PAGE 11
The Mind Reader
by
There was a distracting delay.
“No matter who’s back of you,” objected Maddox, “it’s a big order on a gamble.”
“It’s not a gamble,” cried Philip. “It’s an accomplished fact. I’m at the Ritz. Call me up there. Start buying now, and, when you’ve got a thousand of each, stop!”
Philip was much too agitated to go far from the telephone booth; so for half an hour he sat in the reading-room, forcing himself to read the illustrated papers. When he found he had read the same advertisement five times, he returned to the telephone. The telephone boy met him half-way with a message.
“Have secured for you a thousand shares of each,” he read, “at fifteen. Maddox.”
Like a man awakening from a nightmare, Philip tried to separate the horror of the situation from the cold fact. The cold fact was sufficiently horrible. It was that, without a penny to pay for them, he had bought shares in three steamship lines, which shares, added together, were worth two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. He returned down the corridor toward the lounge. Trembling at his own audacity, he was in a state of almost complete panic, when that happened which made his outrageous speculation of little consequence. It was drawing near to half-past one; and, in the persons of several smart men and beautiful ladies, the component parts of different luncheon parties were beginning to assemble.
Of the luncheon to which Lady Woodcote had invited him, only one guest had arrived; but, so far as Philip was concerned, that one was sufficient. It was Helen herself, seated alone, with her eyes fixed on the doors opening from Piccadilly. Philip, his heart singing with appeals, blessings, and adoration, ran toward her. Her profile was toward him, and she could not see him; but he could see her. And he noted that, as though seeking some one, her eyes were turned searchingly upon each young man as he entered and moved from one to another of those already in the lounge. Her expression was eager and anxious.
“If only,” Philip exclaimed, “she were looking for me! She certainly is looking for some man. I wonder who it can be?”
As suddenly as if he had slapped his face into a wall, he halted in his steps. Why should he wonder? Why did he not read her mind? Why did he not KNOW? A waiter was hastening toward him. Philip fixed his mind upon the waiter, and his eyes as well. Mentally Philip demanded of him: “Of what are you thinking?”
There was no response. And then, seeing an unlit cigarette hanging from Philip’s lips, the waiter hastily struck a match and proffered it. Obviously, his mind had worked, first, in observing the half-burned cigarette; next, in furnishing the necessary match. And of no step in that mental process had Philip been conscious! The conclusion was only too apparent. His power was gone. No longer was he a mind reader!
Hastily Philip reviewed the adventures of the morning. As he considered them, the moral was obvious. The moment he had used his power to his own advantage, he had lost it. So long as he had exerted it for the happiness of the two lovers, to save the life of the King, to thwart the dishonesty of a swindler, he had been all-powerful; but when he endeavored to bend it to his own uses, it had fled from him. As he stood abashed and repentant, Helen turned her eyes toward him; and, at the sight of him, there leaped to them happiness and welcome and complete content. It was “the look that never was on land or sea,” and it was not necessary to be a mind reader to understand it. Philip sprang toward her as quickly as a man dodges a taxi-cab.
“I came early,” said Helen, “because I wanted to talk to you before the others arrived.” She seemed to be repeating words already rehearsed, to be following a course of conduct already predetermined. “I want to tell you,” she said, “that I am sorry you are going away. I want to tell you that I shall miss you very much.” She paused and drew a long breath. And she looked at Philip as if she was begging him to make it easier for her to go on.