XXXVIII
“Hulloa, Murd! You’re looking cheap.” Brandon awoke to the sound of the voice of Urban Meyer. En route from the luncheon table, Professor Murdwell had tarried to pass the time of day with a celebrated compatriot. A kind of freemasonry exists in all lands among the supereminent, and these two shining examples knew how to pay the tacit homage due to conspicuous merit.
“Not well, Murd?” The all-seeing eye of Urban Meyer was fixed like a bead on the scientist.
“Nothing, my boy,” was the light answer. “A bit run down, that’s all. As a fact I’m off now to see my doctor. I can soon be put right. How are you, my friend?” The kindly pressure increased on Brandon’s shoulder. “It’s very good to see you on your feet again. I heard the other day from old Parson What’s-his-name that you had managed to find a cure, although I’m bound to say that when I saw you last, back in the fall, I’d about given you up. However—I’m more than glad—I’m simply delighted.” And with the benign air of the bon enfant, Professor Murdwell followed in the wake of Bud and Jooly, who had gone into the hall.
“He mayn’t know it,” said Urban Meyer in a low voice, “but that man’s got death in his face.”
Brandon was startled by the tone. It had an uncanny prescience which made him feel uncomfortable.
“If looks mean anything his number’s up. Personally he’s a good fellow—one of the best alive—but he’s been touching things which up till now were verboten. Let us pray to God they always will be.”
How do you know all this?—was the question which rose to the tip of Brandon’s tongue. But he refrained from asking it. Murdwell’s face had a curious ashen hue, and now that its meaning had been pointed out it was not to be mistaken. As for the second part of the statement, made with equal authority, it gave an impression of curious insight into certain phenomena, which it would be futile to discuss.
In the hall, over coffee and cigars, the talk went on. Brandon felt himself living in a kind of wonderland of which Urban Meyer was king. The little man’s words flowed on in soft, odd, detached syllables, yet they were alive with a magic interest for one who shared his faith. As for Pomfret, tasting deliberately a masterpiece among cigars, he had to admit in the recesses of an almost uncomfortably sagacious mind, that never in the whole course of its owner’s experience had it been so completely at a loss.
It was impossible to recognize the Urban Meyer of commerce. And to find one of the strongest brains of the age thrown off its balance by a mere stage play, the stuff in which it was always trafficking, was simply ludicrous. In the case of Brandon it was less surprising. For one thing he had hardly recovered from a terrible illness; and again he came to the theater a raw amateur. But Urban Meyer! Yes, it was quite true that the day of miracles was not yet past!