VI Similia Similibus Curantur
Now Doctor Rem thought on these things and in his heart decided that they were true. But though convicted, he was nothing more. Until that night he got Bell-Bell’s wire to go down on the seven-thirty train.
He was going to the Charity Masque in the costume of a Roundhead cavalier, and was as moody as his coat. Yet when he met her, all his moodiness fled. He held her hand in the real forgetfulness of inchoate possession. She drew it away angrily.
“Why—may I sit with you?” he begged in beautiful humility.
“Thee is alone?”
It escaped out of her heart of hearts.
Rem had the misfortune to laugh.
“Oh, that was the cause of your anger!”
“That thee was alone—yes,” she countered with tremendous aplomb. “I am very sorry—for my anger.”
She made the room for him at her side he had begged for.
“Your anger was justified,” said Rem, happily. “No one has any business to be alone in a thing like this—and—therefore—I am going to tempt—you—”
“I feel like a little brown sparrow among you all,” she said with discontent, for the car was crowded with the guests of the Masque.
“Do you suspect how many of these ladies would like to be this little brown sparrow?”
“Not one!” she cried fiercely.
“Rebellion!” laughed he.
“No! Guile! Wickedness! Shame!” she cried, hiding her face with her hands, and so making herself irresistible to the cavalier. “But I cannot help it! One of my ancestors—a very near one—belonged to the corps—and—do you know what I am wishing with all my heart?”
“Yes,” he laughed.
“Thee does not. Of course not. But I will tell thee. I am wishing to go to this Masque! There!”
“I know. It is foreordained.”
“You do not. And it is as bad to wish to be wicked as to be wicked.”
“Therefore it can be no worse for you to go.”
“I dance!”
“Whew!”
“Yes! Like a little demon! Don’t stare so. The people in the rear are looking. They don’t take me for a Quaker at all. They think I am costumed for the ball. I heard them saying so before you came.”
“Listen!”
Even then a young prince on the other side was saying to one Starlight:
“It was an exquisite idea. And the whole costume is fine!”
“It is fate!” tempted Rem.
“Bell-Bell taught me. That is our secret. Thee must keep it with us. No, after all, Bell-Bell only helped a little. My feet were born to it. For, even when I was a child, to hear a waltz and sit perfectly still was impossible. Often my portion was dry bread for it. Yet I did not care. Does thee think one can inherit such wickedness?”
“Yes, thank God, it is a law of nature.”
“Oh, if I could once dance, dance, dance, till I was dizzy—delirious—and wicked as sin itself—la la la—”
She hummed the music of a waltz—
“—till I dropped in my tracks—” she stopped to laugh a trifle piteously at the pretty bit of slang on her tongue—“I think I should be cured. Similia similibus curantur, thee knows.”
She turned upon him where he gazed bewitched and cried with flushed cheeks and flashing, laughing, hungry eyes:
“Thee is a physician. Is not that proper treatment?”
“It is,” he said. “I advise it.”
“Ah, it is easy to—advise! La la la! The music is there! The dancing! I am to keep the children for Bell-Bell.”
“No,” said John Rem. “I said I would tempt you—remember.”
“Yes,” sighed Miss Estover. “The carriage is to meet me at the station. If I would, I could not. Ah, yes, it is fate.”
“As truly as anything that ever happened. You are in costume. I am. I am alone. You are. Bell-Bell does not need you. There is a nurse. Last and least, there is a carriage made ready for us. But one thing remains, a mask for you—and that will take exactly the three minutes it requires to drive to Mousson’s.”
She looked up at him with large, tempted eyes.
“I am your physician. That is my prescription. Come!”
“Oh, oh, oh! Get thee behind me, Satan!” she whispered.
“Your disguise will be absolutely impenetrable! This bonnet—a mask—”
“Ah, doctor, dear,” she whispered wistfully back to him, “will it certainly cure? Will it not—might it not—aggravate the complaint? Oh, thee does not know how a great orchestra gets into my little sinful soul!”
“I am happy to be able to guarantee my treatment,” he said.
“I wish—almost—that I had not met thee—my tall and splendid Satan. And will thee take me to the pinnacle of the temple—oh, the very pinnacle!”
“Yes,” he laughed.
“And show me all the world of joy—then drop me down—down—down—into disgrace and shame?”
“No! by the earth and heaven, I will be your faithful pal in whatever may happen to us.”
“Hush! hush! Swear not at all. And if I should yield to thy tempting—will thee keep my secret always—always—forever and ever?”
One should have seen her eyes then.
“I should deserve shooting the moment—”
And he got both the hands and would not let them go.
A moment she thought with drooping head while her hands remained in his. Then she said:
“I have yielded. Oh, I do not know whether it is more to thy tempting than to the tempting of the dance. I yield. Take me. For this evening I am thine. And whatever follies I may commit—oh, I shall not be responsible when the orchestra opens! I shall be mad—abandoned—I feel it—know it—and thee—” she whispered with her head down—“thee—must thee have thy arm about me—to dance?”
“Undoubtedly!” cried John Rem, with savage decision.
“Oh—well—”
She sighed and woke and spoke more lightly:
“Whatever follies I may commit, thee will not desert me—but will be my true knight—and, at the end, I shall require myself of thee less my infirmity—all this does thee swear?”
He kissed the hilt of his sword.
“And afterward,” she went on, “we are never to see or speak to each other—oh, I could not—could not look thee in the face again after such wickedness!”
“Part? Never!” he cried.
“Then I shall not. Thee makes me fear thee.”
“Well—as you wish,” he said.
And at the disappointment in his face a pretty light came to her own. She gave him her hand without his asking—for the first time—and whispered—for the first time, also:
“Forgive me—John.”
Then, shocked at herself, she explained:
“The Quakers use the first name, always, thee knows.”
“I know,” said John Rem, kissing the little thing he held.