was unconsciously impersonating her suave, gold-
tinted friend. It was delightful to see her so radiant and
responsive again. She had kept her promise about looking
her best; when one could so easily get together the colors
of an apple branch in early spring, that was not hard to do.
Even Dr. Archie felt, each time he looked at her, a fresh
consciousness. He recognized the fine texture of her
mother's skin, with the difference that, when she reached
across the table to give him a bunch of grapes, her arm was
not only white, but somehow a little dazzling. She seemed
to him taller, and freer in all her movements. She had now
a way of taking a deep breath when she was interested, that
made her seem very strong, somehow, and brought her
at one quite overpoweringly. If he seemed shy, it was not
that he was intimidated by her worldly clothes, but that
her greater positiveness, her whole augmented self, made
him feel that his accustomed manner toward her was
inadequate.
Fred, on his part, was reflecting that the awkward posi-
tion in which he had placed her would not confine or chafe
her long. She looked about at other people, at other women,
curiously. She was not quite sure of herself, but she was not
in the least afraid or apologetic. She seemed to sit there on
the edge, emerging from one world into another, taking her
bearings, getting an idea of the concerted movement about
her, but with absolute self-confidence. So far from shrink-
ing, she expanded. The mere kindly effort to please Dr.
Archie was enough to bring her out.
There was much talk of aurae at that time, and Fred
mused that every beautiful, every compellingly beautiful
woman, had an aura, whether other people did or no. There
was, certainly, about the woman he had brought up from
Mexico, such an emanation. She existed in more space
than she occupied by measurement. The enveloping air
about her head and shoulders was subsidized--was more
moving than she herself, for in it lived the awakenings, all
the first sweetness that life kills in people. One felt in her
such a wealth of JUGENDZEIT, all those flowers of the mind
and the blood that bloom and perish by the myriad in the
few exhaustless years when the imagination first kindles. It
was in watching her as she emerged like this, in being near
and not too near, that one got, for a moment, so much that
one had lost; among other legendary things the legendary
theme of the absolutely magical power of a beautiful woman.
After they had left Thea at her hotel, Dr. Archie admit-
ted to Fred, as they walked up Broadway through the rap-
idly chilling air, that once before he had seen their young
friend flash up into a more potent self, but in a darker mood.
It was in his office one night, when she was at home the
summer before last. "And then I got the idea," he added
simply, "that she would not live like other people: that,
for better or worse, she had uncommon gifts."
"Oh, we'll see that it's for better, you and I," Fred
reassured him. "Won't you come up to my hotel with me?
I think we ought to have a long talk."
"Yes, indeed," said Dr. Archie gratefully; "I think we
ought."
V
THEA was to sail on Tuesday, at noon, and on Saturday
Fred Ottenburg arranged for her passage, while she
and Dr. Archie went shopping. With rugs and sea-clothes
she was already provided; Fred had got everything of that
sort she needed for the voyage up from Vera Cruz. On
Sunday afternoon Thea went to see the Harsanyis. When
she returned to her hotel, she found a note from Ottenburg,
saying that he had called and would come again to-morrow.
On Monday morning, while she was at breakfast, Fred
came in. She knew by his hurried, distracted air as he
entered the dining-room that something had gone wrong.
He had just got a telegram from home. His mother had
been thrown from her carriage and hurt; a concussion of
some sort, and she was unconscious. He was leaving for
St. Louis that night on the eleven o'clock train. He had a
great deal to attend to during the day. He would come that
evening, if he might, and stay with her until train time,
while she was doing her packing. Scarcely waiting for her
consent, he hurried away.
All day Thea was somewhat cast down. She was sorry
for Fred, and she missed the feeling that she was the one
person in his mind. He had scarcely looked at her when
they exchanged words at the breakfast-table. She felt as
if she were set aside, and she did not seem so important
even to herself as she had yesterday. Certainly, she
reflected, it was high time that she began to take care of
herself again. Dr. Archie came for dinner, but she sent him
away early, telling him that she would be ready to go to
the boat with him at half-past ten the next morning. When
she went upstairs, she looked gloomily at the open trunk
in her sitting-room, and at the trays piled on the sofa. She
stood at the window and watched a quiet snowstorm
spending itself over the city. More than anything else,
falling snow always made her think of Moonstone; of the
Kohlers' garden, of Thor's sled, of dressing by lamplight
and starting off to school before the paths were broken.
When Fred came, he looked tired, and he took her hand
almost without seeing her.
"I'm so sorry, Fred. Have you had any more word?"
"She was still unconscious at four this afternoon. It
doesn't look very encouraging." He approached the fire
and warmed his hands. He seemed to have contracted, and
he had not at all his habitual ease of manner. "Poor
mother!" he exclaimed; "nothing like this should have
happened to her. She has so much pride of person. She's
not at all an old woman, you know. She's never got beyond
vigorous and rather dashing middle age." He turned
abruptly to Thea and for the first time really looked at her.
"How badly things come out! She'd have liked you for a
daughter-in-law. Oh, you'd have fought like the devil,
but you'd have respected each other." He sank into a
chair and thrust his feet out to the fire. "Still," he went
on thoughtfully, seeming to address the ceiling, "it might
have been bad for you. Our big German houses, our good
German cooking--you might have got lost in the uphol-
stery. That substantial comfort might take the temper out
of you, dull your edge. Yes," he sighed, "I guess you were
meant for the jolt of the breakers."
"I guess I'll get plenty of jolt," Thea murmured, turn-
ing to her trunk.
"I'm rather glad I'm not staying over until to-morrow,"
Fred reflected. "I think it's easier for me to glide out like
this. I feel now as if everything were rather casual, any-
how. A thing like that dulls one's feelings."
Thea, standing by her trunk, made no reply. Presently
he shook himself and rose. "Want me to put those trays
in for you?"
"No, thank you. I'm not ready for them yet."
Fred strolled over to the sofa, lifted a scarf from one of
the trays and stood abstractedly drawing it through his
fingers. "You've been so kind these last few days, Thea,
that I began to hope you might soften a little; that you
might ask me to come over and see you this summer."
"If you thought that, you were mistaken," she said
slowly. "I've hardened, if anything. But I shan't carry
any grudge away with me, if you mean that."
He dropped the scarf. "And there's nothing--nothing
at all you'll let me do?"
"Yes, there is one thing, and it's a good deal to ask. If I
get knocked out, or never get on, I'd like you to see that
Dr. Archie gets his money back. I'm taking three thousand
dollars of his."
"Why, of course I shall. You may dismiss that from
your mind. How fussy you are about money, Thea. You
make such a point of it." He turned sharply and walked
to the windows.
Thea sat down in the chair he had quitted. "It's only
poor people who feel that way about money, and who are
really honest," she said gravely. "Sometimes I think that
to be really honest, you must have been so poor that you've
been tempted to steal."
"To what?"
"To steal. I used to be, when I first went to Chicago
and saw all the things in the big stores there. Never any-
thing big, but little things, the kind I'd never seen before
and could never afford. I did take something once, before
I knew it."
Fred came toward her. For the first time she had his
whole attention, in the degree to which she was accustomed
to having it. "Did you? What was it?" he asked with
interest.
"A sachet. A little blue silk bag of orris-root powder.
There was a whole counterful of them, marked down to
fifty cents. I'd never seen any before, and they seemed
irresistible. I took one up and wandered about the store
with it. Nobody seemed to notice...
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