CHAPTER IV.

THE MANSARD ROOF. Again, for the second time, the student of the occult gazed upon his affinity; and again the lovely Typewriter, versed in the higher criticism of Chicago social life, sized up her caller with cosmopolitan grace. The meeting was relieved of embarrassment by the spontaneous interrogation of the city-bred business woman. “And what can we do for you today, Mr. Leffingwell?”--sweetly. “I have come, Miss Sheets,”--murmured Mr. Leffingwell, and he looked directly through the maiden at the wall paper,--“I have come to invite you, to implore you, to go with me to--to--to--stroll with me. Walls--walls--that is, some of them, have ears. I would be alone with you. There is much of moment to impart to you--to you alone. There is a secret--” “That catches me,”--broke in the beauty, and she rose, donning her picture hat hastily, and grabbing her long-handled umbrella and many-buttoned kids. “Well, come along, Mr. Leffingwell; I’m ready”--and the dear girl’s hand was on the hall door-knob. And the man and the maiden passed on down Asylum Avenue. The Mystic appeared actually to know where he wanted to go. After conducting her to the outskirts he led her upward to the summit of a bluff overlooking the City, the Asylum and the Vanderhook drug store. Then he became strangely silent. Indeed, he had spoken but once in their long walk, and then only when his companion halted suddenly, dropping a few paces behind him. “What is it, dear Miss Sheets, art weary?”--he had murmured softly, and he anxiously contemplated her listless expression. “It’s nothing,” the lady replied, and then she smiled bravely. But it was something, very unpleasant and very painful. Miss Sheets was breaking in a new pair of boots--an immense feat, as any Chicago girl knows. It made her very tired. Finally they reached and paused upon the summit. It was the hour when the sun is apparently sinking. Kankakee lay bathed in that rosy afterglow. “Is not this inspiring--uplifting? Is not this Realization? Let us VIBRATE.” His large, round, blue eyes were fixed steadfastly upon nothing. He wore an expression of ineffable self-satisfaction. But the lady was silent. She seemed not to hear. She was busy with some burrs on her gown. Her gaze lingered fondly upon her new sparkling diamond. “Still silent,” he murmured, “still wrapped in your own thoughts. Why that disturbed expression, why no response? You frown; alas, what does this portend?” and Alonzo, the Guru, momentarily diverted from contemplation of Himself, clasped his hands, cast his eyes upward and bent as if he might kneel. “It isn’t anything,” indifferently. “Alas, and alas!” ejaculated her escort. “Not anything you say; yet we who walk the Path are taught that everything Objective is the outcome of something which is Subjective, and therefore nothing is something and ‘not anything’ is everything to me, when it disharmonizes YOU. Tell me, fair one, what and why?” “O, well, if you must know,” and Miss Sheets sniffed, “I was just wondering if I could ever tie up to these dreadful, grassy smells of the country. One gets _so_ used to City odors, you know. And Chicago has more of ’em, especially about the Yards, and better mixed than in any city in the world. When you’re in Chicago you know what’s a-coming”--and the city-bred girl held up her dainty “mouchoir” to ward off the scent of new mown hay. A wave of perplexity, of doubt over-swept the solemn countenance of the Mystic. “Then you would tell me--” “Yes, that I don’t like the odors, and I don’t like this dead-and-alive stillness. Why, anybody who comes from the Yards, and is used to the roar and crash and squealing, gets nervous prostration in a cemetery like this.” Alonzo contemplated her, wonderingly; then, as if dismissing the whole thing, he said in a tone that hinted of impetuosity, “Let us not talk of Chicago, nor the Yards. Let us forget the smelly things and the dead ones. Let us only think of each other, Miss Sheets,” and he drew closer to her. “Miss Sheets, Imogene, my own, my very own, tell me, tell me now that you feel a subtle something drawing you to ME!” The sharp, bright eyes of the Typewriter opened with astonishment. It was the lady’s turn to look bewildered. She gazed blankly at the smitten Seer who had already dropped on one knee. She gazed upon him in wonderment. It was the look of mingled awe and admiration a child bestows upon a circus Poster. “I--I--don’t catch on,” she said simply. The rapt lover smiled. It was a pale, luminous ripple of compassion. He lifted himself to the perpendicular--drawing still closer. He gazed upon her. He seemed almost ready to take her hand. “Most perfect of mortals,” he began. “Let me explain: “As you may have heard, I am under orders for Gnaniship. To accomplish this I must soon go from the sophomore grade of Illinois to the senior course in far off Hindustan. In the line of my profession I come to know pretty much everything. I am as familiar with the IS, as with the APPARENT. The NOTHINGNESS of the IS NOT I have demonstrated several times. The oneness of UNITY and the ISNESS of BEING I have already mastered. And by a patient pursuit of the WHITHER and WHENCE, I have anticipated my contemporaries by thousands of years. I have distanced posterity by many a lap.” The Mystic paused to note the impression he was making. Then he went on;--“Through the esoteric fundaments of nature and through certain occult experiments in primordial polarity, I was enabled to apprehend, to comprehend, to cognize the great law of affinity. I discovered that somewhere there was a ONE, a particular ONE, a dear, sweet, beautiful SHE to whom I was bound in protoplasmic energies and biological consequences. “And there came a time when she whom I sought was visioned in the astral light. I saw her--SHE--that one, essential, correlated SHE,--SHE that was my other half--that satisfying SHE--that only SHE--was none other than your own sweet self, Miss Sheets. “Nay, do not interrupt me. It was not until you realized in material substance this ethereal vision that I had, as it were, solved the problem. I had proved the law. Though as yet far beneath MYSELF in physical refinement, mental acquirements and spiritual illumination, I am yet resolved to accept you as my own and wait until you _do attain_. I am patient. I can and will wait until you have been instructed in the Path of Yog, and attain to ME. And now, my own, speak to me. Express your joy. Speak, ah, speak!” Mr. Leffingwell paused. There was something almost akin to human desire in his voice, but there was no reply. Miss Sheets was silent. She seemed to be only half listening. In her eyes was now that far-offness, so habitual to mystics, gnanis and gurus. It was now the lady who was abstracted. Her glance traveled down and backward along the avenue. She was looking in the direction of the drug store. “Hear me again, fair one”--whispered the occultist. “I am yours only. You are mine only. I co-ordinate with you, not as Bill does on the earth plane. Mine is a love not desecrated by thoughts of diamond rings, sealskin sacques, oyster suppers, pink candies and frozen mushes. Mine is the primordial passion that vibrates in the etheric spaces of the universe. It is a passion which scorns material bribes. Mine is a devotion that looks only to soul communion, and the solemn absorption of OURSELF back into Nirvanic nothingness. The hour is come and now is. Imogene, my onliest, sweet bird of paradise, it is your mate who calls. Come, O come, this day, this hour, and we will fly-by-night to Hindustan.” Miss Sheets started--but not to Hindustan. She was roused from her reverie of drugs, drug stores and druggists. She had but mistily sensed the monologue of the Mystic. But the last proposition penetrated her inner consciousness. His reference to birds had recalled her to herself, for she was a member of the Audubon Society and quite up on birds. She now realized that she had been indifferent and almost rude to one whom Kankakee regarded as harmless. Her Chicago good nature asserted itself. “Well, you do just talk to beat the band”--politely--“as we girls say at the Yards. Now what was that you were just saying about birds and flies?” “I was trying to say this”--gasped the Mystic huskily, as he reached out, touching the border of her belt ribbon to hold her attention. “I was saying that you must be mine. Listen,--this secret shall not be mine alone, but ours henceforth. Together in aeons past you and I, sweet creature, proceeded from primordial One-Substance. From the remote to the now, from the now to the ultimate we have been and shall be one. As we hereinbefore evolved ourselves from the potentialities of the duplex soul, so shall we together involve ourselves hereinafter in the blessedness of nothing. Though you have not reached my own karmic height, you may _Aspire_. Though you do not cognize the immutable from my own lofty perch of perfect attainment, I will wait, calmly wait, until you by long self-unfoldment shall rise to the state of being of ME.” “O, come off!”--ejaculated the fair girl, at last losing patience. “You make me tired. I say, let’s get a move”--and emphasizing her speech with a yawn, she gathered up a handful of back draperies and turned away. “Alas, and alas,”--mournfully murmured the mystic. “It is as I was warned by the Director of our division. You have not as yet cognized your higher self, hence have not perceived ME. You have not as yet sensed this fair fleshly veil as but the vehicle of your higher principles and quite separate from your ultimate ego. All the same, you’re mine. I will not repudiate you. You are the feminine principle co-ordinating with myself, and though you may ignore this only opportunity, yet I will bide your awakening and your renunciation of error. Though you may defeat your own illumination by renouncing ME, yet will I continue to walk the fifty-seven Paths-of-Self and wait. It rests with you, girl, to fix the happy day now, or to postpone it through tedious incarnations. It is for you to say now whether you will fly with me to India and share with me in the coming centuries in the ecstatic contemplation of the One-Horned-Hair of the Sacred-Rabbit. Are you ready to aspire for aeons? Are you prepared to meditate for cycles upon the oneness of substance and the Be-Ness of Being; attaining thereby to the ultimate exaltation of Nirvanic vacuity? Speak, bright one, sweet spirit of Chicago, say,--I WILL. Delay not. Your consent I implore. Miss Sheets, Imogene, what is your answer?” “R--a--a--t--,” but the maiden checked herself with a little scream, for unheard and unperceived came Nemesis. Bill Vanderhook stood face to face with the importunate Mystic and the ruffled Typewriter. And the druggist, fresh, rosy and sleek, from the best of barbers and haberdashers, loomed up handsomely by contrast with the now weary, wilted and woebegone Lonnie. “Imogene Sheets”--and the words cut the air like a whip cracker,--“and I also say that the day and the hour is now. There’s to be no more fooling. Business is business. Here’s where we change the score. Here’s where we decide who’s captain of this game. I’m up to all sorts of games, and I’m going to know now which of us rooters is IT. I’m a kicker and a catcher and a shortstop and a batter all in one.” Miss Sheets turned deadly pale as Bill continued: “Now, which is it, the Yogy cave with him in India, or the two-story--basement--brown stone--swell front--modern conveniences and mansard roof with Bill Vanderhook in Kankakee? Speak, girl.” “The--the--man--sar-r-d roof.” The words came faintly from the trembling lips of the agitated girl. But the rivals caught the import. Had they been inaudible the rejected lover would have sensed the thought and perceived her answer. But he made no protest. Philosophers never do. He did not speak. He did not even cast upon her a reproachful look, nor one of anger upon his rival. He only made one little moan with a faint far-offness in the vibration, and then for the second time the unhappy Mystic lay as one dead at the feet of his affinity. “Well, isn’t that fierce?” and Imogene looked on with sweet womanly sympathy while Bill, the now triumphant lover, lifted Lonnie like he was a pigskin and hoisted him into the auto. “Sure thing,” said Bill, joyously. “He got it in the neck that time. Come, Petsy, we’ve got to honk some. We must revive him on the Q. T. “I’ll take him home with me and give him about four fingers with ginger on the side. That’ll fetch him.” Imogene looked her admiration of Bill’s generosity, and then, gathering her draperies and snuggling down by her future Chauffeur, she sighed a little as she looked upon the inert gentleman on the back seat--saying more to herself than to Bill, “Isn’t it a pity he has fits?” Oh, wild and wooly Wizard of the West; Worthy, winsome worker of the Test; Wakeful, watchful, wise one, whiskerless; Weird and woozy wight, all unexpressed.