The Beetle Part 25

I was not well,-I was very far from well. I was as unwell as I could be without being positively ill, and any person of common discernment would have perceived it at a glance. At the same time I was not going to admit anything of the kind to her.

'Thank you,-I am perfectly well.'

'Then, if I were you, I would endeavour to become imperfectly well; a little imperfection in that direction might make you appear to more advantage.'

'I am afraid that that I am not one of those persons who ever do appear to much advantage,-did I not tell you so last night?'

'I believe you did say something of the kind,-it's very good of you to remember. Have you forgotten something else which you said to me last night?'

'You can hardly expect me to keep fresh in my memory all the follies of which my tongue is guilty.'

'Thank you.-That is quite enough.-Good-day.'

She turned as if to go.

'Miss Grayling!'

'Mr Atherton?'

'What's the matter?-What have I been saying now?'

'Last night you invited me to come and see you this morning,-is that one of the follies of which your tongue was guilty?'

The engagement had escaped my recollection-it is a fact-and my face betrayed me.

'You had forgotten?' Her cheeks flamed; her eyes sparkled. 'You must pardon my stupidity for not having understood that the imitation was of that general kind which is never meant to be acted on.'

She was half way to the door before I stopped her,-I had to take her by the shoulder to do it.

'Miss Grayling!-You are hard on me.'

'I suppose I am.-Is anything harder than to be intruded on by an undesired, and unexpected, guest?'

'Now you are harder still.-If you knew what I have gone through since our conversation of last night, in your strength you would be merciful.'

'Indeed?-What have you gone through?'

I hesitated. What I actually had gone through I certainly did not propose to tell her. Other reasons apart I did not desire to seem madder than I admittedly am,-and I lacked sufficient plausibility to enable me to concoct, on the spur of the moment, a plain tale of the doings of my midnight visitor which would have suggested that the narrator was perfectly sane. So I fenced,-or tried to.

'For one thing,-I have had no sleep.'

I had not,-not one single wink. When I did get between the sheets, 'all night I lay in agony,' I suffered from that worst form of nightmare,-the nightmare of the man who is wide awake. There was continually before my fevered eyes the strange figure of that Nameless Thing. I had often smiled at tales of haunted folk, -here was I one of them. My feelings were not rendered more agreeable by a strengthening conviction that if I had only retained the normal att.i.tude of a scientific observer I should, in all probability, have solved the mystery of my oriental friend, and that his example of the genus of copridae might have been pinned,-by a very large pin!-on a piece-a monstrous piece!-of cork. It was, galling to reflect that he and I had played together a game of bluff,-a game at which civilisation was once more proved to be a failure.

She could not have seen all this in my face; but she saw something-because her own look softened.

'You do look tired.' She seemed to be casting about in her own mind for a cause. 'You have been worrying.' She glanced round the big laboratory. 'Have you been spending the night in this- wizard's cave?'

'Pretty well'

'Oh!'

The monosyllable, as she uttered it, was big with meaning. Uninvited, she seated herself in an arm-chair, a huge old thing, of s.h.a.green leather, which would have held half a dozen of her. Demure in it she looked, like an agreeable reminiscence, alive, and a little up-to-date, of the women of long ago. Her dove grey eyes seemed to perceive so much more than they cared to show.

'How is it that you have forgotten that you asked me to come?- didn't you mean it?'

'Of course I meant it.'

'Then how is it you've forgotten?'

'I didn't forget.'

'Don't tell fibs.-Something is the matter,-tell me what it is.- Is it that I am too early?'

'Nothing of the sort,-you couldn't be too early.'

'Thank you.-When you pay a compliment, even so neat an one as that, sometimes, you should look as if you meant it.-It is early,-I know it's early, but afterwards I want you to come to lunch. I told aunt that I would bring you back with me.'

'You are much better to me than I deserve.'

'Perhaps.' A tone came into her voice which was almost pathetic. 'I think that to some men women are almost better than they deserve. I don't know why. I suppose it pleases them. It is odd.' There was a different intonation,-a dryness. 'Have you forgotten what I came for?'

'Not a bit of it,-I am not quite the brute I seem. You came to see an ill.u.s.tration of that pleasant little fancy of mine for slaughtering my fellows. The fact is, I'm hardly in a mood for that just now,-I've been ill.u.s.trating it too much already.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, for one thing it's been murdering Lessingham's cat.'

'Mr Lessingham's cat?'

'Then it almost murdered Percy Woodville.'

'Mr Atherton!-I wish you wouldn't talk like that.'

'It's a fact. It was a question of a little matter in a wrong place, and, if it hadn't been for something very like a miracle, he'd be dead.'

'I wish you wouldn't have anything to do with such things-I hate them.'

I stared.

'Hate them?-I thought you'd come to see an ill.u.s.tration.'

'And pray what was your notion of an ill.u.s.tration?'

'Well, another cat would have had to be killed, at least.'

'And do you suppose that I would have sat still while a cat was being killed for my-edification?'

'It needn't necessarily have been a cat, but something would have had to be killed,-how are you going to ill.u.s.trate the death- dealing propensities of a weapon of that sort without it?'