Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 6 (1927-06).djvu/14

 the black shadows of the garden. Even when he had taken Margaret into the lighted room, he had felt this entity near at hand. Who could it be that was trying to penetrate his objective consciousness so strangely? Who could be so bitter against the man who had won Margaret’s love, except some rival? He entertained not the slightest doubt that it was an unsuccessful rival whose bitter envy he had felt. But who?

He remembered distinctly that in the moment Margaret had finished her song, turning to him with all her soul in her eyes, he had felt as though someone stood between them, someone about whose person he must pass to reach her. Who could this individual be who was interested in separating two young people so eminently suited to each other? Ned simply could not understand the situation, yet felt that it was a tangible situation. The fact that this unknown person was strong enough to make his unseen presence strongly felt was sufficient to give thought to the young lover. But an invisible rival could not long occupy Ned’s thoughts to the exclusion of pleasanter things. He mused and smoked while the hours fled.

The clock struck one. Simultaneously, Ned Wentworth sprang, as if catapulted, out of his chair, and whirled around to face the door, in full expectancy of seeing a stranger there. The doorway was vacant; it framed nothing but empty air. The young man’s eye roved the apartment with keen scrutiny. There was nothing more suspicious than a tall screen that served to hide his writing desk from the rest of the room. Upon this screen Ned’s glance finally rested with curious intentness. Then he shook himself impatiently and again sat down before the hearth. The impression of a strange presence was so strong, however, that he was induced to move his chair so that he faced the screen.

For fully five minutes he sat motionless, smoking. Then he rose, went directly to the screen, whirled it aside and looked behind it. Nobody there. Furious at himself for entertaining the thought of a discarnate personality, he yet found himself considering it; he was actually angry because he had given the unknown the satisfaction of seeing him look behind the screen. When he returned to his place before the hearth, he deliberately turned his chair so that the screen was behind him.

He refilled his pipe and touched a match to it nonchalantly. Stealing insidiously into his mind came thoughts of the girl who sang his Ode to the Queen of Night at the performances in the Bedford Theater. She was slight and graceful, lacking Margaret’s robust, fearless poise; dainty and petite, while Margaret was almost too heavy to be graceful; she was charmingly pretty and knew just how to make herself fascinating, while Margaret made not the slightest pretext at using beauty aids, such as rouge, which with her dead-white skin would be so attractive. Beatrice Randall knew how to charm and fascinate a man, Ned reflected with a slow smile; Margaret, unfortunately, was entirely without that subtle mystery, that feminine art and guile, that attracts the male so positively. Beatrice would go any length to enchant an admirer; Margaret would have considered such efforts beneath her. On the whole, thought Ned, when Margaret sang his Ode she appeared a proud and unapproachable goddess; when Beatrice sang it, she was a most approachable, enticing, and desirable woman.

Instinctively Wentworth glanced up at the mantel shelf where a framed portrait of Margaret stood. As he looked, his brow contracted; a puzzled, almost startled expression