Sport Royal, and Other Stories

His eyes had wandered from her to where the shape had been; but at her last words he turned to her again with a start. “What? No, no! No nonsense! Come, now, be a good girl and stop it. I’ve had enough.”

“Are you drunk?” asked Mlle. Claire impatiently. “It’s all over.”

“I won’t be made a fool of,” said he angrily. “Stop it, or not a farthing do you get from me.”

“Heaven bless the man, he’s mad!” exclaimed the lady, who began to be a little uncomfortable herself. It is an eerie thing to see a man looking hard at – nothing, and listening intently to – nothing.

Suddenly he jumped up and ran toward Mlle. Claire. He seized her by the arm, and cried, “Stop, you little devil, stop! Do you want to madden me? I never did it, I never did. At least, I never meant it – so help me, God, I never meant it.”

“Mr. Tappenham, you’re dreaming. There’s nothing there. I’m saying nothing.”

“She’s coming! she’s coming!” he cried. “Take her away! take her away!”

Mlle. Claire looked at his face. Then she too gave a shriek of fright, and, hiding her face in her hands, sank on the floor, sobbing. She saw nothing. But what was that face looking at?

As for Mr. Tappenham, he fled into the corner of the room. And when Mlle. Claire recovered herself enough to draw back the curtains, and let in the blessed sun, he lay on the floor like a man dead.

Mlle. Claire was a good girl. She had a mother and two little brothers to keep: so she stuck to the business; but she never liked it very much after that day. Mr. Tappenham could afford to retire, and he did retire. He lives very quietly, and gives large sums in charity. Mlle. Claire knows all the tricks that ever were invented; she is a thorough-going little skeptic, and believes in nothing that she does not see, and in very little of what she does. Therefore she merely exemplifies feminine illogicality when she thinks to herself, as she cannot help thinking now and then:

“I wonder what he did to Nellie Davies!”

She told me about it, and I believed her when she said that she was not playing a trick on Mr. Tappenham. But perhaps she was deceiving me also; if so, that is an explanation.

I repeated the story to a scientific man. He said that it furnished an interesting instance of the permanence of an optical impression after the removal of the external excitant. That is another explanation.

Or it may have been the working of conscience: that is an explanation in a way, though an improbable one, because, in spite of many opportunities, Mr. Tappenham’s conscience had never given him any inconvenience before. It has since.