Volume VI Part 4 (2/2)

He was sitting at the table, writing out some cabalistic wiggles that stood for bromide of pota.s.sium, when I remarked casually that it was strange how well I could always sleep in Colorado.

He laid down the pen with a sigh.

”A wonderful state--Colorado,” I observed.

”To me it's the land of memories,” he said. ”Sad, beautiful, irrevocable memories--try tea for breakfast--do you read Browning? Then you will remember that line: 'Oh, if I--' And I insist on your giving up that c.o.c.ktail before dinner.”

”Some very dear friends of mine were once in Colorado,” I said.

”Morristown people--the Van Coorts.”

”The Van Coorts!”

Doctor Jones sprang from his chair, his thin, handsome face flus.h.i.+ng with excitement.

”Do you mean to say that you know Eleanor Van Coort?” he gasped.

”All my life.”

He dropped back into the chair again and mumbled something about cigars.

I was only to have blank a day. In his perturbation I believe he limited me to a daily box. He was trying--and trying very badly--to conceal the emotions I had conjured up.

”They were talking about you only yesterday,” I went on. ”That is, if it _was_ you! A Pullman drawing-room--”

”And a mistake about the tickets,” he broke out. ”Yes, yes, it's they all right. Talking about me, did you say? Did Eleanor--I mean, did Miss Van Coort--express--?”

”She was wondering how she could find you,” I said. ”You see, they're busy getting up a house-party and she was running over her men. 'If I only knew where that dear Doctor Jones was,' she said, and then asked me, if by any possible chance--”

His fine blue eyes were glistening with all sorts of tender thoughts. It was really touching. And I was in love myself, you know.

”So she has remained unmarried!” he exclaimed softly. ”Unmarried--after all these years!”

”She's a very popular girl,” I said. ”She's had dozens of men at her feet--but an unfortunate attachment, something that seems to go back to about three years ago, has apparently determined her to stay out of the game!”

Doctor Jones dropped his head on his hands and murmured something that sounded like ”Eleanor, Eleanor!” Then he looked up with one of the most radiant smiles I ever saw on a man's face. ”I hope I'm not presuming on a very short acquaintance,” he said, ”but the fact is--why should I not tell you?--Miss Van Coort was the woman in my life!”

I explained to him that Freddy was the woman in mine.

Then you ought to have seen us fraternize!

In twenty minutes I had him almost convinced that Eleanor had loved him all these years. But he worried a lot about a Mr. Wise who had been on the same train, and a certain Colonel Hadow who had also paid Eleanor attention. Jones was a great fellow for wanting to be sure. I pooh-poohed them out of the way and gave him the open track. Then, indeed, the clouds rolled away. He beamed with joy. In his rich gush of friends.h.i.+p he recurred to the subject of my insomnia with a new-born enthusiasm. He subdivided all my symptoms. He dived again into my physical being. He consulted German authorities. I squirmed and lied and resisted all I could, but he said he owed me an eternal debt that could only be liquidated by an absolute cure. He wanted to tie me up and shoot me with an X-ray. He ordered me to wear white socks. He had a long, terrifying look at a drop of my blood. He jerked hairs out of my head to sample my nerve force. He said I was a baffling subject, but that he meant to make me well if it took the last shot in the scientific locker. And he wound up at last by refusing point-blank to be paid a cent!

I waltzed away on air to write an account of the whole affair to Freddy, and dictate a plan of operations. I was justified in feeling proud of myself. Most men would have tamely submitted to their fate instead of chasing up all the Joneses of Jonesville! Freddy sent me an early answer--a gay, happy, overflowing little note--telling me to try and engage Doctor Jones for a three-day house-party at Morristown. I was to telegraph when he could come, and was promised an official invitation from Mrs. Matthewman. (She was the aunt, you know, that they lived with--one of those old porcelain ladies with a lace cap and a rent-roll.) However, I could not do anything for two days, for we had reached a crisis in the labor troubles, and matters were approaching the breaking point. We were threatened with one of those ”sympathetic”

strikes that drive business men crazy. There was no question at issue between ourselves and our employes; but the thing ramified off somewhere to the sugar vacuum-boiler riveters' union. Finally the S.V.B.R.U. came to a settlement with their bosses, and peace was permitted to descend on Hodge & Westoby's.

I took immediate advantage of it to descend myself on Doctor Jones. He received me with open arms and an insomniacal outburst. He had been reading up; he had been seeing distinguished confreres; he had been mastering the subject to the last dot, and was panting to begin. I hated to dampen such friends.h.i.+p and ardor by telling him that I had completely recovered. Under the circ.u.mstances it seemed brutal--but I did it. The poor fellow tried to argue with me, but I insisted that I now slept like a top. It sounded horribly ungrateful. Here I was spurning the treasures of his mind, and almost insulting him with my disgusting good health. I swerved off to the house-party; Eleanor's delight, and so on; Mrs.

Matthewman's pending invitation; the hope that he might have an early date free--

<script>