The talkers

By the middle of December there was some talk among The Talkers of Stuart Sutton and little Miss Greenway.

“She plays her game quietly,” remarked Julian Fairless. “I haven’t anything on her. She looks straight.”

“Wasn’t she Sadoul’s girl?” asked Sam Warne.

“You never can tell whose girl any girl was.”

Stayr said: “It’s usually somebody you never heard of. Possibly she once made a monkey of Sadoul. Probably she’s making another of Stuart Sutton. Certainly there has been, is, and will be a simian somewhere cherished by her.”

“If it’s true that there are two kinds of women,” observed Fairless, “no man can guess which is which unless they tell you.”

“There’s only one kind,” said Stayr.

“You mean potentially, I hope.”

“Does it matter?” sneered Stayr. “If you marry you’re stung; if you don’t you’re stung just the same. It’s fifty-fifty however you play ’em or however they play you.”

“Yours is not an amiable philosophy,” said Warne, laughing.

“Listen, old sport, here’s the true and only solution: take ’em easy when they come; give ’em three cheers when they go. The man who makes of woman anything more than an agreeable incident belongs to the era of the Dodo. Don’t try to understand her. There’s nothing to understand. You have only to observe her. She’s utterly obvious. A protozoan is subtle compared to her.

“She has only one imperative function—so has a cat that fills a basket full of kittens. All her habits have their origin in that single necessity.”

Thus talked The Talkers, whose necessity is to talk, and who can no more escape functional destiny than can the female cat.

Gilda was forming a habit of going about with Stuart more or less, traversing a lively but limited orbit the centre of which was a semi-intellectual coterie of unclassified modernists who knew no law except inclination.

All were opportunists, but lived up to that creed only lazily. For the inclination of the majority was to think idly, live idly, follow lines of least resistance, and balance the account with talk.

Gilda went with Stuart to various teas, dances, restaurants, theatres, exhibitions, lectures, conferences, and parties of sorts. He dined at her apartment now and then. Their preference for each other was discussed and the intimacy criticised with varying degrees of charity and cruelty.

What perplexed people was the absence of sentimental symptoms, none, so far, being apparent even to the most malicious scrutiny.

As though, in the banquet of youth, these two had begun at the wrong end with the dessert, and now were progressing tranquilly backward toward the hors d’oeuvres.

Even the smouldering gaze of Sadoul detected nothing to serve as fuel to feed inward fires. And Stayr, utterly gross, observed them uneasily, disturbed that any theory of his should be punctured with impunity.

“The trouble,” snickered Pockman, “is with Sutton. He’s one of those congenital celibates. The girl really is a little devil.”

“What’s the trouble then?” demanded Stayr. “Any girl ought to land any saint.”

“The trouble,” said Pockman, “is that she knows she’s a devil, and watches herself.”

“If she’s a devil she’ll behave like one some day. Otherwise, what’s the fun in being one?”

“There you are, Harry. Sometimes a girl like that gets more pleasure out of martyrdom. And I think that’s the case with Gilda Greenway.”

“Isn’t there any question of morals involved?” inquired Warne. “Some people have ’em, in spite of what you say.”

“None. Chastity is an heirloom in some families—like the Hudson River Suttons. There are certain things such cattle won’t do. As for the girl—well, maybe it’s a moral kink—I guess she was born with the usual virginal instinct—but she’s had a brand new fight on her hands ever since she died——”

He smirked and cast a stealthy glance at the men about him. Although a doer, in spite of professional fears Pockman was also a born Talker. He couldn’t help it. But every indulgence in garrulous dissipation brought him remorse. Even now he knew he would regret what he was going to say. But he said it:

“I gave Gilda Greenway a new nymphalic gland and started her machinery again. Sadoul tried to give her a new ego. But the original ego came back, too; and now, I fancy, there’s mental hell to pay at times.”

“Do you, a reputable physician, believe that?” yawned Stayr in utter disgust.

“I’m telling you what Sadoul tried to do to her. I express no personal opinion concerning psycho-hypnosis. I entertain none concerning any psychic phenomena—not even when I see examples.”

“What have you seen?”

“I saw Sadoul photograph the exuding ego from a cadaver in St. Stephen’s Hospital.”

“A soul?”

“Call it that.”

“What did it look like?”

“It began to exude as a tenuous vapour, very faintly luminous. After forty-eight minutes and some fraction it commenced to assume human shape. An umbilical cord was visible.... The process continued for several hours.”

“Sadoul photographed it?”

“He did. And when the cord dissolved and the formed ego was ready to depart, Sadoul actually halted it through what seemed to be hypnotic control.... My God,” muttered Pockman, suddenly sweating at the recollection, “we had that damned thing in the death-chamber for hours, under Sadoul’s control, and subject to his every suggestion.... I don’t scare easily. But I got sick with—well—with superstitious fright, I suppose.... I believe I’d have gone crazy if Sadoul hadn’t let the thing go.”

Pockman’s flat, livid features had become viscous with unhealthy sweat. He wiped his face, hunched his shoulders, and started to move away at his rickety “Holbein” gait.

“Go on and tell us more about those stunts!” called Sam Warne after him.

“Go to the devil,” retorted Pockman. “I’m sorry I told you fellows anything. You’re all mouth and ears and there’s nothing else to you except intestines!”

There wasn’t much else—merely a matter of degree. Stayr was a greater feeder than Derring; the latter had the larger ear area; Fairless more loquacity, etc., etc.