“Not that I assume he is going to kill anybody,” pursued Miss Madden, with ostensible indifference, but fixing a glance of aroused attention upon her companion's face, “or that he has any criminal intentions whatever. He behaves very civilly indeed, and apparently his niece and nephew idolize him. He seems to be the soul of kindness to them. It may be that I'm altogether wrong about him—only I know I had the instinct of alarm when I caught that sort of dull glaze in his eye. I met an African explorer a year ago, or so, about whose expeditions dark stories were told, and he had precisely that kind of eye. Perhaps it was this that put it into my head—but I have a feeling that this Thorpe is an exceptional sort of man, who would have the capacity in him for terrible things, if the necessity arose for them.”
“I see what you mean,” the other repeated. She toyed with the bread-crumbs about her plate, and reflectively watched their manipulation into squares and triangles as she went on. “But may that not be merely the visible sign of an exceptionally strong and masterful character? And isn't it, after all, the result of circumstances whether such a character makes, as you put it, a hundred thousand dead men, or enriches a hundred thousand lives instead? We agree, let us say, that this Mr. Thorpe impresses us both as a powerful sort of personality. The question arises, How will he use his power? On that point, we look for evidence. You see a dull glaze in his eye, and you draw hostile conclusions from it. I reply that it may mean no more than that he is sleepy. But, on the other hand, I bring proofs that are actively in his favour. He is, as you say, idolized by the only two members of his family that we have seen—persons, moreover, who have been brought up in ways different to his own, and who would not start, therefore, with prejudices in his favour. Beyond that, I know of two cases in which he has behaved, or rather undertaken to behave, with really lavish generosity—and in neither case was there any claim upon him of a substantial nature. He seems to me, in fact, quite too much disposed to share his fortune with Tom, Dick, and Harry—anybody who excites his sympathy or gets into his affections.” Having said this much, Lady Cressage swept the crumbs aside and looked up. “So now,” she added, with a flushed smile, “since you love arguments so much, how do you answer that?”
Celia smiled back. “Oh, I don't answer it at all,” she said, and her voice carried a kind of quizzical implication. “Your proofs overwhelm me. I know nothing of him—and you know so much!”
Lady Cressage regarded her companion with a novel earnestness and directness of gaze. “I had a long, long talk with him—the afternoon we came down from Glion.”
Miss Madden rose, and going to the mantel lighted a cigarette. She did not return to the table, but after a brief pause came and took an easy-chair beside her friend, who turned to face her. “My dear Edith,” she said, with gravity, “I think you want to tell me about that talk—and so I beg you to do so. But if I'm mistaken—why then I beg you to do nothing of the kind.”
The other threw out her hands with a gesture of wearied impatience, and then clasped them upon her knee. “I seem not to know what I want! What is the good of talking about it? What is the good of anything?”
“Now—now!” Celia's assumption of a monitor's tone had reference, apparently, to something understood between the two, for Lady Cressage deferred to it, and even summoned the ghost of a smile.
“There is really nothing to tell,”—she faltered, hesitatingly—“that is, nothing happened. I don't know how to say it—the talk left my mind in a whirl. I couldn't tell you why. It was no particular thing that was said—it seemed to be more the things that I thought of while something else was being talked about—but the whole experience made a most tremendous impression upon me. I've tried to straighten it out in my own mind, but I can make nothing of it. That is what disturbs me, Celia. No man has ever confused me in this silly fashion before. Nothing could be more idiotic. I'm supposed to hold my own in conversation with people of—well, with people of a certain intellectual rank,—but this man, who is of hardly any intellectual rank at all, and who rambled on without any special aim that one could see—he reduced my brain to a sort of porridge. I said the most extraordinary things to him—babbling rubbish which a school-girl would be ashamed of. How is that to be accounted for? I try to reason it out, but I can't. Can you?”
“Nerves,” said Miss Madden, judicially.
“Oh, that is meaningless,” the other declared. “Anybody can say 'nerves.' Of course, all human thought and action is 'nerves.'”