Читать книгу The Complete Works - Stanley G. Weinbaum - Страница 47

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"I won't be bullied!" Pat told herself, examining her features in the mirror. The two day interval had faded the discoloration of her cheek to negligible proportions, and all that remained as evidence of the violence of Saturday night was the diminishing mark on her chin. Of course, her knees—but they were covered; most of the time, at least. She gave herself a final inspection, and somewhere below a clock boomed.

"Eight o'clock," she remarked to her image; "Time to be leaving, and it serves Dr. Carl right for his high-handed actions last night. I won't be bullied by anybody." She checked herself as her mind had almost added, "Except Nick." True or not, she didn't relish the thought; the recent recollections it roused were too disturbing.

She tossed a stray wisp of black hair from her forehead and turned to the door. She heard her mother's voice as she descended the stairs.

"Are you going out, Patricia? Do you think it wise?"

"I am perfectly all right. I want to go for a walk."

"I know, Dear; it was largely your appearance I meant." She surveyed the girl with a critical eye. "Nice enough, except for that little spot on your chin, and will you never learn to keep your hair away from that side of your forehead? One can never do a bob right; why don't you let it grow out like the other girls?"

"Makes me individual," replied Pat, moving toward the outer door. "I won't be late at all," she added.

On the porch she cast a cautious glance at Dr. Horker's windows, but his great figure was nowhere evident. Only a light burning in the library evinced his presence. She gave a sigh of relief, and tiptoed down the steps to the sidewalk, and moved hastily away from the range of his watchful eyes.

No sooner had she sighted the park than doubts began to torment her. Suppose this were some trick of Nicholas Devine's, to trap her into some such situation as that of Saturday night. Even suppose that she found him the sweet personality that she had loved, might that also be a trick? Mightn't he be trusting to his ability to win her over, to the charm she had confessed to him that he held for her? Couldn't he be putting his faith in his own amorous skill, planning some specious explanation to win her forgiveness only to use her once more as the material for some horrible experiment? And if he were, would she be able to prevent herself from yielding?

"Forewarned is fore-armed," she told herself. "I'll not put up such a feeble resistance this time, knowing what I now know. And it's only fair of me to listen to his explanation, if he really has one."

She was reassured by the sight of the crowded park; groups strolled along the walks, and an endless procession of car-headlights marked the course of the roadway. Nothing could happen in such an environment; they'd be fortunate even to have an opportunity for confidential talk. She waited for the traffic lights, straining her eyes to locate Nicholas Devine; at the click of the signal she darted across the street.

She moved toward the lake; here was the spot, she was sure. She glanced about with eagerness unexpected even to herself, peering through the shadow-shot dusk. He wasn't there, she concluded, with a curious sense of disappointment; her failure to appear last night had disheartened him; he had abandoned his attempt.

Then she saw him. He sat on a bench isolated from the rest in a treeless area overlooking the lake. She saw his disconsolate figure, his chin on his hand, staring moodily over the waters. A tremor ran through her, she halted deliberately, waiting until every trace of emotion had vanished, then she advanced, standing coolly beside him.

For a moment he was unaware of her presence; he sat maintaining his dejected attitude without glancing at her. Suddenly some slight movement, the flutter of her skirt, drew his attention; he turned sharply, gazing directly into her face.

"Pat!" He sprang to his feet. "Pat! is it you—truly you? Or are you one of these visions that have been plaguing me for hours?"

"I'm real," she said, returning his gaze with a studied coolness in her face. She made no other move; her cold composure disconcerted him, and he winced, flushed, and moved nervously aside as she seated herself. He dropped beside her; he made no attempt to touch her, but sat watching her in silence for so long a time that she felt her composure ebbing. There was a hungry, defeated look about him; there was a wistfulness, a frustration, in his eyes that seemed about to tug tears from her own eyes. Abruptly she dropped her gaze from his face.

"Well?" she said finally in a small voice, and as he made no reply, "I'm here."

"Are you really, Pat? Are you truly here?" he murmured, still watching her avidly. "I—I still don't believe it. I waited here for hours and hours last night, and I'd given up hope for tonight, or any night. But I would have come again and again."

She started as he bent suddenly toward her, but he was merely examining her face. She saw the gleam of horror in his expression as his eyes surveyed the faintly visible bruise on her cheek, the red mark on her chin.

"Oh my God, Pat!" His words were barely audible. "Oh my God!" he repeated, drawing away from her and resuming the attitude of desolation in which her arrival had found him. "I've hoped it wasn't true!"

"What wasn't?" She was keeping her voice carefully casual; this miserable contrition of Nick's was tugging at her rather too powerfully for complete safety.

"What I remembered. What I saw just now."

"You hoped it wasn't true?" she queried in surprise. "But you did it."

"I did it, Pat? Do you think I could have done it?"

"But you did!" Her voice had taken on a chill inflection; the memory of those indignities came to steel her against him.

"Pat, do you think I could assault your daintiness, or maltreat the beauty I worship? Didn't anything occur to you? Didn't anything seem queer about—about that ghastly evening?"

"Queer!" she echoed. "That's certainly a mild word to use, isn't it?"

"But I mean—hadn't you any idea of what had happened? Didn't you think anything of it except that I had suddenly gone mad? Or that I'd grown to hate you?"

"What was I to think?" she countered, trying to control the tremor that had crept into her voice.

"But did you think that?"

"No," the girl confessed after a pause. "At first, when you started with that drink, I thought you were looking for material for your work. That's what you said—an experiment. Didn't you?"

"I guess so," he groaned.

"But after that, after I'd swallowed that horrible stuff, but before everything went hazy, I—thought differently."

"But what, Pat? What did you think?"

"Why, then I realized that it wasn't you—not the real you. I could feel the—well, the presence of the person I knew; this presence that was tormenting me was another person, a terrible, cold, inhuman stranger."

"Pat!" There was a note almost of relief in his voice. "Did you really feel that?"

"Yes. Does it help matters, my sensing that? I can't see how."

His eyes, which had been fixed on hers, dropped suddenly. "No," he muttered, all the relief gone out of his tones, "no, it doesn't help, does it? Except that it's a meager consolation to me to know that you felt it."

Pat struggled to suppress an impulse to reach out her hand, to stroke his hair. She caught herself sharply; this was the very danger against which she had warned herself—this was the very attitude she had anticipated in Nicholas Devine, the lure which might bait a trap. Yet he looked so forlorn, so wistful! It was an effort to forbear from touching him; her fingers fairly ached to brush his cheek.

"Only a fool walks twice into the same trap," she told herself. Aloud she said, "You promised me an explanation. If you've any excuse, I'd like to hear it." Her voice had resumed its coolness.

"I haven't any excuse," he responded gloomily, "and the explanation is perhaps too bizarre, too fantastic for belief. I don't believe it entirely; I suppose you couldn't believe it at all."

"You promised," she repeated. The carefully assumed composure of her voice threatened to crack; this wistfulness of his was a powerful weapon against her defense.

"Oh, I'll give you the explanation," he said miserably. "I just wanted to warn you you'd not believe me." He gave her a despondent glance. "Pat, as I love you I swear that what I tell you is the truth. Do you think you can believe me?"

"Yes," she murmured. The tremor had reappeared in her voice despite her efforts.

Nicholas Devine turned his eyes toward the lake and began to speak.