"And Mrs. Edson too, who was with us, I suppose," I hurried to say: for I didn't wish the boy to think that he had anything to fear from me. I saw from his manner, however, when we happened to meet, that he was worried, and to give him the chance which I didn't want for myself, I began to avoid Helen.
This course wasn't easy to steer, I found, while duty kept me often at the aviation grounds. She sent me notes. I had to answer them. She asked me to lend her books. I couldn't refuse. At last she wrote a letter, confessing that she had got into trouble about money. Her salary "wasn't bad, considering"; but she hadn't understood American prices. She'd been stupid enough to run into debt. Would I, as her countryman, help her out of just one scrape, and she wouldn't get into another? Of course, Mr. Bridges would be glad to do it, but she didn't want to take a favour from him. I was "different."
I sent her a hundred dollars, the sum she specified, but in writing her thanks, she "chaffed" me for not making out a cheque. "I believe you think me capable of trying to get a hold on you," she wrote. Naturally I didn't bother to reply to that taunt, but kept out of Helen's way more persistently than before, until one afternoon Mrs. Edson buttonholed me. I happened to have seen Helen on her way to New York, so I was venturing to lunch at the hotel.
"I'm worried about Miss Hartland, Lord John," she began. "A sweet girl, but I'm afraid she's being silly! Do you know what she goes to New York for so often?"
"I didn't know she did go often," I said.
"Well, she does. She's taking lessons in hypnotism or something and I believe she's paying a lot of money. A circular came to her about a course of lectures, claiming that the will could be strengthened, and any object in life accomplished. That caught poor Helen. She simply ate up the lectures, and became a pupil of the man who gave them. That's why her salary's gone as soon as she gets it—and sooner! Poor child, I'm sorry. The thing she ought to want, she won't take. The thing she does want she can't have, if she spends every cent trying to gain 'hypnotic power.'"
"What does she so violently want, if it's permitted to ask?" I inquired.
Mrs. Edson looked at me in a queer, sidewise way. "You'd only be cross if I told you," she said. So instead of repeating the question, I asked another. "Who is the professor of hypnotism who gives Miss Hartland lessons?"
"I can't remember," the landlady replied. "I saw the circular, but that was some time ago, and I've forgotten. Now, the child won't talk about him."
The thought of Rameses sprang into my mind. I recalled the mystery of Helen's summons to America. Could it be possible that Doctor Rameses had wanted a "cat's-paw" for some new chestnuts to be pulled out of the fire? What would Helen Hartland's poor little paw avail him for that work? I went on wondering. But the ways of the Egyptian were past finding out—or had been, up to date. It was within the bounds of possibility that thinking to compromise me, he had sought in England a girl—preferably an actress—whom I had known; within the same bounds that he might have induced her to cross the sea, in the hope that, once on this side, we might play his game. So far-fetched an idea would never have come into my head, had not Mrs. Edson mentioned the circular, and the professor of hypnotism. But once in, I couldn't get it out. I determined to take the next chance to catechise Helen.