The Spell Part 3

"Too bad he has so much money!" Eustis was reflective. "If De Peyster had to get out and hustle a bit you would find he had a whole lot of stuff in him."

"Of course he has," Uncle Peabody agreed.

"Do you know Mr. De Peyster?" Inez asked, surprised.

"No," replied Uncle Peabody, "I don't need to after hearing Mr. Eustis's summary. On general principles, every one has 'a whole lot of stuff in him.' The trouble is that people don't give it a chance to come out."

"Your confidence is evidently based upon your general optimism?"

Armstrong remembered that Helen had mentioned this as a cardinal characteristic.

"Yes, but proved by a thousand and one experiments. Our present subject, who now becomes No. 1002, is apparently handicapped by the misfortune of inherited leisure. It is rarely that a man of possession reaches his fullest development without the spur of necessity. More frequently we see one extreme or the other--too much possession or too much necessity."

"That is all very well as a theory, but does it really prove anything as regards De Peyster?" questioned Armstrong. "Personally I think optimism is a dangerous thing. This confidence that everything is coming out right is what makes criminals out of bank cas.h.i.+ers."

"There is a vast difference between real and false optimism," replied Uncle Peabody. "I knew a man once who called himself a cheerful pessimist, because every time he planted a seed it grew down instead of up. He came to expect this, so it did not worry him any. He was a real optimist, even though he did not know it."

"What would be your prescription for a case like Mr. De Peyster's?"

queried Bertha Sinclair.

"A good wife, possessed of ambition, sympathy, and tact," Uncle Peabody replied, promptly. "This, my dear Miss Sinclair, is your opportunity to a.s.sist me in proving my argument. Will you be my accomplice?"

"I? Why, I don't even know Mr. De Peyster," Bertha protested. "You must find some one else."

"Very well," sighed Mr. Cartwright. "You see how difficult it is for science to a.s.sert its laws."

Helen caught sight of Inez' cheeks and hastened to her friend's relief.

"Uncle Peabody, do you know that you are responsible for the first difference of opinion which has arisen between my husband and me?"

"My gracious, no! Can it be possible?"

"It is a fact. I stated to him only yesterday that perfect digestion was the only basis on which health and happiness can possibly rest. You taught me that, but Jack a.s.serts that a touch of indigestion is absolutely essential to genius."

"How does he know? Has he a touch of indigestion?"

"Not a touch," laughed Armstrong, "and that proves my statement. I really believe I might have been a genius if my digestion had not always been so disgustingly strong."

"Don't despair, my dear boy."

Uncle Peabody looked at Jack over his spectacles. "Genius is a germ, and sometimes develops late in life. If your theory is correct, a few more gastronomic orgies such as this will make you eligible."

"But is there not something in what I say?" Armstrong persisted, seriously. "Is it not true that good health is against intellectual progression? Is not good health the supremacy of the physical over the mental? The healthy man is an animal--he eats and sleeps too much. Pain and suffering have not developed the nervous side, which is so closely connected with the intellectual. When the physical side becomes weakened, then the brain begins to act."

Uncle Peabody listened attentively and then removed his spectacles. "My dear Jack Armstrong," he said, at last, "I can see some fun ahead for both of us, and Helen has placed me still further in her debt by her choice of a husband. Your argument is not a new one. It was invented a great many years ago in France by some clever person who wished to have an excuse for late nights, absinthe, and cigarettes. Do you mean seriously to advance a theory which, if logically carried through to the end, would credit hospitals and homes for the hopelessly depraved with being the highest intellectual establishments in the world?"

"But look at the examples which can be cited," Armstrong continued, undisturbed. "Zola produced nothing of importance after he adopted the simple life, and Swinburne's poetry lost all its fire as soon as he 'reformed.'"

"Can you prove in either case that the question of nutrition or digestion entered into the matter at all?"

"Oh, it may have been a coincidence, of course; but many other cases might be added."

Uncle Peabody was silent for a moment. "Let me give you a simple problem," he said, at length. "Helen tells me that you have an automobile now on its way to Florence?"

Armstrong a.s.sented.

"When it arrives I presume you will engage a chauffeur?"

"What has an automobile to do with nutrition, Mr. Cartwright?" demanded Mary Sinclair. "Surely an automobile has no digestion."

"My application is near at hand. When you engage that chauffeur I presume you will insist that he knows the mechanism of the machine, understands the application of the motive power and other details which enter into safe and successful handling of the car?"

"Naturally," replied Jack. "I am not introducing my machine here for the purpose either of murder or suicide."

"Exactly. That is just what I wanted you to say. Now, every human stomach is an engine which requires at least as intelligent handling as that of an automobile. Upon its successful working depends the mechanical action of the body. We may disregard the additional dependence of the brain. Petroleum in the automobile is replaced by what we call food in the human engine. Too much of either, unintelligently applied, produces the same unfortunate result. Now I ask you, John Armstrong, would you engage as chauffeur for your automobile a man who knew no more about the mechanism of its engine, or how to feed and handle it properly, than you yourself know about your own body engine?"

"No," Armstrong admitted, frankly, "I would not."

"But which is more serious--a damage resulting from his ignorance or from your own?"

"Look here, Mr. Cartwright," said Jack, laughingly, "you promised that there was fun ahead for us both. At present it seems to be mostly for you and our friends."

"Who started the discussion?"

"Helen; but I admit my error in being drawn into it. I had not expected to be convicted upon my own evidence."

Helen rose. "I must rescue my husband from the calamity I have brought upon him. Come, let us have our coffee in the garden."

III

If one could have looked within Uncle Peabody's room after the other guests had snuffed out their candles, he would have discovered its inmate seated beside the flickering light with an open letter in his hand. He had read it over many times since its receipt nearly three months earlier, announcing in Helen's characteristic way her engagement and approaching marriage. No one else had ever come so closely into his life, and he felt a certain responsibility to satisfy himself that the girl had made no mistake in the important step which she had taken. Now that he had actually met her husband, he again perused the lines which had introduced his new nephew to him.

"_It has actually happened at last_," the letter began, "_and your favorite wager of 'a thousand to one on the unexpected' has really won.

In other words, I, Helen Cartwright, condemned (by myself) to live and die an old maid as penalty for being so critical of the genus h.o.m.o, now confess myself completely, hopelessly in love, and so happy in my new estate that I wonder why I ever hesitated._

"_It is all so curious. The things which interested me before now seem so commonplace compared to the events to come in connection with this broader existence which is opening up before me. How infinitely more gratifying it is to feel myself living for and a part of another's life, how comforting to know that some other personality, whom I can love and respect, feels himself to be living for and a part of my life. It adds to the seriousness of it all, but how it increases the satisfaction!_

"_I wish I could describe John Armstrong to you, but now that I am about to make the attempt I realize how difficult a task I have undertaken. He is eight years older than I, but sometimes he seems to be years younger, while again I feel almost like a child beside him. No, Uncle Peabody, it is not a similar case to that little Mrs. Johnson whom you quoted when you were last home as saying that a woman feels as old as the way her husband treats her. I know this will pop into your mind, so I will promptly head you off. The fact is that Jack is a very remarkable man.

He is handsome, with great strength of character showing in every feature, he is tall and athletic,--but it is his wonderful mental ability which will most impress you. Think of a man playing on the Harvard 'Varsity eleven, rowing on the crew, and yet graduating with a =summa c.u.m laude=!_

"_Jack is a superb dancer, thus disproving the common belief that a man can't be clever at both ends; and at the a.s.semblies, even before we were engaged, I used to antic.i.p.ate those numbers which he had taken more than all the others. Besides this, his conversation was always so original,--touching frequently upon topics which were new to me. His particular fad is what he calls 'humanism' and his particular loves the great writers of the past,--his 'divinities,' as he calls them. You probably understand just what all this means, but, alas! most of it is beyond my comprehension! What he tells me interests me, of course,--it even fascinates me. I can follow him up to a certain point; then we reach my limitations, and I am forced to admit my lack of understanding.

That is when I feel so like an infant beside him. He is as patient as can be, and insists that when once I am in Florence, where the air itself is heavy with the learning of the past, I shall be able to comprehend it all, and it will mean the same to me that it does to him.

I wish I felt as confident!_