Victor Ollnee's Discipline Part 31

"'Pears like our serious conversation is straggling out into vituperation."

"Whose fault is it?"

"Please don't force me to say it was not my fault. I'm like Lincoln--I joke to hide my sorrows."

"Don't be irreverent."

Through all this youthful give and take the boy and girl were studying each other minutely, and the phrases that read so baldly came from their lips with so much music, so much of hidden meaning (at least with displayed suggestion), that each was tingling with the revelation of it.

The words of youth are slight in content; it is the accompanying tone that carries to the heart.

She recovered first. "Now let's stop this school-boy chatter--"

"You mean school-girl chatter."

"Both. Your mother is in a very serious predicament. We must help her."

He became quite serious. "I wish you would advise me. You know so much more about the whole subject than I do. I'm eager to get to work on the books. I suppose it is too much to expect that they will come up to-day?"

"They might. I'll go and inquire."

"No indeed, let me go. Am I not an inmate here?" He disappeared into the house, leaving her to muse on his face. He began to interest her, this pa.s.sionate, self-willed, moody youth. She perceived in him the soul of the conqueror. His swift change of temper, his union of sport-loving boy and ambitious man made him as interesting as a play. "He'll make his way," she decided, using the vague terms of prophecy into which a girl falls when regarding the future of a young man. It's all so delightfully mysterious, this path of the youth who makes his way upward to success.

A shout announced his return, and looking up she perceived him bearing down upon her with an armful of books.

"Here they are!" he exulted. "Red ones, blue ones, brown ones--which shall we begin on?"

"Blue--that's my color."

"Agreed! Blue it is." He dumped them all down on the wide, swinging couch and fell to turning them over. "Dark blue or light blue?"

"Dark blue."

He picked up a fat volume. "_Mysterious Psychic Forces._ Know this tome?"

"Oh yes, indeed! It's wonderfully interesting."

"I choose it! This color scheme simplifies things. Now, here's another--_The Dual Personality_. How's that?"

"Um! Well--pretty good."

"_Dual Personality_ to the rear. Here's a brown book--_Metaphysical Phenomena_."

"That's a good one, too."

"I'm sorry they didn't bind it in blue--and here's a measly, yellow, paper-bound book in some foreign language--Italian, I guess, author, Morselli."

"Oh, that's a book I want to read. Let me take it?"

"Do you read Italian?"

"After a fas.h.i.+on."

"Then I engage you at once to translate that book to me. What is it all about?"

He abandoned his seat on the couch and drew a chair close to hers.

"Begin at the first page and read very slowly all the way through. I wish it were a three volume edition."

She looked at him with side glance. "You're not in the least subtle."

"I intended to have you understand that I enjoy the thought of your reading to me. Did you catch it?"

"I caught it. No one else ever suggested that I was stupid."

"I didn't call you stupid. I think you're haughty and domineering, but you're not stupid."

"Thank you," she answered, demurely.

Eventually they drew together, and she began to read the marvelous story of the crucial experiments which Morselli and his fellows laid upon Eusapia Palladino. Two hours pa.s.sed. The robins and thrushes began their evensong, the shadows lengthened on the lawn, and still these young folk remained at their reading--Victor sitting so close to his teacher's side that his cheek almost touched her shoulder. The sunset glory of the material world was forgotten in the tremendous conceptions called up by the author of this far-reaching book.

Sweeter hours of study Victor never had. Seeing the rise and fall of his interpreter's bosom and catching the faint perfume of her hair, he heard but vaguely some of the sentences, and had to have them repeated, what time her eyes were looking straight into his. At such moment she reminded him of the dream-face that had bloomed like a rose in the black night, for she was then very grave. Less ardent of blood than he, she succeeded in giving her whole mind to the great Italian's thesis, and the point of view--so new and so bold--stirred her like a trumpet.

"I like this man," she said. "He is not afraid."

Once or twice Mrs. Joyce looked out at them, but they made such a pretty picture she had not the heart to disturb them.

At seven o'clock she was forced to interrupt: "What _are_ you children up to?"

"Improving our minds," answered Leo. "Are we starting back? What time is it?"

Mrs. Joyce smiled. "That question is a great compliment to your company.

It's dinner-time."

"Are we starting now?"

"No; we're going to stay all night."

"Fine!" shouted Victor. "I was wondering how I could put in the evening."

"It's time to dress," warned Mrs. Joyce. "This is no happy-go-easy establishment. I never saw such perfection of service as Alexander always has. I can't get it, or if I get it I can't keep it; while here, with the master gone half the time, the wheels go like a chronometer."

"It's all due to Marie. She wors.h.i.+ped Mrs. Bartol, and she venerates Mr.

Bartol."

Mrs. Joyce cut her short. "Skurry to your room. We must not be late."

As they were going into the house together, Leo said: "I think we would better not let our elders read this book of Morselli's. It's too disturbing for them--don't you think so?"

"It certainly is a twister. However, mother doesn't read any foreign language, so she's safe."