THE WHITE WOLF Read Free

limousine rolled to a stop, it was to the door behind that lamp that Sara unerringly led the rest:
     
    The maid said, “You wanna see the doctor?”
     
    Chick Hunt said airily, “That was the general idea.”
     
    THE maid led them into a cold, bare hallway. Her slippers scuffing, she beckoned them along the passage until they reached a point midway through the house. She opened a door and guided them into a large, window- less' room. And then she left them.
     
    The room was as naked as the hall. There were no chairs, no tables. No carpet covered the wide planks. There was light, but its source was obscured and it seemed unreal. As they entered, a gaunt gray cat—either so old or so serene as to be oblivious to their presence—stood up, stretched, and paced imperially out of the room through a far door that stood half open.
    Through that door the sounds of words lifted.
     
    “Well, what do they want?”
     
    The question was imperative. The tone was cold. Sara thought there was an overtone faintly familiar of something—the time, perhaps, when she heard the gasping rattle of death at the bedside of an aunt.
     
    There was a mumble from the maid. Ann’s flesh crept. Then, without warning, the doctor appeared at the door. And Sara gave a little cry.
     
    It couldn't be, she thought. It couldn’t be! Yet here were the same face and the same eyes of the man who, only an hour before, drew so many questioning glances at the McCallieter ball. He advanced a few paces, teetering with each step as if either he were slightly drunk or his shoes—of such finegrained leather they might have been tanned from human hide—pinched his feet. And yet, despite this ambulatory uncertainty, he seemed at ease, his hands shoved into the pockets of his gray double-breasted suit coat.
     
    He stared blandly at his intruders. He inspected them, one by one. Finally, his eyes, from their small sockets, rested upon Sara’s white face. Yes, they were the same eyes that in the ballroom had denuded her soul; there could be no other pair seeming, as these, to hold the wisdom of all sin. '
     
    Yet Sara’s companions did not recognize him.
     
    Beefy said feebly, “Look here—”
     
    But the man was attracted only to Sara. She wondered why. Sylvia’s fresh face was prettier; Ann’s more inviting. Her own; the cheek bones were too high, the face too long, her mouth too big, her nose too prominently French, and her complexion—except for the garnet red of her lips—much too pale.
     
    At length, the man demanded of the room at large, “Why do you come here?”
     
    Chick Hunt said, “Why the idea was. . . . We”wanted our fortunes told.”
     
    The lean face clouded. It turned toward Hunt,
     
    “You think I use my wisdom to tell fortunes?”
     
    Sara detected a note of derision. Hunt looked at David Trent. Trent glanced questioningly at Sara. Lamely, she said:
     
    “I thought. . . .”
     
    “I do not tell fortunes,” the man said. The tone was final. But when he added, “I am a healer, I cure souls and I cure bodies, I cure them with faith,” Sara knew he lied. And somehow she felt the lie was directed more at the ears of the others than at hers.
     
    Chick reached into his pockets, drew out a roll of bills.
     
    “If it’s only a matter of money,” he began.
     
    He never finished. With tottering yet lightning movement, the man was before Hunt.
    “Son—” And his tone was now cold contempt. “You are indeed naive if you believe that money buys all things.”
     
    Chick—the hot-headed Chick Hunt of Penn’s Varsity—shook with anger. His hands clenched.
     
    “Why, damn you!” he snarled. And before David could check his arm, he’d struck. But the man was not there. He was back in the center of the room, teetering in those queer, uncomfortable shoes. And Sara saw something else; he had lost his composure. At the blow? He had not been struck. At what Chick had said?
     
    Chick struggled to free himself from