A Court of Inquiry

by Grace S. Richmond

"Hear, hear!" applauded the Skeptic. "Bouquets for us all! Didn't I make an ideal host?"

"Your geniality was rivalled only by your tact," I declared.

They laughed together. Then the Skeptic sat up. He got up and strode over to the window and peered down. "Philo is taking a disgracefully long time to see the lady into her carriage," he observed. "I supposed he'd be back, to talk it over, as usual. The best of entertaining is the talking your guests over after they've gone—eh, Patty, girl? I don't seem to see the carriage. Perhaps he's gone home with her."

I laid my hand upon the door of my room. "I don't know why I am so sleepy," I apologized. "It only came over me since the door closed. But you must both be tired, too—and we have to be up in the morning at the usual hour."

Hepatica looked regretful, but she did not urge me to remain. I felt guilty at leaving a wide-awake host and hostess who wanted to talk things over, but really I—the perfume from my violets had been stealing away my nerves all the evening. I felt that I must take them off or grow faint at their odour, which seemed stronger as they drooped. I opened my door, turned to smile back at the pair, and shut it upon the inside. A moment later I was standing by my window which I had thrown wide, and the winter wind was lifting the violets which I had already forgotten to take off.

I heard the murmur of voices in the room outside, but it soon ceased. With no third person to praise the feast it was probably dull work congratulating each other on its success. By and by—I don't know when it happened—I heard the electric entrance-bell whirr in the tiny hall, and the Skeptic go to answer it. Then I heard voices again—men's voices. There was an interval. Then came a small knock at my door. I opened it to Hepatica.

"The Philosopher has come back," she whispered. I had not lit my light—I had closed my window and had been sitting by it, my elbows on the sill. Hepatica put out her hand and felt of me. "Oh, you haven't undressed," she said. "Then won't you go out and see him? He seemed so disappointed when Don said you had gone. It seems he's called out of town quite suddenly—he's afraid he may not be back before you go—he says he didn't have a chance to tell you about it this evening."

There was no help for it—I had no excuse. I did not dare to snap on my light and look at myself. I put my hands to my hair to feel if it was still snug; then I went.

Hepatica had mercifully turned off all the lights but the rose-shaded drop-light on the reading-table and two of the electric candles in the dining-room. It was a relief to feel the glare gone. The air from the window had freshened me. The Philosopher stood by the reading-table, upon which he had laid his hat. His overcoat was on a chair. Evidently he was not waiting merely to say good-bye and go.

The Skeptic, upon my entrance, immediately crossed the room to the door of the hall, upon which his own room opened. "You people will excuse me," he said. "I don't know why I am so sleepy." His tone was peculiar, and I recognized that he was quoting my words of a half-hour before. "It only came over me since the door closed on our guests. And I have to be up in the morning at the usual hour. But don't let that hurry you, Philo, old man." And he vanished.