第46章 THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX(2)

Let me alone,and I will arrange it.But mind,now,you must not meddle;if you do,you will spoil everything,and get your name in the 'Household Inquisitor'in a way you won't like.""Don't be frightened about me,Euthymia.I don't mean to give him a chance to work me into his paper,if I can help it.But if you can get him to try his skill upon this interesting personage and his antipathy,so much the better.I am very curious about it,and therefore about him.I want to know what has produced this strange state of feeling in a young man who ought to have all the common instincts of a social being.I believe there are unexplained facts in the region of sympathies and antipathies which will repay study with a deeper insight into the mysteries of life than we have dreamed of hitherto.I often wonder whether there are not heart-waves and soul-waves as well as 'brain-waves,'which some have already recognized."Euthymia wondered,as well she might,to hear this young woman talking the language of science like an adept.The truth is,Lurida was one of those persons who never are young,and who,by way of compensation,will never be old.They are found in both sexes.Two well-known graduates of one of our great universities are living examples of this precocious but enduring intellectual development.

If the readers of this narrative cannot pick them out,they need not expect the writer of it to help them.If they guess rightly who they are,they will recognize the fact that just such exceptional individuals as the young woman we are dealing with are met with from time to time in families where intelligence has been cumulative for two or three generations.

Euthymia was very willing that the questioning and questionable visitor should learn all that was known in the village about the nebulous individual whose misty environment all the eyes in the village were trying to penetrate,but that he should learn it from some other informant than Lurida.

The next morning,as the Interviewer took his seat on a bench outside his door,to smoke his after-breakfast cigar,a bright-looking and handsome youth,whose features recalled those of Euthymia so strikingly that one might feel pretty sure he was her brother,took a seat by his side.Presently the two were engaged in conversation.

The Interviewer asked all sorts of questions about everybody in the village.When he came to inquire about Maurice,the youth showed a remarkable interest regarding him.The greatest curiosity,he said,existed with reference to this personage.Everybody was trying to find out what his story was,--for a story,and a strange one,he must surely have,--and nobody had succeeded.

The Interviewer began to be unusually attentive.The young man told him the various antipathy stories,about the evil-eye hypothesis,about his horse-taming exploits,his rescuing the student whose boat was overturned,and every occurrence he could recall which would help out the effect of his narrative.

The Interviewer was becoming excited."Can't find out anything about him,you said,did n-'t you?How do you know there's anything to find?Do you want to know what I think he is?I'll tell you.Ithink he is an actor,--a fellow from one of the city theatres.Those fellows go off in their summer vacation,and like to puzzle the country folks.They are the very same chaps,like as not,the visitors have seen in plays at the city theatres;but of course they don't know 'em in plain clothes.Kings and Emperors look pretty shabby off the stage sometimes,I can tell you."The young man followed the Interviewer's lead."I shouldn't wonder if you were right,"he said."I remember seeing a young fellow in Romeo that looked a good deal like this one.But I never met the Sphinx,as they call him,face to face.He is as shy as a woodchuck.

I believe there are people here that would give a hundred dollars to find out who he is,and where he came from,and what he is here for,and why he does n't act like other folks.I wonder why some of those newspaper men don't come up here and get hold of this story.It would be just the thing for a sensational writer."To all this the Interviewer listened with true professional interest.

Always on the lookout for something to make up a paragraph or a column about;driven oftentimes to the stalest of repetitions,--to the biggest pumpkin story,the tall cornstalk,the fat ox,the live frog from the human stomach story,the third set of teeth and reading without spectacles at ninety story,and the rest of the marvellous commonplaces which are kept in type with e o y or e 6m (every other year or every six months)at the foot;always in want of a fresh incident,a new story,an undescribed character,an unexplained mystery,it is no wonder that the Interviewer fastened eagerly upon this most tempting subject for an inventive and emotional correspondent.

He had seen Paolo several times,and knew that he was Maurice's confidential servant,but had never spoken to him.So he said to himself that he must make Paolo's acquaintance,to begin with.In the summer season many kinds of small traffic were always carried on in Arrowhead Village.Among the rest,the sellers of fruits--oranges,bananas,and others,according to the seasons--did an active business.The Interviewer watched one of these fruit-sellers,and saw that his hand-cart stopped opposite the house where,as he knew,Maurice Kirkwood was living.Presently Paolo came out of the door,and began examining the contents of the hand-cart.The Interviewer saw his opportunity.Here was an introduction to the man,and the man must introduce him to the master.

He knew very well how to ingratiate himself with the man,--there was no difficulty about that.He had learned his name,and that he was an Italian whom Maurice had brought to this country with him.