"I vill pid you gute morgen, madame," he gasped, bowing again. "Ven you are much petter you vill zend for me, nicht war? Gute morgen!"
The gates of paradise were not to be opened to the professor this morning. On the contrary, Buttons, to my great relief, shut the front door behind the hurrying figure of the master-pianist, whose farewell glance of mingled astonishment and anger haunted me as I mounted the stairs.
"Suzanne!" I gasped, as I tottered into the room in which the girl awaited my return. "Suzanne, unbuckle this chain-armor, will you? It's breaking my heart. That's better, Suzanne. Oh, yes, I'm going to a ball, all right. Or, rather, you're going to bring me one at once."
CHAPTER VI.
VERSES AND VIOLETS.
Oh, my brothers blooming yonder, unto Him the ancient pray
That the hour of my transplanting He will not for long delay.
--From the Persian.
Relieved of Caroline's new ball-dress and having swallowed a cocktail, I was horrified to find a feeling of almost irresistible drowsiness stealing over me.
"Suzanne," I cried, "it is imperative that you keep me awake--even if is becomes necessary for you to do the skirt-dance to drive sleep from my eyelids. Not that I approved of these Oriental vagaries. Far from it, Suzanne. Though I may at present come under that head myself--but n'importe! You might assert, plausibly enough, that all this is Occidental. In a certain sense, I suppose that it is. But--Great Scott!"
I sank back in an easy-chair, startled by my own flippancy. The uncanny, inexplicable change that had made me what I was must not be revealed to Suzanne! Was it not enough that I had already driven my maid to the very verge of hysteria? And here I sat, talking recklessly to keep awake, and wearing my secret on my sleeve. Should Suzanne learn the truth from my punning tongue, her mind might become unhinged. In that case, another sudden transposition of identities might take place! Frightful possibility! I must not yield to the inclination creeping over me to indulge in a short nap. Perhaps Caroline's mail would revive me!
And just here I found myself confronted by a difficult problem in ethics. Despite the fact that my wife, with a heartless disregard of my wishes in the matter, had seized my letters, captured my business office, and assumed the full possession of all my business affairs, great and small, I could not forget that I still remained a gentleman. That Caroline had taken advantage of a psychical mischance to lay bare my inner life before her prying gaze could not excuse my surrender to a not unfounded but, perhaps, unwholesome curiosity.