CHAPTER V.
IN THE HIGHEST DEGREE.
Five long and fateful years had rolled up the self-inflicted sacrifices of the man from Kankakee.
In the remote glades of Gingalee lonely Alonzo Leffingwell has finally completed the curriculum of the fifty-seven Paths in accordance with schools of Hindustan.
The Western Votary of “Meditation” had attained to the Highest Degree of “the first Discipline.”
He is now descended from the inaccessible mountain upon which he received his education in the Lesser Attainments.
He is now released from the “Cave of the Happy Musings of Misery.”
His pilgrimages, penances and prostrations are suspended.
He is temporarily absolved from the Wheel of Chance. He has, as it were, cut out the “Circle of Transmigration.” He is taking a vacation.
And just here (as Alonzo afterward explained in Kankakee) should be made some explanation of the wide difference and distinction between the mystico-theosophic-scholastic courses of Illinois and India.
In the Eastern branch TIME is the essential.
In the Western school Hustle is the key.
In the East forty to fifty years are consumed in mere preparation in initiatory contemplation, abstraction, introspection and absorption. Oriental methods call for time without dates, and a hundred years in the achievement of Gnanum is considered excellent work.
The practice of doubling or “ponying,” which obtains not merely in Illinois, but which distinguished Western scholarship generally, is unknown in India.
These methods are, however, invaluable when the American seeks wisdom in the Indian schools. By thus doubling or doing extra time Alonzo Leffingwell broke the record.
At first the deprivation of soap, towels and other civilized accessories appeared important. At times he yearned for a fine-tooth comb and a safety razor. However, when he had sat for six months without a change of position, and after he had held up his hands for several weeks at a stretch, he ceased to feel the need of these things.
Thus he conquered the Material and attained to the first stages of Nothingness in five brief years.
These years of Mounting the Spiral were, however, very trying to the Occidental Man, who had been used to the Spirit of Chicago and the Push of Illinois. His Oriental education wholly lacked the stimuli of association and competition.
For months he would have no other company than his own image in the Sacred Lake by day, and his own reflection in the night time.
For weeks together he heard no sounds nor had any news of outside life except the growl of a tiger or the laugh of some hyena in the mountain fastnesses.
This was especially depressing to one who had been reared on the Morning and Evening editions and to whom yellow journalism was food and drink.
Anything like a “Scoop” is not likely to occur in Mystic Circles in a thousand years.
For a long time the life in Gingalee seemed unutterably slow. He found himself where advertising as an art had not opened up. There was nothing to “exploit” and nobody to exploit it.
He found that men of his chosen profession were not expected to talk about themselves nor boast of their successes. At first this was so oppressive to the Seer from the States that he almost regretted leaving Kankakee. For, to boast of the length of one’s nails growing through the Palms would be voted exceedingly bad taste; and to exhibit satisfaction in the length of time one could meditate upon the “inspirated breath” would be set down as a weakness unworthy of a Wise Man.
Alonzo Leffingwell, therefore, practiced his Western methods and took his Eastern Degrees without announcing it in Headlines. He did not even send out a circular, nor display a poster.
By close application, however, he accomplished in five years what would have required fifty years for the native Hindustanee.
He was now, physically speaking, quite another man. He was quite another being than was he who had fallen at the feet of Imogene Silesia Sheets that June night in Kankakee. His Physical Vehicle was now but an underlying skeleton with an overlaid sun-baked skin.
For days together he sat folded up like a jack-knife, or knotted like a piece of string. He was impervious alike to heat and cold, sunshine and storm, or mosquitoes and antimires. And as for this whole physical world, though still in it, he was not of it. He was now, as far as the appetites and desires of the flesh are concerned, of no possible pleasure to himself nor to anyone else. Physically, or exoterically speaking, Alonzo Leffingwell was no more.
All this, however, was but the external, physical, material view. Esoterically, or astrally speaking, our hero had achieved the supreme object of Yog, and in reality the young man had never been so much alive, so joyously youthful, so entirely free, or so recklessly gay.
For it was now Alonzo Leffingwell, the astral man, who at will walked in and out of the crumpled up physical shell and levitated gaily through tangled jungle and dreary desert.
It was not the body but the spirit, the ethereal man, which clove the atmosphere and hied itself away through space, quite independent of all our clumsy means of locomotion, of our ships and railways, and our foolish bikes and autos. In this superior state he became a very active member of the great body politic. He was continually on the go. He went everywhere and saw everything.
Questions of salary and transportation were done. He had no baggage to check. He had no hotel bills, no tips to pay. He could no longer be snowbound nor floodtied. He traveled on schedule time.
He was now equipped for any old state of matter. He was impervious to dust, dirt, noise, odors and confusion. He was now equal to Chicago.
Liberated, self-supporting and self-propelling, this gay Gnani betook himself from the gloomy glades of Gingalee. He hied himself joyously over jungle and desert. He blithely skimmed the sea. He poised himself above the breakers on his native shore. His eyes were on the setting sun, his heart in Kankakee.
Nothing asked he now of any man. The exactions of custom houses and the extortions of cabmen were no more. He had forever escaped the abbreviated bunk of the Pullman sleeper, and the elongated solicitude of the Pullman porter.
The annual pass, once so prized by the Kankakee journalist, was now as nothing. For He-Who-Knows is a perpetual deadhead. He has solved the annoyances of travel. Steamships and steam cars have no value to him. Transfers and trolleys trouble him no more.
HE-WHO-KNOWS has indeed solved the question of income and transportation. He has unlimited credit. He is rapid transit itself.
Alonzo Leffingwell, Freshman Gnani of Gingalee, is master of the lower levels of space. He is distinctly in it.
His later critics were only reverting to facts when they said that he was “In the air.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE GAY GNANI OF GINGALEE.
These same five years had rolled over the Mansard Roof. The State Asylum still extended its hospitalities to the irresponsible and extra-illumined. The Vanderhook Drug Store remained as the LEADER, with additions and enlargements of stock.
Mr. and Mrs. Wm. K. Vanderhook, Jr., continued as ornaments to society, whose goings and comings were recorded, not only in the local Clarion, but in the big Chicago pink and green Sporting Extras whenever they attended the Horse Show or came in to root for the Cubs—or entered a fancy cat or dog for the annual “Show.”
To Mr. and Mrs. Vanderhook these had been years of social advancement and material success. Since his father’s death, the drug business had prospered in his son’s hands. The young man had also developed interest in politics and acquired a few ambitions in Kankakee. Our old friend “Bill” was now “William.” He was more than this. He was known and referred to as the Honorable Wm. K. Vanderhook; for he had enjoyed successive honors as Councilman, Mayor, and was now talked of for the Legislature. It was in view of this that his friends gave him the complimentary prefix.
He was also Captain of the Home Guard, Chairman of the County Committee, Secretary of the Y. M. C. A., and President of the Electric Light Plant.
All this he was, and did, and still umpired at many a ball game, and judged at all the Baby Shows.
And what of his wife, the adorable Typewriter, who had chosen the “Mansard Roof” and given notice to Slaughter & Steers on that sunny June morning five years ago?
She was the same charming and insouciant Imogene, the same dainty and debonnair creature who had so swiftly captured the town and won for herself all modern conveniences and many of the luxuries.
She was a light in the first circle of Kankakee. She gave “functions.” Her “At homes” were highly spoken of. Her Pink Teas and Lavender Dinners, and red Touring Car and yellow Toy Dogs were the talk of the town.
With a gentle but firm hand she ruled her husband’s house, and purse—and himself—when he was not looking.
Near-silks and close-to-Seals and Rhinestones knew her no more. It was now the Real Thing, and nickle-saving days were past, and the trolley car and the matinee gallery were forgotten.
But she still remembered Alonzo Leffingwell. She occasionally wondered if he had forgotten her.
Tonight is the fifth anniversary of their marriage, and Mr. and Mrs. Vanderhook have entertained a large company.
The best people of Kankakee and some choice friends of Chicago had gathered under the Mansard Roof. It was a long-remembered festivity. Society called it a Swell Affair. Imogene had invited them to a “little informal,” but the Honorable William privately declared it to be a Blow-Out.
From whichever point of view it was considered it was the climax of the Vanderhook social successes.
It is long past midnight. Mr. and Mrs. V—— are at last alone. The fifth anniversary has passed into history. The guests are gone. The great house is empty. The doors are closed. The burglar alarm is set.
On departing, each guest had rapturously pronounced the whole thing a success. So did the host and hostess later on—when they had counted and compared the value of the gifts with the cost of the entertainment.
When they discovered that the presents would figure up twice over the cost of the reception, they retired to their sleeping rooms elate with the consciousness of having discharged many social obligations, and their duty to themselves.
“You’re a dandy, Genesy, and no mistake,” ejaculated the Mayor, with admiration. “You were dead right, but I had no idea it would pan out like this,” and her husband playfully tweaked the golden curl that fell so prettily over the lady’s brow.
“Gump!” and the lovely Imogene laughed in the same high soprano that belonged to the “Yards.” She tossed her head, and made a little snatch at the Mayor.
Then Mr. Vanderhook himself laughed loudly as he dodged the blow, for he was still holding the golden curl in his hand.
“You’re an It,” and, playfully recapturing her curl and pinning it to the cushion, Imogene went on with the inventory of the gifts and criticisms of their guests.
It was not so much what they said, but it was the fond and familiar tone of their delicate joshing that indicated a still unbroken confidence between husband and wife.
But strange is the play of fate. Strange indeed, that in the supreme moments of human pride and vanity and self-satisfaction the “mills of the gods” begin to get in their work.
Wise the provision of nature which denies us foreknowledge of tomorrow’s disasters, penalties and retributions.
Tonight had been the proudest of Bill Vanderhook’s life. He had heard himself and his possessions lauded to the skies. He had heard his wife called the handsomest and best dressed woman in Kankakee. He had heard himself praised for his popularity as Mayor, for his ability as Captain of the Guard, for his cleverness as Chairman of the Committee, his efficiency in the Y. M. C. A., his judgment in the Electric Light Company; and besides all this had heard himself referred to as “our next candidate for Congress.” He had heard his house, his wine, his wife, commended. He had heard himself toasted as a self-made gentleman. His cup was full.
And now he is sleeping the sleep of the just. Man-like, he had with one jerk divested himself of his habiliments and plunging into bed was fast asleep in the twinkling of an eye.
Not so the fair Imogene. Woman-fashion, she needs must putter about, making many unnecessary preparations for retirement. She had unbuckled, unhooked, unbuttoned, unpinned, untied and unlaced. She had taken off, shaken out, folded, hung up, taken down, picked up, pulled off and straightened out all the things that a woman gets out of and gets into between an evening function and breakfast next morning.
And finally, standing before her mirror white-robed and picturesque, her yellow locks rolled into little wads, her beauty mask in readiness, her night gloves at hand, she leans toward her own reflection smiling softly and begins rubbing some creamy stuff into her complexion.
She was smiling at and enjoying the reflection of the new diamond ear-rings, Bill’s anniversary gift. She was enjoying them as only a woman can, in her mirror, when suddenly—she started. She became aware of a Something Unusual. It was a Presence that—was not Bill. She felt very cold all at once. She forgot whether she was massaging in the circular or horizontal. Then she turned hastily and just in time to witness a very remarkable phenomenon.
Directly before her, clothed like a fashion plate, trim and debonnaire, hat in hand, and bowing and smiling, stood the man she had rejected and forgotten years ago.
Imogene Silesia Sheets-Vanderhook stood face to face with the youthful yoga of Kankakee, the now powerful Gnani of Gingalee.
The lady’s sense of the proprieties was shocked. Her blood ran hot with anger. Then she remembered for a certainty the fast bolted doors and the burglar alarm, and then her blood ran cold with fear.
The silver box fell from her hand. She screamed in terror. She sprang forward, wildly calling for Bill, when—the gentlemanly intruder, still smiling, still bowing, withdrew as he came—directly through the panels of the bolted door.
“Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill!”
But Bill had heard nothing. He had schooled himself to noises. Sunday morning sermons made him drowsy, and he often slept profoundly when Mrs. V. ragtimed on the piano.
He had not heard that scream of terror. He had not sensed the thing which had fallen upon his hitherto happy home. It required a vigorous shaking to arouse him.
But when once awake and listening to his wife’s rehearsal of the incident, Bill Vanderhook was stirred. He was no longer drowsy. He was never so wide awake. The Mayor of Kankakee paled and trembled. Memory was rife. He recalled Alonzo Leffingwell’s departure and the cause. He remembered his own part in that fatal introduction. He remembered the mystic’s claim upon Mrs. V. And worse than all, he could not forget the conditional curse pronounced upon himself.
Bill Vanderhook realized his responsibility. A cold thrill ran spineward and radiated therefrom. It is said that drowning men pass in review a whole lifetime. So Bill Vanderhook in that one moment saw as in a vision his own domestic past. Though the years had but augmented his own devotion to Imogene Silesia, he had sometimes fancied that she, since coming into the Presidency of the Advanced-Thought-Extension Club, had at times appeared indifferent and distrait. He now recalled with an inward chill the foreboding that she now rarely came into the Drug Store except for a check, and that she no longer entered joyously into the yearly replenishing of the “Stock.”
He remembered further, that on one or two occasions she had spoken as if she missed something in him. She had once or twice yawned when he was repeating some very flattering things said about himself in his several capacities and offices.
A spasm of fear shook the gray matter in the druggist’s head, swept through the spine and circled round into the Solar Plexus—where masculine emotions seem to center. He felt very weak all in a minute.
“Imogene, Imogene, where is that Flask? Gimme that—I’ve got a chill; I might as well try it now.”
The flask, an elegant silver and cut glass affair, had been among the evening’s gifts. It was presented by the old Base Ball Nine. It was full when it took its place in line with other cards, but it was lighter when congratulations were over.
It was empty when the Mayor of Kankakee dropped it on the floor by his bedside.
Still he was cold, very cold, and still the fatal words “REMEMBER, YOU ASSUME MY RESPONSIBILITY” rang through the chambers of his memory.
“Shut that window, Genesy dear, the night air gives me a chill. Shut it tight, no—leave the switch on—I sleep better in the light, and see here, now, my girl, I don’t want to hear any more about that mutton-head Leffingwell. You did not see him or any other Spook, and I don’t want you to let your imagination run away with you.”
Saying which, that gentleman turned his face bravely to the wall and—pretended to sleep.
CHAPTER VII.
THE BOOK AND THE BAGDAD.
The fears of the druggist were well founded.
That night marked a new era in the Vanderhook home. After five years of profound silence, the discarded lover took advantage of his mysterious powers and became an unsought, uninvited, but permanent guest in his successful rival’s house.
From this date forward no day, nor occasion, was free from his presence or the expectation of it. From this day forward an estrangement developed between the hitherto apparently devoted husband and wife. At first, the still charming Imogene was somewhat awed by the unusual methods of entrance and exit practiced by this foreign-mannered Mystic. It did seem so very novel and so very creepy to see a gentleman sliding in through the dado and melting out through the frieze.
Since witnessing the swift and scientific pig killing at the Yards, she had seen nothing at once so rapid in execution and so shocking to the nerves. The first time she observed the back of a chair through her admirer’s waistcoat it gave her a genuine chill. Habit, however, dissipated the sense of awe and the lady became amused, then entertained, and finally deeply interested—as a student of Advanced Thought.
And further, Mrs. V. soon discovered many agreeable qualities in this diaphanous and cultivated Gnani, qualities which by contrast intensified the native inelegance of her husband.
Indeed, so swift was the progress of this marvelous romance that it was but a matter of weeks until the lawful master of the Vanderhook mansion saw himself relegated to a position inferior to that of the hired man. He inwardly chafed and outwardly expressed himself in large, round and unusual words. In vain, however, for notwithstanding both inward rage and outward expletives, the Honorable William K. Vanderhook, of Kankakee, was as nothing in the presence of this witty and agreeable shade who pervaded the atmosphere at all times and in all directions.
And what of the wife—she who had deliberately chosen the Mansard Roof—she who for five years had earned her board and clothes with at least every appearance of genuine satisfaction?
She was now as one bewitched. She was deaf to both Bill’s appeals and to his imprecations. She was no longer moved by presents. She was a wholly changed woman.
When Bill would protest more savagely than usual, she would say,—“Now, don’t be a grouch. I don’t see that he can do any harm to anybody. And besides, he is no expense to you, and he’s no trouble to me.”
And thus it was that the once happy home became a battlefield of words—words sharp, pointed, prickly and jagged. Bill’s temper, usually so sunny, became like a sheet of sand paper. His appetite fell off and his belt hooked in the fourth eyelet. But Imogene, feeding upon a fresh flirtation, bloomed again to girlish gaiety. In the presence of this suave and insinuating astral interloper she resumed all the fascinations and fripperies of the old days at the Yards.
Imogene Silesia Vanderhook had progressed.
Five years ago she had not even heard of “Occultism.” Now, however, since she herself had become an Advanced Thinker, she recognized the advantages of Mysticism.
The Club of which she was President had given a good deal of time to the Ultimate Destiny of Everything. Only recently she had prepared a “Paper” on Reincarnation which had been very highly spoken of. She could now discuss the nature and uses of the Ego with the same intelligence as did other ladies of the Club. She had spent hours together figuring out how she must have been a Princess—long ago. She was now quite up in karma and entirely absorbed in the “Uplift.”
It also came to be that while other ladies of Kankakee Tiddeldy-Winked and Ping-Ponged or wasted time on Diabolo, or clung to Bridge Tables, the members of the New Thought Club lost themselves in PRANAYAMA and KUMBHOKA. Even when their serious work was over they carried their enthusiasm to Five O’Clock Tea, chattering enthusiastically of PERUSA and KAIVALYA, and uttering longings for the state of NIRVIKALPA.
Mrs. Vanderhook yearned to be the first to waken KUNDELINI.
Bill, however, greatly to his wife’s chagrin, had steadily declined every effort toward his own illumination. He even on one occasion used some near swear-words when Imogene begged him to contemplate his Higher Self.
It was indeed Bill’s own obtuseness that finally helped to turn the tide against him. Had he been less dense and more amenable to the mystical peregrinations of the “Thoughters,” perhaps this tragedy had never been.
For here we must pause and explain how our one-time Typewriter was now become an Advanced Thinker.
The tragic love of Alonzo Leffingwell and his disappearance from Kankakee had made an indelible impression on the woman who rejected him.
From this time forward she became curious about “Occultism.”
Her marriage afforded the time and means necessary for the development of her Higher Self—about which so many ladies were now talking.
Presently she was as familiar with “Mysticism” as other members of the New Thought Club.
As time went on she enjoyed an ever extending acquaintance with the numerous and high-priced “Professors” and Specialists in Higher Lines of business.
While Bill was busy in the drug store, or looking after his political fences, the charming Imogene was brushing up on her “Subliminal Self” and learning how to “Wake the Plexus.”
Gradually Mrs. Vanderhook saturated her daily life with studies of the occult, adorned herself with mystic symbols, and prepared “papers” for the Club, on unintelligible subjects.
The Occidental woman who “aspires” does nothing by halves. Whatever her goal of attainment, she conforms her activities to that end, dedicates her energies to that ambition, and colors every duty with that Aspiration.
In this wise Imogene converted all of her entertainments and indulgences into expressions of the Universal, and made every day in the week a separate exercise for Self-Development.
To the Western Woman has been left the co-ordination of “Everything—I—WANT—TO—DO” with “Everything—I—ASPIRE—TO—BE.”
Mondays Mrs. Vanderhook devoted to Rhythmic Vibrations under the name of Physical Culture. Mornings she spent with an Advanced Athlete, rounding up with a contest at the Ladies’ Club Gym, and closing her day with a session at the Chicago Bargain Counters. This day of the week she devoted to swinging and swaying and climbing and bending and twisting and kicking and pushing and pulling, that she might develop the “Body Beautiful” in harmony with her “Higher Self.”
She never missed a Monday—in the field—for like most practical occultists of the Occident, she tended to overweight, and for this reason took kindly to the suggestion that reduction of the Surplus meant increase of illumination.
Tuesdays were given over to Beauty Culture; or, as her Specialist said, “To the making of a countenance that shall vibrate with the Beautiful Inner.” Throughout this day, therefore, she submitted herself to be steamed and buttered and rubbed and vibrated. She endured to be sponged and benzoined and rouged and stenciled and powdered, that she might “affirm with her face” the “Radiance at the Center.”
This was but one of the steps, for she also was shampooed and hot-aired and “treated” and hennatead and brilliantined and ratted and marcelled and puffed as to hair; and her hands, now freed from the cramp of the “keys,” were also soaked and creamed and massaged, while the nails were pumiced and oiled and tinted and polished—and still some more, for the ordeal ended in a bout with depilatories and electric needles.
All these things did Imogene, the charming; not that she liked it, nor that she was vain, but only that her Professors insisted that “the Outer must Express the Inner.”
“All-Is-Youth” and “There-Are-No Wrinkles” are the watchwords of a lady who has “found Herself.”
Wednesdays were set aside for another phase of co-ordination. This day was given over to the Nature-Cure Treatment, in which process she was played upon by vigorous streams of alternating hot and cold water. She was Osteopathed and Exercised. She was warmed in the Sun-Parlor, concentrated under blue glass and aired on the roof garden.
After this she ate a Nature-Cure Luncheon of Almost-Ox-Tail Soup, Near-Meat Salad, and other pretty nearly foods, drinking Roastum Cereal—thus eliminating the poisons of other medical systems, and developing the Cosmic Consciousness.
It was therefore Wednesday evening that the lady drank lemon juice copiously and slept under the Mansard Roof swathed in wet sheets—slept calmly, with an abiding faith in the illuminative power of her Water-Soaked System.
Thursdays, however, were reserved for the higher phases of her intellectual uplift. This day was set apart, as one of the mystics expressed it, for “Interior Decoration.”
This day she immured herself in her boudoir, where, with a roll before rising and a kimona all day long, she gave herself entirely to the “Contemplation of Herself.” For this day were reserved the most mystical books and profounder studies and solemner exercises.
Several hours of this day she gave to “The Secrets of Mental Supremacy,” and in the effort to attain “Consciousness without Thought” she spent many a half hour. Much time she consumed before her mirror in “Meditative Self-Analysis.” Again and again would her lunch grow cold while she was occupied in one of these many expensive Occult or Therapeutical Courses, purchased from leading Wise Men in Illinois. One of these covered Practical Occultism, another was Transcendental Mysticism. In still another she worked upon Rhythmic Inspiration, and yet another she was studying the How to Breathe—but none among them was more profoundly veiled in mystic meaning than the Course on “How to Ascertain the Heart Beat Unit.” At times she was so engaged in “Concentration” that she would fall asleep. At other times she became enthused in the effort to discover the Inner Meaning of the Meaningless. She became very skillful in the Expansion of Self and Manifested the Joy Philosophy every time she enlarged her Aura.
Fridays were set apart for what the lady termed “Expression”—that is to say, Fridays were selected for Social visits and “At homes,” on which day she gave a Manifestation of her several acquirements, making the rounds—that her friends might observe the Outer Beauty from the Radiant Center. This she felt to be the solemn duty of the Elect—that they set up the Joy and Beauty Vibrations in other women.
As a result of her strenuous lessons in Attainment she became the admired and envied of other New Thought Ladies. This could not fail to be, for aside from possessing an Original Design for this ever increasing beauty, Mrs. Vanderhook had both the time and money to search for her Highest Self in the best shops and under the most expensive Seers.
Still further and at odd moments Mrs. Vanderhook increased her wisdom by visiting such Mystics as did business near the Beauty Parlors and the Department Stores. To one she would go for a Horoscope—a reading of the Stars. Another would trace her glowing future in the lines of the palm, and another would instruct her in Psychological Polarity, and another dealt in “Character Sketches by Inspiration.”
There were still others who gave short lessons in Vibrations—some who taught “The Inner Meanings of Everything” in small blocks for large checks, and another, the Telo-Psycho-Theraput, who taught his patients to meet him at fixed times—and for fixed rates—out in stellar Space, where “soul to soul” and “freed from the Material,” he best could diagnose and “impart the healing word.”
Still other half hours—for she doted on symbolism—Mrs. Vanderhook would spend with one who advertised as “The World’s Most Famous Seer,” from whom she purchased expensive Charms and Sacred Bugs and things.
Again she would slip into the “Temple” of one whose Circulars “guaranteed” information concerning the Origin of Everything and its “Absorption into Nothing.”
Inspiring moments she would steal for the study of Vivilore and in these brief snatches she would “Contemplate the Path of Perfection,” or, breaking away from the downtown luncheon, she would rush for the Masonic Temple, where an American-East Indian was imparting Fourteen lessons in Philosophy in a few minutes.
With Saturday for Shopping and the Matinee, and Sunday for home and Bill, the mistress of the Mansard Roof led the life of the up-to-date New Woman.
Thus, as time went on, the erstwhile Typewriter became thoroughly “Advanced,” and the “Yards” became a far off memory.
And of all this Bill knew nothing.
Like other students of the “Ultimates,” Mrs. Vanderhook found that her “Attainments” did not mix well with every-day commonplaces. Her husband’s absorption in the drug store, and his fondness for a “Game,” seemed quite to unfit him for Higher Thought.
Indeed, at times Imogene seriously doubted Bill’s understanding of the Unknowable.
Bill was not watching for the subtle changes taking place in his Imogene. But one phase of it seemed to reach his obtunded consciousness, for this made a direct inroad upon his bank account.
The Special Course in “OPTIMISM AND OPULENCE”—for which “Ten Lessons at reduced prices” had captured Mrs. Vanderhook as a special bargain—produced direct results for which even the generous druggist was not prepared.
From the first “All-is-good” to the middle “Opulence-is-MINE” and to the final lesson, “I-AM-IT,” Imogene Vanderhook absorbed and radiated this beautiful Attitude of “I-am-entitled-to-everything-I-can-get.”
Matters of expense were airily dismissed. Bill’s “We-can’t-afford-it” was met by that splendidly wide Optimistic Smile and ignored with that expensively broad sense of Universal Opulence which is so perfectly fascinating in those who do not pay the bills.
The beautiful feeling that “I can tap the Universal for all I need” and that “I have only to affirm OPULENCE and have it,” encouraged the Mayor’s wife to extend her Charge Accounts with a childlike faith in the “Higher Currents of Wealth.”
Then again, Bill had experienced a sense of loneliness at times, when he would come in with a toothache or a touch of gastritis, to be assured that it was all in his Mortal Mind, and that what he supposed was Pain was but an “error” and instead of the earlier coddling to receive but a calm, vague, unsympathetic glance and a frosty little smile of one who “Functioned in the Realities.”
But these were all mere incidents, and the still devoted husband went on earning dollars for his Imogene Silesia to “radiate.”
Thus it was that the Mayor’s wife had been drawn into the rage for “Occultism” and the current “Uplift,” without his knowledge or consent, and by “Holding a Thought” or two and by means of fifty-seven Varieties of Unfoldment, had gradually unfitted herself fully to share her husband’s ambitions and tastes, which still centered in the Drug Store, the Lighting Plant and Politics.
Thus, unknown to him and scarcely apprehended by herself, the fair Imogene was preparing for a Change. This was why the Appearance of Alonzo, the Wise Man, had not disturbed her more, and why she so quickly accepted him as a matter of course and adjusted herself to Orientalisms.
But now that her perceptions were sharpened, the lady could not but perceive the primordial relation between herself and the once despised Mystic. She also was forced to cognize the enormous advantage of astral attainments over physical conditions and physical powers. She began to draw odious comparisons and invidious distinctions between her lawful master and her extra-lawful mate.
“Fool, and blind,”—she now murmured, from time to time, in just the same tone and with the same wild, back-handed gesture she had seen at the Chicago Opera House.
And the Gnani, day by day, murmured to his Higher Self,—“She is advancing beautifully.” He noted the sweet trustfulness with which she now leaned upon him—that is, philosophically speaking.
“She now Aspires from choice”—he would whisper to himself again and again. “She will lop off several reincarnations, while I—aha! ha ha!”—and his gaseous form would undulate with ethereal ecstasy.
In that astral realm where thoughts are things and business is transacted by mental checks, the inhabitants have distinct advantages over mere human beings who are circumscribed by purveyors of goods and settlements on a cash basis.
The learned Mystic quite obscured the Mayor of Kankakee. He covered him with humiliation at his own fireside. He trifled with the husband’s prerogatives. For, did the good-natured Bill, thinking to propitiate her on the old lines, send home to Imogene a Paris model from the swell modiste, then did his skillful rival at once materialize for her another headgear out of nothing, a “dream” so unique, so gorgeous, so becoming and so altogether stunning, that Imogene would shriek with delight, while Bill could only grind his teeth in rage.
Did the husband bring to his wife a bunch of early violets, the vigilant Gnani would immediately materialize great loads of American beauties towering upon extraordinary stems. He would shower her with Marechal Niels, worth a dollar apiece. With but one sweep of his hand a hundred rare blossoms would descend from the ceiling, covering and enveloping the lady in beauty and bloom.
Could any mere, mortal woman withstand such attentions as these?
To please her eye this ardent admirer rendered his appearance as alluring as his manners. Independent of tailors, and with everything at hand, this astral man got himself up regardless of expense, and thought on his costumes at will, to meet the requirements of the fashion plates. He frequently would surprise her with rapid transformations of raiments, posing successively in the distinctive garbs of many nations, races and times.
Perhaps at breakfast it was some Oriental potentate in royal robes who hovered by her side. At lunch a velvet coated artist, at dinner a gorgeous Indian chief, whose picturesque scalp-lock, beads and feathers and whose thrilling war-whoop delighted her refined taste.
And Alonzo would discourse to her oft and long of the beauties and practices of “Meditation.”
“But I’ll be switched”—she would say at times, “if I can understand your kind of mysticism.”
Whereupon the seer, smiling indulgently, would with all perspicuity reply,—
“Of course you don’t. I don’t expect you to. That isn’t what we’re here for. Nobody understands mysticism; for don’t you see, if they did, or could, or were likely to, there wouldn’t be any mysticism left, and then—why, my occupation is gone.”
“Why, sure; I hadn’t thought of it that way”—his Mate would murmur, and then she would add, “How sweet to be taught by one so wise.”
Moreover, this proficient prestidigitator constituted himself her private secretary and astral errand boy. He not only precipitated her social correspondence upon kid-finished, but he thus prepared all of her “advanced thought” papers, thereby saving her long hours over the Encyclopedia Britannica. Still more, he would read to her all letters and notes received, thus saving her the trouble of breaking the seals; and to amuse and gratify her, would peep—astrally, of course—and report upon the private correspondence and the private affairs of her friends in Kankakee.
And this was but one of the many offices and arts he exploited to charm his Affinity. And so it came to be an every-day occurrence that following any social invitation into the exclusive circles of Kankakee, Imogene would call to her “Llama Lonnie,” or her “Lonnie Bird,” and say, “Please won’t you just run over to Mrs. Dr. this, or Mrs. Judge that, and rubber a while? Then,” she would say,—“I’ll know what to wear and who is invited and how much it’ll cost, etc.”
Mrs. Vanderhook’s sudden acquisition of unlimited finery and jewels created unfavorable comment. The sudden costly equipment of her house astonished everybody. Her lavish display in entertaining was severely criticised by the best people. For in Kankakee, as elsewhere, the best people keep tab on each other’s faults, follies and failures.
The ghost of this gossip drifted back to the drug store; and Bill, who was too proud of himself to betray his wife, chafed in secret.
For, of course, the world knew nothing of the great astro-human drama that was being enacted in the Mayor’s home.
But there came a day when the outraged owner of the Mansard Roof cast aside all semblance of hospitality toward his rival and broke out into a fierce and jealous anger at his ethereal tormentor.
“Begone! you bloodless villain,”—he roared one morning when he had entered his dining room unexpectedly and found his guest strewing lilies of the valley around the plate laid for Imogene’s breakfast. “Begone! I say. Get out of my sight! Leave my house! Get out! I say, now, at once. Fly! melt! disappear!—vamoose!”
But the platter he hurled at his rival’s head went straight through it, crashing against the back of the chair on which sat the seer, smiling and unruffled.
Imogene snickered, and the astral man showered lilacs over her chair, while a handful of thistles were viciously flung from nowhere—into the blazing countenance of the enraged husband.
“Faithless woman! black magician!” shrieked Bill Vanderhook; and gathering up a large, bright carving knife, he sent it spinning into the heart of his rival. That is to say, the point of the knife clove the back of Alonzo Leffingwell’s chair, while the handle protruded from that gentleman’s left vest pocket.
But the gay Gnani of Gingalee still sat in his chair, erect, tranquil, smiling.
Imogene was so tickled she stuffed a napkin into her mouth. She did not intend to betray herself before the dining room girl.
Whereupon, the Mayor of Kankakee flung himself out of his mansion in a frenzy.
He did not come home to lunch.
At dinner he did not exchange a word with his wife. He scowled through five courses. Imogene was radiant. And their guest who seated himself at the table, [merely to keep Imogene company,] amused himself by inciting the knives, forks and spoons to cut unseemly capers on the cloth.
A few days later Bill Vanderhook returned from his office an hour earlier than usual. He came with the deep, deadly purpose of seeing what was to be seen, and he saw it.
Gently turning his latch-key, softly treading the deserted hall, stealthily crossing the costly Wilton of the drawing-room, and still on, still creeping through and around and up and back, on through my lady’s boudoir, still on, to the draped portals of his own private den—the one corner of his castle which thus far had been left to its master. Up to this time he had not dreamed that even an astral man could become wholly lost to the amenities of polite society.
But here and now he came upon the guilty pair, trespassers, invaders of man’s most sacred corner, his elysium in hours of peace, his refuge in times of woe,—his “Den.”
Outside, and screened by the heavy portieres, Bill Vanderhook sized up the situation. He saw what made his blood first warm and then to simmer and boil. It was not simply that they sat side by side. This he expected. But this—that they had the nerve to sit in his den; and more, to sit upon his couch; and worse still, to sit upon that gay and picturesque Bagdad which, of all his possessions, should have been left to him and him alone.
For this artistic creation had been Imogene’s gift to him upon that fatal anniversary wedding. That she had bought this Bagdad on bargain day and that Bill thought she had made it herself did not alter the sentiment. True, she bought the Bagdad to please herself; and true, that he cared no more for the dizzy thing than he would for a door-mat; yet, all the same, she had given it to him, and the giving was what he cared for.
Was it to be expected that this would ever have been made the background of his rival’s wiles and fascinations?
“This is too much, too much. Where am I at?”—and Bill Vanderhook clenched his fists and glared ferociously.
But, hist!—what is it these two are doing? What new conspiracy is hatching against the master of the house? Why do they sit so close, with heads bent in such juxtaposition? Why are they so silent, so absorbed?
“Aha! aha! a book!” It is a book they are poring over; a great leather book. A hand of each is under it. The other two are slowly turning leaves. Aha! they search for something. This is no ordinary book. They search,—and for what?
So intent are these two, this gay Gnani and his giddy Mate, that they have neither heard nor sensed the intrusion.
Bill Vanderhook listens.
What he hears chills his blood,—congeals it. He hears the frozen pellets rattle through his veins.
“Oh, my Llama Lonnie, it is not here.”
“Yes, my Goo-goo Eyes, it is, it is.”
“I don’t believe it, my Llama,” whispered Imogene.
“But it must be, it must be there my lady bird; for I happen to know something of the jurisprudence of Illinois.”
Bill was struck by the expression of their faces. He had never before seen the astral man evince any sort of anxiety over anything. He never remembered seeing that look in Mrs. Vanderhook’s face, except when she wanted something he couldn’t buy.
But he could no longer restrain himself. The jealous husband sacrificed his curiosity to gratify his anger. With one bound he cleared the threshold and landed in the middle of the den, full under the light of the Turkish lantern.
“You measly monstrosity!”—he cried in a loud voice. “Get ye back!—get ye back to your musty old lair in Gingalee!”—and lifting his walking stick he brought it down upon the despoiler of his peace. “And this is how you occupy yourself in my absence!”—he bawled. “These are the uses to which you put my house and my furniture, and my books! Is it for this that I run a drug store and—for Mayor the rest of the time? What new infernal scheme are you hatching now?”—and Mr. Vanderhook pounded the air,—instead of Alonzo Leffingwell.
Alonzo sat on the couch. He leaned against Mr. Vanderhook’s cushions.
At the first stroke Imogene had leaped from the couch; but the mystic never turned a hair, much less his head. A shower of blows fell harmlessly upon the gilded frame of the costly couch. There were some gilt chips on the carpet, some abrasions on the walking stick, but—the gentleman who had been beaten sat wholly unmoved, upright and smiling.
When it was all over, however, he rose, bowed mockingly and silently floated out of the room alongside of Imogene, who had regained her composure.
The deserted man now seized upon the book which had fallen from the hands of the surprised couple and lay upon the floor. He glanced at the title and then—his eyes were opened a little wider. Now he saw it all. Now he understood the weepiness in their tones as they had turned the pages.
The gay Gnani of Gingalee and Mrs. William K. Vanderhook had been reading the “Statutes of Illinois.”
The section on Divorce was blurred by tears.
But alas, as they had discovered, even this liberal and up-to-date commonwealth does not recognize the astral. Their case was therefore without parallel or precedent. These two had found in their particular case that there was no cause for divorce.
When he finally took in the whole force of the incident Bill vibrated with wrath. He dashed the book upon the floor of his den. He tore the brilliant Bagdad from its moorings of silken pillows; and then, as if by a wicked inspiration, he stooped, seized both book and drapery and dashed them into the open, glowing grate.
“So, there!—perish my love of woman!—and—and—anathema upon everything from anywhere that takes advantage of friendship and hospitality, that plays upon a woman’s vanity and with the honor of an honest man!”
And the plotters, but momentarily disturbed, had glided down stairs and sought another retreat. Their sorrow was soon modified, for they remembered presently that they could, in reality, defy all the statutes of all the states. They remembered that they could not be separated by law, even though the party of the third part could not be eliminated by law.
It was now Bill Vanderhook’s time to meditate.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MAN IN THE CELLAR.
The genial druggist was a changed man.
Without a smile he now listened when they talked of him for Congress.
He performed the duties of Mayor perfunctorily. The hours at the office palled on him. He collected the fees with a cold, studied indifference. The Chicago papers were unread. Whether it was the “Cubs” or the “Tigers” made no impression on his preoccupation. Life seemed to have lost its zest. Even the drug store was conducted incidentally, as it were.
The attention of William K. Vanderhook was elsewhere. The episode of the preceding chapter had hardened his heart and fixed his purpose.
It was now Bill’s turn to MEDITATE.
“There is,”—he would mutter to himself every little while—“there is in nature an antidote for every poison. Though undiscovered, it still exists. There is, there must be, yes, there shall be some force in nature to oust any astral popinjay ever projected into space. If there are astral poisons (q.e.d.), then there must be antidotes after their own kind. There is, I know, a way to trap every manner of wild beast, every deadly serpent and hurtful insect; and so there is, if I can get onto it, some principle or process by which I can reduce this astral Fakir back into his original elements. And s’elp me jimmykayjones, this Gay Gnani of Gingalee can and must and shall be swept off the face of the—no, he shall be eliminated from the atmosphere he infests.”
It will be remembered that Mr. Vanderhook was not only a skilled pharmacist and practical chemist, but he was likewise an electrician of great ability.
There came a day, a damp, cloudy day, when he left the drug store early and hurriedly. He went home as fast as the auto could carry him. He avoided the parlor. He struck for the cellar. He approached the potato bins, empty now, as if to meet his requirements. Presently he had them torn out, and there was a large space for whatever might be needed.
The next day came masons and carpenters and plumbers. Inside of two weeks the druggist had a laboratory in his cellar of which no man had the key, to which no man had access save himself.
From this day forward every spare moment was spent in the seclusion of this underground apartment. The Mayor let slip his official mantle, and as far as possible leaned upon the city comptroller. He took only thought enough to pocket the fees with a cold, sardonic smile. He gave up his club, declined invitations to progressive euchre; the fall races, and the dog show he passed by. The big ball game he even forgot to attend.
His life centered in the cellar.
This was pre-eminently satisfactory to Mrs. V. and her ethereal shadow. Bill’s absence furnished opportunity for unending discussions on the Unity of Vibration, which had polarized them as a unit. Absorbed as they were in the contemplation of themselves, they failed to cognize the exact nature of Mr. Vanderhook’s occupation in the cellar.
They only dreamed on, happy in the present, careless of the past and hilarious in the hope of soon realizing a still closer relation—after they had satisfied the requirements of the law as made and provided in the Statutes of Illinois.
So self-absorbed were they that they gave no attention to the comings and goings of the master of the house. The man in the cellar was practically forgotten. Now and then, however, they would be momentarily diverted by subterranean reports and faint odors of gases.
“Well, he’s got to get somewhere to make himself heard,” laughed the “Lonnie Llama” one evening when Imogene shrieked at an unusually loud report. The walls shook with the force of it, while the cruel couple shook with laughter.
“He don’t complain of being lonesome any more does he?” added the gentleman.
“Oh, no,” giggled Imogene. “He says he is wrapped up in Science now.”
“And so are we, my ownest; are not we also wrapped up in Science—the Higher Science?”—and the Gay Gnani encircled his Affinity with his very diaphanous arms.
The Lady laughed gaily, and then disengaging herself she daintily lifted her silken dinner gown and, recalling the last matinee in Chicago, she trippingly danced, singing as only Imogene could sing: