Part 11 (2/2)
These various circles moved afar from isms. They prided themselves on their balance, their commonsense, their fund of comparative ideas.
True, some of the women had embraced Christian Science more or less openly, but they did not esteem it necessary to proselyte. Political creeds were but jocularly discussed. To advocate any special belief was to p.r.i.c.k one's self down a bore, although some of those in the strictly university circles did at times become troublesomely learned in conversation. However, this was esteemed ”old fogy-ism” by the younger men like Serviss, who alluded to ”the days of the professional monologue” with smiling contempt. Conversation with them was a means of diversion, not of enlightenment as to any special subject.
Into these circles a thorough-going spiritualist never penetrated. To tell the truth, these modernists did not permit the hereafter to awe or affright them. Some of them went to church, but they did so calmly, patiently, as to a decorous function, and some may at times have prayed, through the medium of printed supplication, but, generally speaking, they had reached a sort of philosophic indifference as to the one-time burning question of heaven or h.e.l.l. So far from acquiescing in the dictum that morality was but filthy rags, they esteemed good deeds and clean thoughts higher than any religion whatsoever.
Mrs. Rice expressed the convictions of many of her a.s.sociates by saying, humorously: ”No, I don't want to be saved. I'm not lost. I don't know as I care for immortality. Forever is a long time--I might get bored; anyhow, the future must take care of itself.”
In all the drawing-rooms of his friends, Morton Serviss was a most welcome guest. His frank, boyish ways, his careless dress, his freedom from cant, his essential good-fellows.h.i.+p deceived the most of his acquaintances into thinking him a mere dabbler in science, a man of wealth amusing himself; but Weissmann, who was qualified to know, said: ”He has persistency, concentration, a keen mind, a clear eye, and a _voonderful_ physique.”
He belonged, moreover, to the men of imagination, not to those who write books or poems, but to those who tunnel mountains, build vast bridges, invent new motors, and play with electrical currents as if they were ribbons. The novelist basing himself on what he knows of human nature projects himself into the unknown, just as the scientist who stands on the discoveries of those before him feels out into the darkness for new stars, new forces. And yet as Clarke and his party indignantly declared, ”both novelist and scientist ignore the question most vital to us all--the question of the soul's survival after death”--ignore it till some loved one dies, then they, too, agonize in secret over the mystery for a s.p.a.ce, only to rise and go back to their work, concealing the conviction which their hour of anguish brought to them.
Perhaps it was not chance, but deep design, which had brought this vigorous young investigator face to face with a mystery crying out for solution--certainly it was not without craft that the unseen powers had baited their hook with the almost irresistible allurement of a young and ardent girl. If there is logic in the shadow, fate was on Viola's side.
II
NEWS OF VIOLA
One morning in late March, while Serviss was still at his morning's mail, Dr. Britt's card came in, bringing with it instant, vivid recollection of Colorow. The beauty of his days there had by no means faded from his mind, although he had succeeded in putting his romance in the background of his working brain, and had given up all thought of ever seeing Viola again.
He greeted Britt most cordially. ”So you turned up at last! How is the lung? Isn't this a raw time of the year for you?”
”Well, yes; but my father died a few days ago, and I had to come on, and being near I ran in to see how you and the 'bugs' were getting on.”
”Oh, we're thriving. Their ways are quite absorbing. How is your own 'farm'?”
”All in ruins. The fact is I've neglected the poor little brutes. I had no time for germs after I went off into the study of 'spooks.'”
”You don't tell me you've turned investigator of spirits! What have you discovered?”
”Not a thing. It's the most elusive problem I ever tackled. You remember the Lamberts?”
”Very well. I was about to ask about them.”
”They're here now.”
”Here! In New York?”
”Yes. They went to Boston last fall--Boston is a hot-bed of spookism, as you may know. They spent the winter there among the brethren, and have come on here for a change.”
”They'll get it. What is--the girl doing?”
”Spooking mainly. That's all her 'guides' will allow her to do. Clarke still dominates the household by the aid of the ghostly granddaddy--a grim old chap that. They hold regular 'seances' now.”
”You don't mean it!” Serviss grew graver yet of countenance. ”I had hoped they would spare her that humiliation. I haven't seen her name in the papers.”
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