Chapter XXVII

Wednesday morning Edith telephoned to Dr. Rowland while Elsie was getting breakfast. He not only made an appointment for ten o’clock, but volunteered to go with his car and bring Mrs. Shaviro to Elsie’s flat.

After breakfast, Edith called up Trench, not without a tremor.

“This is Miss Bridgman, Dr. Trench.—So am I to hear yours. I want to consult you concerning a friend of mine. Can I see you this afternoon at your office?—Thank you very much—three will be just right.”

And at three she was there. Chatterjee let her in, and she told him she had seen him at the University, at the Tagore lecture. She introduced herself, learned his name, and hoped that they might see more of each other. This pleased him immensely, and in his shy, quiet way, he asked her if she had liked Mr. Tagore when he spoke about union with nature, or some such thing.

“So much, Mr. Chatterjee, that sometime I want to ask you many questions. Just now the doctor is expecting me.”

Chat disappeared into the inner office, and did not reappear, having another way of exit thence. Trench came through into the library and held out only one hand, though the impulse to extend both was strong.

“It is a very great pleasure to see you here, Miss Bridgman. I lack training in the amenities, as you know only too well, but Mrs. Jamison had a name for you. Do you recall it?”

“I’m afraid I do. And it is distinctly nice of you to imply that I brighten the room. When you hear what I’ve come about, you will want to call me Evening Cloud.”

“Or some such thing!” said Trench.

“Or some such thing,” she echoed. “He’s delightful—Mr. Chatterjee is delightful. One can see that he’s had bringing up.”

“You could say that of all the fellows around me here—even of one who has just left us, having scarred us all with frank speech. And now come into my sanctum.”

He led the way, and closed the door. She stood looking at the Della Robbia—that dearest one of the sculptured babies of the Spedalie degli Innocenti. It had the intimacy of famous things—it seemed like Trench’s own child.

“You called this room sanctum,” she said, “and you have that exquisite little fellow always before you, like something sacred.”

“Please sit down, Miss Bridgman. You are already tossing me a challenge, for ‘sacred’ is a word that belongs to a past age. I don’t suppose there is an animal or a plant that hasn’t been sacred.”

“And _I_ don’t suppose,” she retorted, “that there _are_ any past ages. Aren’t the confidences that pass in this office sacred?”

“I hope so.”

“And aren’t the relations of men and women sacred?”

“Yes, subject to reason.”

“It is not the first time in the history of the world, Dr. Trench, that an idolater has transferred sacredness from persons to reason. Do you find that reason carries you far in considering the relations of men and women?”

“No,” said Trench, perceiving that she had acquired resources since last he talked with her.

Edith smiled at his docility. “I don’t really need to quiz you like this, because I know how good you are. I know that your bark is a thousand times worse than your bite. I have been trying very hard this winter to be impersonal.”

“Why should you, my dear lady? Don’t become a negation like me.”

“Being,” said Edith, in as sepulchral a tone as she could command, “myself a mere atom. Little you know, my dear Dr. Trench, how far behind the times you are in astrophysics. An atom is as complicated a thing as the planet Saturn, and looks like it, with its ring of electrons. In fact, it reminds me of you and your boys, and I shall address you on that subject on the twenty-eighth of June, in connection with potential energy.”

“Heavens!” ejaculated Trench. “Does that appointment really hold?”

“Hold! It holds like a non-Euclidean equation. For ten in the morning, sir, in the conservatory. I’m preparing a lecture which will last till Sunday dinner, and take the place of church.”

“I’ll be there,” cried Trench, “in spite of all the babies in Chicago.”

“Good! And now to my errand. Do you remember my using the words ‘impersonal passion’?”

“I’m not likely to forget it, while life lasts.”

“And sending me to Ischl’s?”

“Yes. I apologise.”

“There is no need of apology. I went, and made the acquaintance of two girls. One was Italian and one was Jewish. Soon afterward the Jewish girl married, and that is what I have come to consult you about. Her husband is not with her now, and I am terribly afraid that he has deserted her.”

Trench nodded. “The old story. Desertion gives the charities more trouble than everything else except alcohol. But the law can do something, and I will help you take the proper steps.”

“I’m afraid the law can’t help us. The man has gone to Russia.”

“That is unusual, and makes it worse. Is she very anxious to get him back?”

“No, because she is sure he will return. She is desperately in love, and trusts him completely. But I feel very certain that she has seen the last of him.”

“In that case, the best thing to do is to do nothing—not even to destroy her faith. She will come to believe him dead and send him to the heaven of Jewish heroes.”

Edith smiled demurely. “It isn’t every woman, then, who has to be told the truth.”

“No.”

“I had hoped,” she said, “that you had some friend in Russia who might be asked to find the man and reason with him. I should be very glad to pay such a friend’s expenses.”

Trench shook his head. “Reason doesn’t go far in these cases—as you just now reminded me. The best thing is to let the girl go back into the factory. Is she a person of any intelligence?”

“Dr. Trench, this girl is above the average. She is my superior.”

“What type physically? Heavy?”

“No—more like a flame.”

Trench knotted his brow. “The man whom she loves must be above the average also. Very likely the Jewish type of Russian intellectual. Is there any reason, however, why the girl should not return to the factory?”

“Yes, Dr. Trench. If you don’t mind, will you call up Dr. Rowland, and tell him that I am here, and ask him about my friend whom he saw this morning?”

The doctor took up the telephone, got the number, and began to talk. “Good morning, doctor. This is Trench. Miss Bridgman is here, speaking to me about a case in which she is interested. It is the young woman whom you saw this morning. She wants me to know the facts and the prospects.”—He listened for two or three minutes.—“Yes.—Yes.—October. All right, and thank you. Good-bye.”

“Dr. Rowland reports everything in fine shape, and is much impressed with the girl. He called her Elsie.”

“Yes, that’s her name. Elsie Sereef.”

“Sereef!”

“Exactly, Dr. Trench. She is the wife of your student.”

It is not appointed to many men in a lifetime to be so surprised. He had thought that nothing in Saadi could surprise him, but he seemed to be listening to incredible bad news about—himself.

But Trench took it in characteristic fashion. He sat in silence for three minutes, while his mind retraced Saadi’s history swiftly, omitting little and neglecting nothing. Then he took another minute to consider the future, while his gaze seemed fastened on the little picture that Arschiak had given him. She followed his gaze and saw with a start what the picture was. At the end of four minutes Trench unknotted his brow, looked up, apologised, and reached out for the picture.

“Do you remember the scene?”

“I’m not likely to forget it, while life lasts,” she quoted. “Just about there”—she touched the foreground—“I wondered whether either of us would ever see land again.”

Trench put the painting back. “My boy Saadi,” he said, “will be glad to know that he is to be a father. I will wire his steamer immediately.”

“You poor innocent—you poor Della Robbia innocent wrapped in swathing bands!”

“Delightful epithet,” said Trench.

“Why, doctor, is it possible that you think this adventurer cares a rap about Elsie? It is the most terrible example of—impersonal passion.”

“Appearances are against him, Miss Bridgman, but I have faith in Saadi.”

“Why? How is it possible?”

“If I tell you the truth, you will think me the most arrogant animal that walks.”

“Well, tell me the truth. I seem to be the person for whom you reserve it.”

“I trust Saadi because he is so much like myself. He has no God, no standards, no anything.”

She checked her quick tongue, determined that this time she would not make the old mistake. “You mean something, my friend. Your confidence in this Mr. Sereef is entirely personal?”

“Yes. Personal is the word. Saadi came here with despair in his heart and strange oaths on his lips. He called himself strictly selfish, and warned me that he would seduce some girl if he saw fit. It was an attempt to be honest with himself in the midst of cowardice and hypocrisy. All the autumn he sang the praises of war—war being to him the honest expression of human nature. But a change came over him. On the fifteenth of last month he told me that he had been reading the New Testament.”

“Yes. His wife tells me that they read it together.”

“Ah, that completes the chain. Saadi reverted to the ideals of Christianity, exactly as if he had Christian blood in him. He regarded them as wild dreams, but resigned himself.”

“Resigned himself!”

“Yes. And I know exactly how he felt. I am now quite ready to admit the importance of certain ideals—the importance of certain illusions, if you please.”

“That subject, Dr. Trench, is reserved for the twenty-eighth of June. But you are ready to admit that Mr. Sereef’s marriage vow is sacred?”

“Quite ready.”

“Then will you not appeal to him to respect it?”

“I shall be glad to wire him that the child is coming. I don’t feel called upon to lecture him.”

“I wish,” said Edith, “oh, I do wish that I could share your confidence in him. But you have surely been deceived. His whole tale about Bokhara is a tissue of lies.”

“I confess that I can’t prove the contrary.”

“Doctor, do you think that this man has any sense of obligation toward you?”

Trench studied the lake scene again. “Saadi once said to me that he would answer when I called.”

“Then call, Dr. Trench! Call him back! Don’t let him sail.”

“He would not return.”

“Ah! You confess it.”

“Miss Bridgman, Saadi is going out of a sense of duty to his fellow countrymen.”

“Pooh! I’d let all his countrymen hang for Elsie’s sake.”

She said it with emphasis. Her Easter vision, which had grouped all men as those about Trench, had fled.

Trench looked very grave. “Mrs. Potter said to me that she would let all the Indians in the world die for Mildred’s sake. But she did not mean it.”

Edith flushed. “I suppose that Mrs. Potter and I are petty and personal. We love the persons we know.”

“Saadi,” said Trench, “loves those whom he doesn’t know.”

“I’m afraid you are hopeless, doctor. You are sentimentalising a scoundrel who has no more sense of duty than a machine. _Why_ is he going back? _Why?_”

“Because,” said Trench with a slow sweet smile, “those about us are those about us.”

She was silent, wondering at the strange, vague words.—Trench drew up a pad of paper, and began to write a telegram. Edith laid a hand on his arm.

“If you are wiring Mr. Sereef, please wait a minute. I don’t want him to have a week on shipboard to think about it, and cover up his tracks as soon as he lands. I don’t want him to have information without personal influence.”

“I will do as you say, Miss Bridgman, but you are taking a great responsibility.”

“Then I’ll take it. I have a great notion to pack my trunk and follow him myself. But I don’t know him. I should have no weight with him.”

Trench tore up the telegram, and waited for her to go on.

“Doctor, let us suppose that this man is not really bad at heart. I think he is, but let us suppose not. But if he is even faltering in his allegiance to Elsie, he needs personal influence brought to bear upon him. Isn’t there some one over there who could go to him as your proxy? Some one who is true and tried, and knows you both?”

Trench smiled and answered lightly. “There is my good friend Jaffer. Dr. Jaffer is true and tried, and he knows about Saadi, though he doesn’t know him personally.”

“That would be fine, if Dr. Jaffer lives in Constantinople, or anywhere near the Balkans.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this!” She drew the cable message from her handbag.

Trench took it and read it.

Cetinje, April 15, 1914.

Saadi Sereef Dr. Trench, Halsted St., Chicago.

bsvd

MOHAMMED BEG.

“Cetinje, eh? This looks as if he may have gone to Montenegro.”

“And that fact does not disturb you, after his saying that he was bound for Central Asia to claim a fortune?”

“Not in the least, dear lady.”

Edith, abashed, was silent. She could only reflect to herself what a power the man would be if he could trust God as he trusted the children of Satan! But he suddenly seemed boyish as he sat there smiling, and her love went out to him with a touch of maternal pity.

“I have always thought of you as so critical, so inclined to discount everybody and everything. You have talked of men and women as if they were helpless animals. I can’t exactly call it cynicism—but I guess I will, because I’ve ruled out every other word. And now you are out of character!”

“Dr. Bridgman’s diagnosis,” laughed Trench, “is differential and accurate. Poor Saadi is not in the same class with you. He sized me up as no cynic, and therefore as marriageable. It is sad to see a personal bias in so young a physician. But I suppose you’re dying to know what these mystic and melodramatic letters mean. Excuse me if I seem graceless—but they remind me of a certain brand of underwear.”

“I suppose I shall have to excuse it, but you can’t blame me for desperate curiosity when my Elsie’s whole life may hang upon those letters. I did venture to think that some of your students could see some light in them.”

Trench took up the telephone, and glanced at his watch.—“This is Dr. Trench.—I want to speak to Mr. Ameen. You will find him in 36, preparing some sections. I will hold the wire.—Is that you, Ameen?—I want to ask you an odd question. Do the letters bsvd suggest anything to you in Persian or Arabic? Yes, _bsvd_. Think about it a minute, and call me up. Consider names of cities, common phrases, Moslem proverbs—anything that enters your mind.”

“I’m afraid,” said Trench, as he hung up, “that Ameen can’t help us.”

“Pardon my saying so, doctor, but you don’t give him all the data. He doesn’t know that these words are addressed to Mr. Sereef.”

“No, but that’s just what I don’t want him to know. Ameen is prejudiced in Saadi’s favour.”

“Perhaps you are right. It now occurs to me that a message from the Balkans might be couched in some Balkan language.”

“Yes, Miss Bridgman. And there is one friend of mine who might be of assistance if he were here. He is Dr. Yukitch, a Southern Slav whom I knew at Vienna. But I have no idea where he is. Ah—there is Ameen.”

As he took up the receiver and listened, Trench began to smile and to make notes on the pad of paper. He wrote for several minutes, laughed, told Ameen that he was a wonder, and hung up.

“Ameen gives us a wide choice, Miss Bridgman. For Persian he suggests three sentences, all beginning with the required letters. They are _Beya shuma va damad_—You come, and son-in-law; _Boro shuma va damad_—You go, and son-in-law; _Barayi shuma vajibest daleel_—You must have a guide. For Arabic he gives us three others, and in one case the inner meaning which so many Arabic words bear. They are: _Bismillah salimho va dalilho_—In God’s name greet him and show him the way; _Balad shams va dobab_—Land of sun and mist—that is to say, Land of trouble and strong government; and finally, _Baad Saadi vadie Doctor_—After Saadi kill the doctor.”

Troubled though she was, Edith burst into laughter. “I guess that he thinks I am here trying to kill you both. Well, I won’t. I give up trying to find out the meaning of bsvd.”

Trench handed the yellow paper back. “I suppose I feel about Saadi as you feel about God. I’ve got to trust him, because I can’t check him up.”

Edith took the paper, hesitated, and placed it again in the doctor’s hand. “Send it to Dr. Jaffer,” she said.

Trench slowly folded the paper. “You are quite serious?”

“Quite serious. It was you who sent me to Ischl’s. Elsie is our ward.”

Trench opened a drawer and glanced at his check book. “It will inconvenience me a little.”

She laid a hand on his arm. “Dr. Trench, you must let me pay Dr. Jaffer’s expenses.”

“That would take too much explaining. I am sorry to be short, however. You see, I lent Saadi a thousand.”

Edith opened her eyes very wide. This man, this ideal of cautious commonsense, was a lunatic. But she held her peace.

“Joint guardians, eh,” continued Trench. “I’m not sure that we are the only ones.” He turned to the telephone book, found a number, and asked for it. “Is this you, Mr. Ischl? This is Dr. Trench. Is your car there? Could you spare the time to run round to my office?”

While they were waiting, Trench took from a drawer an album of pictures of Encampment, and together they seemed to tread again the cedar woods. “Not Encampment,” she said, “but Enchantment.”

Presently in came Ischl, a little uncertain in his flat-footed tread, and thinner than of yore. He had a reeking cigar in his fingers, but, seeing a lady present, made an effort to quench it and hide it.

“Miss Bridgman, this is Mr. Ischl.”

“I’ve heard of you, Mr. Ischl. Your stock went up with your employés last summer.”

Ischl strove to hide his embarrassed pleasure. “’Twan’t my doing. This man here is responsible. You don’t know all my family history, and I ain’t here to tell it. But I had a damned hard time to make Dr. Trench do something for me. And now, doc, what can Ischl do for you?”

“Mr. Ischl, you’ve a little girl named Elsie.”

“Yes, thank God, I have.”

“Well, it was Miss Bridgman who interceded for Elsie. Do you remember what you said to me about some other girls?”

“Well, I guess I said a good many things. It was a warm morning. But I remember I says, doc, I says, there’s others named Elsie.”

“That’s it. And do you remember Elsie—what was her last name, Miss Bridgman?”

“Shaviro.”

“Sure, doc. Best forewoman I ever had. Got a head on her like a man. She ain’t been with me in close to five months.”

“She’s in trouble, Ischl.”

“Damned sorry to hear it. Some man do her dirt?”

“Miss Bridgman fears so. The man has gone to Europe, and we want to find him and make him support her—if it’s necessary to make him.”

“I’ll sit in with you on that deal. Is it money you want?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve got my check book right here. I stuck it in my pocket when I heard it was you. God damn it—excuse me, lady, but I got to swear—I hoped the time would come when you’d need that thousand.”

“Too much, Ischl. Make it five hundred. I don’t myself feel sure that I ever earned a dollar in my life, but I’ll take that much and thank you.”

“You’ll take a thousand. I’m it, this time, and I ain’t lost no money this winter. There! There you are, and I hope you’ll find your quitter. Any time you need a little more for them as needs it, I guess maybe I could cough up if I tried hard. And there’s one thing more I want to say. This lady here done a fine thing when she let my girl come first. I won’t never forget it, Miss Bridgman.”

He laid the check on the desk, shook hands, and was gone.

Edith opened her handbag again, but this time it was for her handkerchief. “You wonderful man,” she said, wiping her eyes.

Trench was the least bit tremulous himself as he replied. “Mr. Ischl very properly thinks you the wonderful one. The deeds of Drummond and Ischl read like a fairy story. But it is certain enough that some ideals do get realised.”

“How soon will you telegraph to Dr. Jaffer?”

“In ten minutes.”

Trench drew up a pad of paper, and wrote.

Chicago, April 22, 1914.

Rasul Rahim Jaffer, Peshawar, India.

Please proceed Tashkent Grand Hotel inform Saadi child expected
October should cable Elsie intention of returning. Am cabling
expenses.

TRENCH.

“Will that do?”

“It is fine. But is it strong enough? Won’t you insert ‘quickly’?”

“All right. ‘Please proceed quickly.’”

“And is ‘should return’ strong enough? Won’t you say ‘must return’?”

Trench reflected. “‘Should’ seems to me better, but I am glad to defer to your judgment. It now reads:

“Please proceed quickly Tashkent Grand Hotel inform Saadi child
expected October must cable Elsie intention of returning. Am
cabling expenses.”

“That is splendid, Dr. Trench. Splendid! And you are splendid to do this for Elsie. I shall sleep in peace to-night.”

Then she took out Elsie’s letter to Saadi, and wrote on it _Aux soins de Dr. Jaffer_, and departed. She posted the letter and went home happy, having missed a day at the University.

Trench bestirred himself to get five hundred dollars after banking hours. Anybody else would have left that part of the work till next day. But he happened to know the name of Jaffer’s bank in Peshawar, and he gathered from one Halsted merchant and another till he had the required sum. By half-past four the message had gone, and by six the money.

At dinner Trench was somewhat preoccupied. He had no intention of telling the boys that Saadi was married, but he greatly desired to know whether Saadi had ever dropped any word about acquaintances in Tashkent. Luck was with him, and he was spared the need of questioning. Chat, the quietest of men, was full of a certain charming experience and had to tell of it.

“Wu, I have the honour of the acquaintance of a great lady, such as we call a _burra mem_. She must be one of what Americans call the four hundred, a—” he stopped. It had occurred to him that he had been guilty of a breach of manners.

“Well,” said Wu, “what is the rest?”

“Nothing, Wu. I do not wish to make a break or some such thing.”

Trench smiled. “He is showing a fine professional spirit, Wu. The lady is probably a Miss Bridgman who was here this afternoon. Finish the sentence, Chat.”

“I have forgotten it.”

“The phrase,” said Wu, “was four hundred, a—. A very curious phrase. It belongs in Tashkent.”

“What’s that?”

“Gospitalnaya, 400a. It is the address of a specialist in filaria. Prince Saadi gave me the numero.”

Trench said no more, but rested on that slender accident. Before he slept he wrote a letter to Jaffer, instructing him to call at Gospitalnaya, 400a, as soon as he arrived in Tashkent. Also he enclosed the Cetinje telegram. Perhaps Jaffer could think of some more odd sentences like Ameen’s.

That night he lay awake for hours, living over the events of the afternoon, and never once did it occur to him that his brain was repeating them like a machine. If he had loved her with all his heart before, he loved her beyond measure now, for his heart seemed suddenly to have dilated. As he dozed off, he saw no reason why he should not ask her to marry him. And then, rousing himself with great effort, he said to himself that moments of emotional expansion must not be allowed to interfere with long settled convictions grounded in reason.

He would try to think of her impersonally. A woman was only a light and hollow endoskeleton, cancellated for the attachment of muscles; a somatic envelope of certain germ cells; a creature of osmosis; a bag of sols and gels; a cluster of reflexes; a bunch of tropisms. But—he was calling her names! Such terms St. Anthony would have used, had he known them. Such terms a jealous husband might employ in his absurdest outbursts.

A modern man, frankly recognising the facts of sex, must be more courteous. He would grant her exquisite, with adjustments more delicate than those of ions, and pressures more subtle than those of light. But it was no go. She refused to be a mechanism. She declined to be reduced to her lowest terms. She remained Edith, and doubly dear.

Well, he could not formulate all those old arguments every time nature thrilled in him. He could only remember that the arguments were there and not to be disregarded, save at his peril.

At his peril. At his peril. But Trench was asleep—like a soldier on the picket line.