Page:Weird Tales Volume 2 Number 2 (1923-09).djvu/21

20 religious in his way—even inclined to mysticism in his inherited craving for a better understanding of the powers of mind and soul.

Yes, indeed, it was an odd match, and, should they marry, I could see nothing ahead for them but stormy weather, and shoals on which eventually they would founder.

Of course, Peter came to me, following the scene of that afternoon, and apologized abjectly for his rudeness. I forgave the lad, healed his hurt with a reassurance of continued friendship; but I did not mention the girl again I could not!

It was Peter himself who again mentioned her, several days later. He came to my office one gloomy afternoon, and slumped into a chair opposite my desk.

"She wants me to wait," he groaned. "Insists that the wedding be postponed for a year. A year! Three-hundred and sixty-five long days, while every atom of my being is crying out for her!"

He was suffering the mental agony known only to those of finer sensibilities. Still, I felt that this long period of waiting, dictated by the silly whim of a fluffy-headed girl, might be the means of saving Peter from his folly.

"I understand, my boy," I assured him, after several minutes of silence. "Such things are hard to bear; yet sometimes they turn out for the best. You have a year before you. Why not travel, Peter? Why not put in this time visiting those out-of-the-way places you have so often expressed a desire to see?"

He pondered for some little time.

"I'll think it over," he decided finally, and left in better humor than when he had come.

The following morning he came to my office again.

"I have considered the matter from all angles," he told me, "and I am going. If our love be real, it will be made even stronger by a few months separation, although it will be hard to endure."

But there was a new light in his eyes as he sat down and told me his plans. He was going to the Orient, he said, to the very cradle of civilization, and there investigate the strange things that were but hinted at in his books on psychology and philosophy.

"I want to find out for myself if some of these things be true," he said. "I want to delve into the farthest corners of the East, and sit at the feet of the wise men."

"It is well, Peter," I replied, hardly understanding what he had been telling me, but realizing that he had been drawn out of his somber state of mind of the day before. "Go, by all means, and when you return you will be more satisfied to drift back into the quiet life of Fairdale."

HEN Peter left Fairdale, three days later, I was at the depot to bid him farewell.

The girl He had asked her to see him on his way, also, but she had demurred. The engagement had not yet been made public, she said, and she feared the gossips. There was a slight note of disappointment in Peter's voice as he told me of this, but if he thought it queer he did not say so.

More than ten weeks elapsed before I heard from him. At that time I received a letter, written in his usual nervous style, but pregnant with enthusiasm and the joy of new discoveries. It was dated at one of the smaller cities in the lower Bhutan district of India.

There was much more of the same tenor, in Peter's letter. I did not understand it all, myself. I still do not understand it.

However, I was overjoyed to hear from the boy. I was pleased to learn that he was happy-that he was not passing the time in pining for the girl he had left in Fairdale.

However, he had not forgotten her, as was evidenced by the closing sentences. He felt strongly, he stated, that everything was not right at home. Would I keep an eye open for him? Just what had caused this doubt to creep into his mind I do not know; at the time I presumed that he had sensed it from some thing in the letters she probably had written him.

I have a membership in the Country Club, but I had never been given much to social diversion. Still, to satisfy Peter—and myself—I pulled my old dress-suit from the closet and made plans to attend a few of the functions at which Aileen might be found.

It was not long before I discovered that Peter's uneasiness was not without reason. The girl was conducting herself in a manner that was causing considerable talk, even among the faster set of Fairdale. It appeared that her name was being coupled quite too often with that of a newcomer from New York—a certain Donald Hemenway.

I secured an introduction to him at the earliest opportunity. To the layman's eye he must have been a prepossessing chap, graceful, well-poised, with the manners of a prince. But a practising physician needed but one glimpse into those eyes to decide that Hemenway was not all that he should be. We passed the usual conventional words of greeting. Then, retiring to an easy chair, I watched the young New Yorker go through the mazes of a maxixe with Peter's fiancée.

I did not like the manner in which she rested herself in his arms, nor the warmth of her glances when she gazed up into his face, nor the voluptuous movements of her body as it bent and swayed in unison with his to the strains of the music.

Nor was her surrender lost upon the young fellow himself. He accepted it, however, as though it were not unusual. I began to wonder just how well these two knew each other. They danced together many times—too many, in fact, for convention's sake; and with each succeeding dance, her cheeks became more flushed and her surrender more complete.

Other persons, too, were watching the couple: and when the two finally left the clubhouse, in Hemenway's big yellow roadster, eyebrows were lifted