The Impostor by Edgar Saltus

Camille got up and looked at the clock, which marked seven. Usually at that hour she dined, having dressed beforehand. But on this evening, after returning from a run with a chum, Kate Delafield, she had been waylaid by the cook, then by Glendenning, finally by Mike, and she had had no time to change.

She was none the less hungry and she went back into the dining room, which, situated in an extension, was in a measure separated from the rest of the house. There the lights were on, the table was set. On a sideboard was bread, fruit, a salad, a decanter of claret, a brace of cold partridges; also, an evening paper.

Camille rang and took up the paper, which told of the misery that is the garment of Europe and of the gayety that is the parure of New York. The moderate irony of it missed her. But then one gets satiated with horrors, and, telling herself she was glad that Mike had changed his mind about going abroad, she rang again.

Then, as no one came, she put the food on the table, sat down, and began to eat. The partridge was good, and though, ordinarily, she would have preferred something hot, she was too hungry to care. The salad, too, might have been worse -- and better, for in the preparation of the dressing, there had been a noticeable absence of brains. But that, too, she let pass and, while eating it, wondered whether Mr. Vulper was coming down and, in that case, whether he would have more to tell her about Shri.

That creature interested her enormously. She did not in the least believe in him, but the things he did, or was credited with doing, delighted her. He could be in two places at once, and if you happened on him where he had no business to be -- in, for instance, Mr. Vulper's study at the head of the stairs -- he would break like a bubble and vanish.

Gymnastics of that high order appealed to her as unsurpassed by anything she had ever read.

"But how can he be so wickedly lovely? " she had at dinner, only the day before, asked of Mr. Vulper, who had referred her to his Sutras of Patanjali -- which, when she had first heard of them, she had thought must be something from the chemists, but which, she had since become skeptically aware, taught of union with the supersensible; taught of the supernormal powers which that union confers; taught, too, how the advanced pupil may exteriorize himself from the body, project himself through space, materialize partially or wholly, appear and disappear at will.

"But why should this duck of a darling want to play flying trapese with himself like that? " she had also asked, and had been told that among the apes and peacocks of the apricot temples at Benares, there are priests whose duty it is to guard the arcana of their immemorial lore.

"Such things," the old man continued, "are not for everybody -- at all events not for nobodies who talk about nothing -- yet, while they can be safely divulged to scholars, it is just that that Shri is trying to prevent. Well, my dear, perhaps he may, perhaps he may," Vulper, with philosophic fatalism, had added.

Camille, at the time, had decided that he was as mad as a hatter, as mad as two hatters, as mad as Lincoln and Bennett, but none the less the most adorable old dear in the world. And now, as she hacked at one of the partridges, she wondered whether he would be coming down with more tales of Shri's high jinks.

Behind her something moved. She half turned and, catching a side view of Archibald, exclaimed at him:

"I rang and rang! This salad is -- "

"Beg pardon, mem. Mr. Mike wanted a taxi, and just now I had to let Doctor Dix in. Would you wish some soup, mem? There's a filet of sole and -- "

"For Heaven's sake! I can't eat backward! Get me some coffee. Isn't Mr. Vulper coming down?"

"I'll see, mem."

He turned and went, and the girl took up again the paper, in which she found a fashion article that, like the salad, lacked brains. Before she had finished, Archibald was again behind her.

"Well? " she asked, without looking up.

After a moment, getting no other answer than the inarticulate sound that some people make when eating, she turned and saw that the servant looked like a ghost with a stomachache. Quite white, he was opening and closing his mouth. Calmly she surveyed him.

"What is the matter with you?"

Archibald swallowed.