It pleased him to smooth away Wilhelm's feeling of humiliation, and soften his resentment, and banish the liquor-fogs from his brain and the dulness from his eye and the depression from his spirit, and restore to him his normal self and make him cheerful and comfortable; and by the crafts and witcheries of his tongue he did it. In no long time Wilhelm was discussing chess with him, the company were assisting in the debate, and things were going along as smoothly as ever. And at last when Wilhelm said he wished a record had been kept of those four remarkable games, so that he could lighten his dull hours by studying them, Satan said he would make the record.

»From memory?« my father asked, »after five days?« I think he meant it for irony; but irony was not his best hold.

Satan did not reply; but took some sheets of paper and filled them with the record of the games, in – well, in the time it takes to count ten, I should say, or perhaps fifteen. You could not see his hand move over the paper, it was just a whiz and a blur. Wilhelm examined the record in detail. Then,

»It is correct,« he said.

»Marvelous!« said the others.

»You've got your sample,« murmured Joseph. Lilly gave him a look which excused him from further comment.

 

 

Chapter 6

When I looked in on Lilly that night after she was abed, her eyes were red and she had been crying; but I found that the source of it was not Satan's indiscriminate ways, but only resentment against Marget for her attitude toward him. She thought it was scandalous in Marget to act so, considering that she already had a lover. I was surprised at this remark; it seemed illogical, and I said so.

»You are in love with Philip Traum yourself, and you had another lover.«

She flew out at me and said –

»The cases are not the same – they are far different.«

I suppose it was a mistake to ask her to point out the difference, but I did it, not knowing much about women then – nor now, probably. Her temper warmed up, and she said –

»If you can't see the difference, it would be useless for me to try to make you. Oh, you are so stupid!«

I could not see that that was an answer, and I said so. I said –

»Look at the cases – coolly and dispassionately – just as if it were other people, and you not concerned. There's Marget and Wilhelm, engaged; on the other side you and Joseph, as good as engaged. A stranger comes along, and you and Marget brush your lovers aside and fall in love with him. If it is scandalous in Marget, why then it seems to me –«

»Now that's enough – I don't want to hear any more about it. I never saw such a wandering mind.«

»Wandering mind, indeed! Where is my mind wandering, I'd like to know?«

»Yes, I should think you would. But don't try – nobody can find out. You'll only fatigue yourself.«

It was a shame to put me down like that and walk over me, so to speak, when I was certainly in the right. I ought to have known that when a woman gets her head set, particularly in a love matter, she hasn't any sense and isn't any more movable by argument than a stump is; but I was but a lad, and didn't know the crazy make of them.

I dropped the matter, since I had to, and then I went at the matter which I had mainly come to talk about. For Lilly's own happiness I wanted to save her while there was yet time, from irrevocably engaging her heart in this hopeless chase. So I led up to it in a grave and impressive introduction of some length, and when I believed I had sufficiently prepared her for the blow, I said –

»My dear, dear sister, be warned: he does not love you, and he never can.«

Storm-fires began to gather in her eyes, and she rose and sat up in the bed and looked me over, much as a comet looks a little dog over that has been trying to help it conduct its excursion in the safest way.

»You think so!« she said. »I wish to ask you a question or two – you who are so fond of reasoning and arguing and inferring, and think yourself so competent in such matters. What do you know about Philip Traum? Nothing. Are you intimate with him? Certainly not. Is your mind capable of intimacy with a mind like his? Hardly. Have you ever encountered such a mind before? Answer me.«

»Well – no.«

»Is there any one else in the world who can bring out of a simpering old spinet the music of the spheres?«

»No.«

»Is there any one else who can carry four games of chess in his memory a week? Or transmute prose into poetry without reflection or preparation? Or turn a would-be assassin into a fireside comrade in ten minutes by the clock? Or do this?« and she drew that embroidery from under her pillow and displayed it. »Come – infer me an inference. What do you infer from these things?«

»Well, that he – that he is not like anybody else.«

She snatched at that as triumphantly as if I had given my whole case away:

»You've said it! Very well, then, since he is not like anybody else, it is argument that he is governed by laws that are not the laws which govern other people's actions. Do we know what the laws are which govern him?«

Of course I knew, but it was not my privilege to let out that fact, so I blinked the truth and said no.

»Very well, then, you see where you have landed. You don't know, and can't know, that he will never love me; so you need not bother yourself any more about the matter.