Mr. MacGentle was taking a nap. He was seventy years old, and could drop asleep easily. When he slept, however lightly and briefly, he was pretty sure to dream; and if awakened suddenly, his dream would often prolong itself, and mingle with passing events, which would themselves put on the semblance of unreality. On the present occasion the sound of Helwyse's voice had probably crept through the door, and insinuated itself into his dreaming brain.
Mr. Dyke was too much excited to remark the President's condition. He put his mouth close to the old gentleman's ear, and said, in an emphatic and penetrating undertone,-"Here's your old friend Helwyse, who died in Europe two years ago, come back again, younger than ever!"
If the confidential clerk expected his superior to echo his own bewilderment, he was disappointed. Mr. MacGentle unclosed his eyes, looked up, and answered rather pettishly,-"What nonsense are you talking about his dying in Europe, Mr. Dyke? He hasn't been in Europe for six years. I was expecting him. Let him come in at once."
But he was already there; and Mr. Dyke slipped out again with consternation written upon his features. Mr. MacGentle found himself with his thin old hand in the young man's warm grasp.
"Helwyse, how do you do?--how do you do? Ah! you look as well as ever. I was just thinking about you. Sit down,--sit down!"
The old President's voice had a strain of melancholy in it, partly the result of chronic asthma, and partly, no doubt, of a melancholic temperament. This strain, being constant, sometimes had a curiously incongruous effect as contrasted with the subject or circumstances in hand. Whether hailing the dawn of the millennium; holding playful converse with a child, making a speech before the Board,--under whatever rhetorical conditions, Mr. MacGentle's intonation was always pitched in the same murmurous and somewhat plaintive key. Moreover, a corresponding immobility of facial expression had grown upon him; so that altogether, though he was the most sympathetic and sensitive of men, a superficial observer might take him to be lacking in the common feelings and impulses of humanity.
Perhaps the incongruity alluded to had not altogether escaped his own notice, and since discord of any kind pained him, he had mended the matter--as best he could--by surrendering himself entirely to his mournful voice; allowing it to master his gestures, choice of language, almost his thoughts. The result was a colorlessness of manner which did great injustice to the gentle and delicate soul behind.
This conjecture might explain why Mr. MacGentle, instead of falling upon his friend's neck and shedding tears of welcome there, only uttered a few commonplace sentences, and then drooped back into his chair. But it throws no light upon his remark that he had been expecting the arrival of a friend who, it would appear, had been dead two years. Helwyse himself may have been puzzled by this; or, being a quick-witted young man, he may have divined its explanation. He looked at his entertainer with critical sympathy not untinged with humor.