The Art of Disappearing

by John Talbot Smith

"Then it's done, an' I'm the proudest man in the state to see another Dillon enterin'——"

"The ring," said Arthur.

"No, the arena of politics," corrected the Senator. "An' I can tell from your talk that you have education an' sand. In time we'll make you mayor of the town."

When he was going after a most affectionate conversation with his nephew the Senator made a polite suggestion to Mrs. Dillon.

"His friends an' my friends an' the friends of his father, an' the rank an' file generally want to see an' to hear this young man, just as the matter stands. Still more will they wish to give him the right hand of fellowship when they learn that he is about to enter on a political career. Now, why not save time and trouble by just giving a reception some day about the end of the month, invite the whole ga—the whole multitude, do the thing handsome, an' wind it up forever?"

The Senator had an evident dread of his sister-in-law, and spoke to her with senatorial dignity. She meekly accepted his suggestion, and humbly attended him to the door. His good sense had cleared the situation. Preparation for a reception would set a current going in the quiet house, and relieve the awkwardness of the new relationships; and it would save time in the business of renewing old acquaintance. They took up the work eagerly. The old house had to be refitted for the occasion, his mother had to replenish a scanty wardrobe, and he had to dress himself in the fashion proper to Arthur Dillon. Anne's taste was good, inclined to rich but simple coloring, and he helped her in the selection of materials, insisting on expenditures which awed and delighted her. Judy Haskell came in for her share of raiment, and carried out some dread designs on her own person with conviction. It was pure pleasure to help these simple souls who loved him.

After a three weeks' stay in the house he went about the city at his ease, and busied himself with the study and practise of his new personality. In secret, even from Louis who spent much of his leisure with him, he began to acquire the well-known accomplishments of the real Arthur Dillon, who had sung and danced his way into the hearts of his friends, who had been a wit for a boy, bubbling over with good spirits, an athlete, a manager of amateur minstrels, a precocious gallant among the girls, a fighter ever ready to defend the weak, a tireless leader in any enterprise, and of a bright mind, but indifferent to study. The part was difficult for him to play, since his nature was staidness itself beside the spontaneity and variety of Arthur Dillon: but his spirits rose in the effort, some feeling within responded to the dash and daring of this lost boy, so much loved and so deeply mourned.

Louis helped him in preparing his wardrobe, very unlike anything an Endicott had ever worn. Lacking the elegance and correctness of earlier days, and of a different character, it was in itself a disguise. He wore his hair long and thick in the Byronic fashion, and a curly beard shadowed his lower face. Standing at the glass on the afternoon of the reception he felt confident that Horace Endicott had fairly disappeared beneath the new man Dillon. His figure had filled out slightly, and had lost its mournful stoop; his face was no longer wolfish in its leanness, and his color had returned, though melancholy eyes marked by deep circles still betrayed the sick heart. Yet the figure in the glass looked as unlike Horace Endicott as Louis Everard. He compared it with the accurate portrait sent out by his pursuers through the press. Only the day before had the story of his mysterious disappearance been made public. For months they had sought him quietly but vainly. It was a sign of their despair that the journals should have his story, his portrait, and a reward for his discovery.

No man sees his face as others see it, but the difference between the printed portrait and the reflection of Arthur Dillon in the mirror was so startling that he felt humbled and pained, and had to remind himself that this was the unlikeness he so desired. The plump and muscular figure of Horace Endicott, dressed perfectly, posed affectively, expressed the self-confidence of the aristocrat. His smooth face was insolent with happiness and prosperity, with that spirit called the pride of life. But for what he knew of this man, he could have laughed at his self-sufficiency. The mirror gave back a shrunken, sickly figure, somewhat concealed by new garments, and the eyes betrayed a poor soul, cracked and seamed by grief and wrong; no longer Horace Endicott, broken by sickness of mind and heart, and disguised by circumstance, but another man entirely. What a mill is sorrow, thus to grind up an Endicott and from the dust remold a Dillon! The young aristocrat, plump, insolent, shallow, and self-poised, looked commonplace in his pride beside this broken man, who had walked through the abyss of hell, and nevertheless saved his soul.

He discovered as he gazed alternately on portrait and mirror that a singular feeling had taken hold of him. Horace Endicott all at once seemed remote, like a close friend swallowed and obliterated years ago by the sea; while within himself, whoever he might be, some one seemed struggling for release, or expression, or dominion. He interpreted it promptly. Outwardly, he was living the life of Arthur Dillon, and inwardly that Arthur was making war on Horace Endicott, taking possession as an enemy seizes a stubborn land, reaching out for those remote citadels wherein the essence of personality resides. He did not object. He was rather pleased, though he shivered with a not unwelcome dread.