Sight Unseen | Page 2

their relation to
life. I am a lawyer by profession, and dabble a bit in city government.
The Robinsons had literature.
Don't misunderstand me. We had no papers, no set programs. On the
Robinson evenings we discussed editorials and current periodicals, as
well as the new books and plays. We were frequently acrimonious, I
fear, but our small wrangles ended with the evening. Robinson was the
literary editor of a paper, and his sister read for a large publishing
house.
Mrs. Dane was a free-lance. "Give me that privilege," she begged. "At
least, until you find my evenings dull. It gives me, during all the week
before you come, a sort of thrilling feeling that the world is mine to
choose from." The result was never dull. She led us all the way from
moving-pictures to modern dress. She led us even further, as you will
see.
On consulting my note-book I find that the first evening which directly
concerns the Arthur Wells case was Monday, November the second, of
last year.
It was a curious day, to begin with. There come days, now and then,
that bring with them a strange sort of mental excitement. I have never

analyzed them. With me on this occasion it took the form of nervous
irritability, and something of apprehension. My wife, I remember,
complained of headache, and one of the stenographers had a fainting
attack.
I have often wondered for how much of what happened to Arthur Wells
the day was responsible. There are days when the world is a place for
love and play and laughter. And then there are sinister days, when the
earth is a hideous place, when even the thought of immortality is
unbearable, and life itself a burden; when all that is riotous and
unlawful comes forth and bares itself to the light.
This was such a day.
I am fond of my friends, but I found no pleasure in the thought of
meeting them that evening. I remembered the odious squeak in the
wheels of Mrs. Dane's chair. I resented the way Sperry would clear his
throat. I read in the morning paper Herbert Robinson's review of a book
I had liked, and disagreed with him. Disagreed violently. I wanted to
call him on the telephone and tell him that he was a fool. I felt old,
although I am only fifty-three, old and bitter, and tired.
With the fall of twilight, things changed somewhat. I was more passive.
Wretchedness encompassed me, but I was not wretched. There was
violence in the air, but I was not violent. And with a bath and my
dinner clothes I put away the horrors of the day.
My wife was better, but the cook had given notice.
"There has been quarreling among the servants all day," my wife said.
"I wish I could go and live on a desert island."
We have no children, and my wife, for lack of other interests, finds her
housekeeping an engrossing and serious matter. She is in the habit of
bringing her domestic difficulties to me when I reach home in the
evenings, a habit which sometimes renders me unjustly indignant. Most
unjustly, for she has borne with me for thirty years and is known
throughout the entire neighborhood as a perfect housekeeper. I can

close my eyes and find any desired article in my bedroom at any time.
We passed the Wellses' house on our way to Mrs. Dane's that night, and
my wife commented on the dark condition of the lower floor.
"Even if they are going out," she said, "it would add to the appearance
of the street to leave a light or two burning. But some people have no
public feeling."
I made no comment, I believe. The Wellses were a young couple, with
children, and had been known to observe that they considered the
neighborhood "stodgy." And we had retaliated, I regret to say, in kind,
but not with any real unkindness, by regarding them as interlopers.
They drove too many cars, and drove them too fast; they kept a
governess and didn't see enough of their children; and their English
butler made our neat maids look commonplace.
There is generally, in every old neighborhood, some one house on
which is fixed, so to speak, the community gaze, and in our case it was
on the Arthur Wellses'. It was a curious, not unfriendly staring, much I
daresay like that of the old robin who sees two young wild canaries
building near her.
We passed the house, and went on to Mrs. Dane's.
She had given us no inkling of what we were to have that night, and my
wife conjectured a conjurer! She gave me rather a triumphant smile
when we were received in the library and the doors