第28章 MEPHISTOPHELES ON A STEAMER(1)

In some respects, the voyage across the Atlantic was a surprise to Aynesworth.

His companion seemed to have abandoned, for the time at any rate, his habit of taciturnity. He conversed readily, if a little stiffly, with his fellow passengers. He divided his time between the smoke room and the deck, and very seldom sought the seclusion of his state room. Aynesworth remarked upon this change one night as the two men paced the deck after dinner.

"You are beginning to find more pleasure," he said, "in talking to people."Wingrave shook his head.

"By no means," he answered coldly. "It is extremely distasteful to me.""Then why do you do it?" Aynesworth asked bluntly.

Wingrave never objected to being asked questions by his secretary. He seemed to recognize the fact that Aynesworth's retention of his post was due to a desire to make a deliberate study of himself, and while his own attitude remained purely negative, he at no time exhibited any resentment or impatience.

"I do it for several reasons," he answered. "First, because misanthropy is a luxury in which I cannot afford to indulge. Secondly, because I am really curious to know whether the time will ever return when I shall feel the slightest shadow of interest in any human being. I can only discover this by affecting a toleration for these people's society, which I can assure you, if you are curious about the matter, is wholly assumed."Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.

"Surely," he said, "you find Mrs. Travers entertaining?"Wingrave reflected for a moment.

"You mean the lady with a stock of epigrams, and a green veil?" he remarked.

"No! I do not find her entertaining."

"Your neighbor at table then, Miss Packe?"

"If my affections have perished," Wingrave answered grimly, "my taste, I hope, is unimpaired. The young person who travels to improve her mind, and fills up the gaps by reading Baedeker on the places she hasn't been to, fails altogether to interest me!""Aren't you a little severe?" Aynesworth remarked.

"I suppose," Wingrave answered, "that it depends upon the point of view, to use a hackneyed phrase. You study people with a discerning eye for good qualities. Nature--and circumstances have ordered it otherwise with me. I see them through darkened glasses.""It is not the way to happiness," Aynesworth said.

"There is no highroad to what you term happiness,"Wingrave answered. "One holds the string and follows into the maze. But one does not choose one's way.

You are perhaps more fortunate than I that you can appreciate Mrs. Travers' wit, and find my neighbor, who has done Europe, attractive. That is a matter of disposition.""I should like," Aynesworth remarked, "to have known you fifteen years ago."Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

"I fancy," he said, "that I was a fairly average person--I mean that I was possessed of an average share of the humanities. I have only my memory to go by. I am one of those fortunate persons, you see, who have realized an actual reincarnation. I have the advantage of having looked out upon life from two different sets of windows.--By the bye, Aynesworth, have you noticed that unwholesome-looking youth in a serge suit there?"Aynesworth nodded.

"What about him?"

"I fancy that he must know--my history. He sits all day long smoking bad cigarettes and watching me. He makes clumsy attempts to enter into conversation with me. He is interested in us for some reason or other."Aynesworth nodded.

"Shocking young bounder,"he remarked. "I've noticed him myself.""Talk to him some time, and find out what he means by it," Wingrave said. "Idon't want to find my biography in the American newspapers. It might interfere with my operations there. Here's this woman coming to worry us! You take her off, Aynesworth! I shall go into the smoking room."But Mrs. Travers was not so easily to be disposed of. For some reason or other, she had shown a disposition to attach herself to Wingrave.

"Please put me in my chair," she said to him, holding out her rug and cushion.