Miss Pinchon was a woman with a practical turn of mind. During the limited period in which she had been going out as governess she had put aside major sums from her modest wages, certainly with no definite plan in view, but just as certainly with an ideal, however abstract. Still comparatively young, she cherished the steadfast intention of maintaining herself, in the near future, on a more independent level. The exact date of departure, until recently, had remained hazy and unfixed. Only the week before, indeed, she had not yet determined upon the precise hour she should choose to embark on a more personal enterprise, nor had she selected the enterprise, but the crossing of her trail by the Brothers Steel and a casual remark dropped by Campaspe Lorillard had sown the seed of reflection in her mind, seed that found fertilization in the basic desire that already impregnated her brain. One night the little governess lay awake for, hours, at intervals repeating aloud to herself, Why not? Why not? and figuratively snapping her fingers.
The following afternoon, as soon as she was free from the lessons she was engaged to impart to Consuelo, Miss Pinchon paid a visit to the Public Library where she devoted herself to a more or less extensive examination of curious works by Ouspensky and Arthur E. Waite. Further, she drew up a list from the catalogue of volumes on Hindu philosophy and noted down the titles of pamphlets dealing with Gurdjieff, Jaques-Dalcroze, and Einstein. A few of these she later purchased for home study. Within a week, a week of intensive research, she had evolved, with plagiarism here and there, and a limited use of the imagination, a philosophy of acrobatics which would suit her purpose and which, she was convinced, not unjustifiably, would make her fortune. Deep breathing while standing on the head during the simultaneous consideration of the ultimate oneness of God with humankind, the essential co-ordination of the waving left arm with the soul, and the identity of the somersault with the freedom of the will were a few of the attractive determining principles in this new mental-physical science which she dubbed, following the fashion of previous innovators along these lines, Pinchon's Prophylactic Plan. Having established thoroughly in her own mind the essential tenets of this novel cult, having, indeed, entrusted them to the pages of a large note-book, the contents of which at some day in the future she intended to commit to print, Miss Pinchon took a second step. At the close of one of Consuelo's lessons with the Brothers Steel, she astonished the mountebanks with a request for an interview. This, naturally, was granted, however radical they may have regarded such conduct on the part of a lady whose manner hitherto had been completely self-effacing.
Miss Pinchon, confronted with the task of converting pagans, made no futile attempt during this interview to explain the lights and shades of her system. She did not read aloud the statement of her principles. She did not, indeed, avow openly that she had a system. She began by mentioning a salary which, as the number of pupils enrolled increased, might be advanced accordingly. Then she sketched lightly the advantages of muscular training for the young, combined with—and here she drew her descriptive picture with the faintest line—certain mental and spiritual exercises. Lastly, she suggested that her position and its corresponding influence—as she felt this section of her discourse to be the most telling, she exaggerated its effect, drawing upon her imagination for salient details—would be the magnet which would attract the pupils.
While Miss Pinchon explained her plan, the twins, in identical postures, left hand on hip, right hand stroking moustache, sat quietly agape on their bench, their eyes popping from the sockets. It remained for Mrs. Hugo, who had listened with a more sympathetic absorption, to welcome the idea with enthusiasm, and to speak the first word after Miss Pinchon had spoken her last.
I say, do it, she urged flatly.
I dunno. Could we? queried Robin.
That's it, was Hugo's dubious contribution.
It beats vaudeville. . . . Mrs. Hugo's excitement was contagious. . . . You're always fussin', about bookin', always wonderin' who's goin' to crib your act, and you're always out of town eatin' punk food in rotten boardin'-houses. When Miss Consuelo first come here I said it was a chance. Here's your chance, boys, was my words. Well, here it is. Take it.
It looks like it, mother, Robin put forward feebly.
It looks all right, Hugo remarked doubtfully.
It is all right, Miss Pinchon asseverated warmly. You leave it to me and you'll see.
Having secured the consent of the brothers, none the less binding because it was somewhat unhearty—the governess belonged to that group of persons who believe that one should take immediate advantage of a permission, even when it is given with bad grace, lest it may be withdrawn—Miss Pinchon secured the lease of a hall on East Fiftieth Street, and left an order with a painter on First Avenue, whose ordinary occupation was the decoration of Jacobean chests and Queen Anne tables in the Chinese style, for certain charts on which figures were to be drawn, the arms and legs in certain attitudes she had observed the brothers assume during the course of their evolutions, accompanied by quotations from the Cabala and the Upanishads. Next, she called on George Everest at his office.
George felt regret at losing Miss Pinchon's services as governess for Consuelo and Eugenia, but he reflected that the unpleasant duty of discovering a substitute would devolve upon Laura, and he was so amused by the initiative displayed by the little woman in front of him and by the nature of her plan that he not only gave her permission to use his name in her circulars—had not, indeed, the course of instruction, even shorn of the further mental and spiritual attachments, proved of immense benefit to his daughter?—but also presented her with a cheque for one thousand dollars, averring that he desired to invest in the scheme himself, at least to the degree to which this small amount would entitle him.
Miss Pinchon was now fully fortified to experiment with her plan in a practical manner. She resigned from her position, after a most disagreeable scene with Mrs. Everest, during which Laura had implied—she had not exactly said—that the governess must be mad, established herself in her new quarters, and issued cards which read as follows:
Miss Emmeline Pinchon
announces the opening of her school
for the propagation of
her own mental-physical method
Pinchon's Prophylactic Plan
at 107 East Fiftieth Street
Lessons in class: Two lessons a week for ten weeks: $200
Private lessons: Two lessons a week for ten weeks: $400
Reference: Mr. George EverestTelephone: Sahara 6897
Two days after the cards had been sent out she received three replies. Interviews followed. When the school opened she found herself with nine class and three private pupils. Hiram Mason's son, Ira Barber's little girl, and Maida Sonsconsett were all included in the list of registrants. It was not long before Lalla Draycott sent her eight-year old son. It began to appear fairly certain that the next generation of New York society would be able to form pyramids to equal the best that could be created by travelling troupes of wild Arabs. Mrs. Pollanger talked of giving a Pinchon evening for the demonstration of the new method, and the New York Times devoted a full page in its Sunday Magazine to an analysis of it.
Meanwhile Consuelo continued her private education with the Brothers Steel at their own gymnasium, accompanied now by Miss Elizabeth Graves, the new governess, an Englishwoman whom Laura had selected primarily because she did not appear to be the possessor of an inventive mind. Laura thought she might be able to keep her at least until she found time to discover a house on the far-east side, a project suggested to her by a casual remark of Campaspe.
Consuelo nourished reasons of her own for not desiring to join the new school, although, in an impersonal way, she admired Miss Pinchon and was sufficiently appreciative of her spirit of aggressive determination. It was not difficult for her to persuade her father to permit her to please herself in this respect, as George had long ago decided to allow Consuelo to do anything she wanted to do within reason. She seems, he explained to Laura, not entirely to his wife's satisfaction, to know so much better what to do and how to do it than the rest of us.
To Consuelo, however, the lesson-hours brought no pleasure. They constituted, rather, a severe penance, a means to an end which was not too apparent either to her parents or to her professors. Occasionally, a certain laxity and lassitude betrayed itself in her actions, even while she was in the gymnasium. Ordinarily, on the contrary, she displayed an energy, a grim intensity, which soon carried her beyond the elements of the art, to gain the technique of which she was unswerving in her desire. Two considerations accounted for her relentless perseverance, her consistent attention to her masters' schooling: one, her long-since, selfconfessed adoration for Gunnar, to whom, in imagination, at any rate, she always felt near when she: stood in the room where he had lived and worked, and whom, if she did not expect, she certainly hoped to see return one day, to reappear in this spot which in a sense was sacred to his memory; the other, her ambition to do what he did as well as he did it.
One day her audible sighs caught and held the attention of the sympathetic and motherly Mrs. Hugo, who was beginning to feel for this child more than an ordinary amount of affection, now that she had been the means of introducing the brothers to an occupation which apparently would feed and clothe and house them indefinitely, for while the vaudeville world demanded fresh talent, young and agile limbs, every new decade, the academic world, the philosophical and scientific world, appeared to be open to them so long as they were able to indicate, however feebly, the proper gestures leading to the acquirement of this long and difficult art.
What is it, dearie? the good woman inquired.
Nothing, Consuelo replied, but she sighed again. She was sitting, half-reclining, on the bench so often occupied by the brothers. She still retained the costume of her practice-hour and her usually pale face was flushed from exertion on the parallel bars. Outside, the day was bright and cold, and the sunlight invaded the great chamber, together with the chill, but Consuelo was oblivious to the sensations created by either.
When, she demanded plaintively, after a pause, will he come back?
Who, dearie?
Why, Gunnar, of course?
Hush, dear. We don't know where he is no more'n you do. He's gone away. He may never come back.
This adjuration reminded Consuelo unpleasantly of a similar remark that her mother had made, perhaps more naïvely, when she had asked news of a favourite uncle. Later, she had learned that the uncle was dead. Somehow, she did not feel at all convinced that Gunnar was dead, although certainly, this was the impression that Mrs. Hugo, however involuntarily, had conveyed. If Gunnar were dead, she assured herself on the testimony of her day-dreams, he would return to her in a vision, as a knight in silver armour, a spirit in mother-of-pearl mail, driving a chariot of fire. No, she could not but hold the unshakable belief that Gunnar would come back alive, come back, moreover, to this spot.
Nevertheless, she sighed again, remarking only. He will return.
At home, too, her melancholy was the occasion for comment. Laura was really more than usually anxious about the child, ascribing this new condition to the influence of those terrible acrobats.
Nonsense, George disagreed. They are doing her good. Consuelo never had colour before. She hasn't been seen reading a book for weeks. Something else must be the trouble. Perhaps she misses Emmeline Pinchon, or perhaps you are not feeding her properly, or perhaps it's the growing pains of adolescence.
Laura metaphorically threw up her hands and began to talk about a new house she had discovered in the proper district.
Never in the habit of confiding in her parents, Consuelo made no exception in this instance. They, on their part, refrained from asking her direct questions. They were, even George was, a little afraid of this prodigy that they called their daughter, a little alarmed by the burning mentality which seemed to consume her and keep her alive at the same time. Consuelo loved Eugenia after her fashion, but with her, too, she preserved a dignified silence. To her sister, indeed, Eugenia was only a child whose sympathy would be of small avail.
Once or twice she considered the advisability of a visit to Campaspe, but for some reason which she could not make clear even to herself she distrusted Campaspe in this matter. Her instinct even told her that Campaspe had in some way been responsible for Gunnar's disappearance. She had heard, not without bitter astonishment and a deep feeling of resentment that she had not been present to beg him to stay, of Gunnar's sudden leap from the window of the supper-room at Mrs. Pollanger's, and it had not escaped her attention that some one had mentioned Campaspe's presence in the room at the time the evacuation occurred. No, she decided, it was better to struggle alone than to confide in Campaspe at this difficult juncture.
The child then was leading two lives, one in which she strengthened her muscles and acquired agility at the gymnasium of the Brothers Steel, another, in which she dreamed, fully awake, of her effulgent hero. She often fancied him coming for her, lifting her tenderly from her seat in the window and bearing her down a ladder of silken ropes to his waiting car, in which he whirled her swiftly away to an eternity of happiness. A second vision pictured his approach in an aeroplane, which skimmed near enough the earth to enable him to snatch her up to him for a journey of fierce joy through the skies.
And always these fantasies ended with the same self-assuring hope. He will return, and she would spread her arms wide, and whisper to the clouds that passed her window, Come back, Gunnar. I am waiting for you.