Her Chicago good nature asserted itself. “Well, you do just talk to beat the band”—politely—“as we girls say at the Yards. Now what was that you were just saying about birds and flies?”
“I was trying to say this”—gasped the Mystic huskily, as he reached out, touching the border of her belt ribbon to hold her attention. “I was saying that you must be mine. Listen,—this secret shall not be mine alone, but ours henceforth. Together in aeons past you and I, sweet creature, proceeded from primordial One-Substance. From the remote to the now, from the now to the ultimate we have been and shall be one. As we hereinbefore evolved ourselves from the potentialities of the duplex soul, so shall we together involve ourselves hereinafter in the blessedness of nothing. Though you have not reached my own karmic height, you may Aspire. Though you do not cognize the immutable from my own lofty perch of perfect attainment, I will wait, calmly wait, until you by long self-unfoldment shall rise to the state of being of ME.”
“O, come off!”—ejaculated the fair girl, at last losing patience. “You make me tired. I say, let’s get a move”—and emphasizing her speech with a yawn, she gathered up a handful of back draperies and turned away.
“Alas, and alas,”—mournfully murmured the mystic. “It is as I was warned by the Director of our division. You have not as yet cognized your higher self, hence have not perceived ME. You have not as yet sensed this fair fleshly veil as but the vehicle of your higher principles and quite separate from your ultimate ego. All the same, you’re mine. I will not repudiate you. You are the feminine principle co-ordinating with myself, and though you may ignore this only opportunity, yet I will bide your awakening and your renunciation of error. Though you may defeat your own illumination by renouncing ME, yet will I continue to walk the fifty-seven Paths-of-Self and wait. It rests with you, girl, to fix the happy day now, or to postpone it through tedious incarnations. It is for you to say now whether you will fly with me to India and share with me in the coming centuries in the ecstatic contemplation of the One-Horned-Hair of the Sacred-Rabbit. Are you ready to aspire for aeons? Are you prepared to meditate for cycles upon the oneness of substance and the Be-Ness of Being; attaining thereby to the ultimate exaltation of Nirvanic vacuity? Speak, bright one, sweet spirit of Chicago, say,—I WILL. Delay not. Your consent I implore. Miss Sheets, Imogene, what is your answer?”
“R—a—a—t—,” but the maiden checked herself with a little scream, for unheard and unperceived came Nemesis.
Bill Vanderhook stood face to face with the importunate Mystic and the ruffled Typewriter.
And the druggist, fresh, rosy and sleek, from the best of barbers and haberdashers, loomed up handsomely by contrast with the now weary, wilted and woebegone Lonnie.
“Imogene Sheets”—and the words cut the air like a whip cracker,—“and I also say that the day and the hour is now. There’s to be no more fooling. Business is business. Here’s where we change the score. Here’s where we decide who’s captain of this game. I’m up to all sorts of games, and I’m going to know now which of us rooters is IT. I’m a kicker and a catcher and a shortstop and a batter all in one.”
Miss Sheets turned deadly pale as Bill continued: “Now, which is it, the Yogy cave with him in India, or the two-story—basement—brown stone—swell front—modern conveniences and mansard roof with Bill Vanderhook in Kankakee? Speak, girl.”
“The—the—man—sar-r-d roof.” The words came faintly from the trembling lips of the agitated girl. But the rivals caught the import. Had they been inaudible the rejected lover would have sensed the thought and perceived her answer.