“You are entirely wrong, Arabella, as usual. Jack never thought of Miss Lucy in that way; besides he and Burton are exceedingly friendly; can’t you make it convenient to visit your friends in Bedford and see Martha Dunlap? If anything be wrong with Jack, and I can help him, I shall be glad to do so. The mother may be more communicative than the son.”
“I will surely make the attempt to learn if anything be wrong, and gladly, too; I have always loved that boy Jack, and if he be in trouble I want you to help him all in your power, David.” The little old maid’s face flushed in the earnestness of the expression.
“Burton is still an unsolved problem to me,” and in saying the words Chapman’s jaws moved with a kind of snap, like a steel trap, while his eyes had the glitter of a serpent’s in them as he continued, “for years I have observed him closely and I cannot make him out at all. I am baffled by sudden changes of mood in the man; at times he is reckless, gay, thoughtless, frivolous, and I sometimes think lacking in moral stamina; again he is dignified, kind, courteous, reserved and seems to possess the highest standard of morals.”
“I don’t suppose that he is unlike other men; they all have moods. You do yourself, David, and very unpleasant moods, too,” said Arabella with the proverbial sourness of the typical New England spinster.
“Well, I may have moods, as you say, Arabella, but I don’t break out suddenly in a kind of frenzy of gaiety, sing and shout like a street Arab and then as quickly relapse into a superlatively dead calm of dignity and the irreproachable demeanor of a cultured gentleman.
“Now, David, you are allowing your dislike for Burton and your prejudice to overdraw the picture,” said prim Miss Arabella, as she daintily raised the teacup to her lips.
“I am not overdrawing the picture! I have seen and heard Burton when he thought that he was alone in the office, and I say that there is something queer about him; Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde of that old story are common characters in comparison. I knew his father well; he was an every-day sort of successful business man; whom his father married and what she was like I do not know, but I shall find out some day, as therein may lie the reading of the riddle,” retorted the brother vehemently.
“As Lucy Dunlap will be married to the man shortly and it will then be too late to do anything, no matter what is the result of your inquiry, it seems to me that you should cease to interest yourself in the matter,” chirped the bird-like voice of Miss Arabella.
“I can’t! I am absolutely fascinated by the study of this man’s strange, incongruous character; you remember what I told you when I returned from the only visit I ever made at Burton’s house. It was business that forced me to go there, and I have never forgotten what I saw and heard. I am haunted by something that I cannot define,” said Chapman, intensity of feeling causing his pale face and hairless head to assume the appearance of the bald-eagle or some other bird of prey.
“Think of it, Arabella! That summer day as I reached the door of his lonely dwelling, surrounded by that great garden, through the open windows there came crashing upon my ears such a wild, weird burst of song that it held me motionless where I stood. The sound of those musical screams of melodious frenzy, dying away in rythmic cadence until it seemed the soft summer breeze echoed the sweet harmony in its sighing. Words, music and expression now wild and unbridled as the shriek of a panther, and then low, gentle and soothing as the murmuring of a peaceful brook,” cried Chapman, becoming more intense as his musical memory reproduced the sounds he sought to describe.