SABATINI'S DOCTRINES
The apartments of Count Sabatini were situated in the somewhat
unfamiliar quarter of Queen Anne's Gate. Arnold found his way there
on foot, crossing Parliament Square in a slight drizzling rain,
through which the figures of the passers-by assumed a somewhat
phantasmal appearance. Around him was a glowing arc of lights, and,
dimly visible beyond, shadowy glimpses of the river. He rang the
bell with some hesitation at the house indicated by his
directions--a large gray stone building, old-fashioned, and without
any external signs of habitation. His summons, however, was answered
almost immediately by a man-servant who took his hat and coat.
"If you will step into the library for a moment, sir," he said, with
a slight foreign accent, "His Excellency will be there."
Arnold was immensely impressed by the room into which he was shown.
He stood looking around him for several minutes. The whole
atmosphere seemed to indicate a cultivated and luxurious taste, kept
in bounds by a certain not unpleasing masculine severity. The
coloring of the room was dark green, and the walls were everywhere
covered with prints and etchings, and trophies of the chase and war.
A huge easy-chair was drawn up to the fire, and by its side was a
table covered with books and illustrated papers. A black oak writing
desk stood open, and a huge bowl of violets set upon it was guarded
by an ivory statuette of the Venus of Milo. The furniture was
comfortably worn. There was a faint atmosphere of cigarette
smoke,--the whole apartment was impregnated by an intensely liveable
atmosphere. The glowing face of a celebrated Parisian _danseuse_
laughed at him from over the mantelpiece. Arnold was engaged in
examining it when Sabatini entered.
"A thousand apologies, my dear Mr. Chetwode," he said softly. "I see
you pass your time pleasantly. You admire the divine Fatime?"
"The face is beautiful," Arnold admitted. "I am afraid I was a few
minutes early. It began to rain and I walked fast."
Sabatini smiled. A butler had followed him into the room, bearing on
a tray two wine-glasses full of clear yellow liquid.
"Vermouth and one tiny cigarette," Sabatini suggested,--"the best
_apéretif_ in the world. Permit me, Mr. Chetwode--to our better
acquaintance!"
"I never need an _apéretif_," Arnold answered, raising the
wine-glass to his lips, "but I will drink to your toast, with
pleasure."
Sabatini lit his cigarette, and, leaning slightly against the back
of a chair, stood with folded arms looking at the picture over the
fireplace.
"Your remark about Fatime suggested reservations," he remarked. "I
wonder why? I have a good many curios in the room, and some rather
wonderful prints, but it was Fatime who held you while you waited.
Yet you are not one of those, I should imagine," he added, blowing
out a cloud of cigarette smoke, "to whom the call of sex is
irresistible."
Arnold shook his head.
"No, I don't think so," he admitted simply. "To tell you the truth,
I think that it was the actual presence of the picture here, rather
than its suggestions, which interested me most. Your room is so
masculine," Arnold added, glancing around. "It breathes of war and
sport and the collector. And then, in the middle of it all, this
girl, with her barely veiled limbs and lascivious eyes. There is
something a little brutal about the treatment, don't you think?"
Sabatini shrugged his shoulders.
"The lady is too well known," remarked Sabatini, shrugging his
shoulders. "A single touch of the ideal and the greatness of that
picture would be lost. Grève was too great an artist to try for it."
"Nevertheless," Arnold persisted, "she disturbs the serenity of your
room."
Sabatini threw away his cigarette and passed his arm through his
companion's.
"It is as well always to be reminded that life is many-sided," he
murmured. "You will not mind a _tête-à-tête_ dinner?"
Some curtains of dark green brocaded material had been silently
drawn aside, and they passed into a smaller apartment, of which the
coloring and style of decoration was the same. A round table, before
which stood two high-backed, black oak chairs, and which was lit
with softly-shaded candles, stood in the middle of the room. It was
very simply set out, but the two wine-glasses were richly cut in
quaint fashion, and the bowl of violets was of old yellow Sèvres.
Arnold sat opposite his host and realized how completely the man
seemed to fit in with his surroundings. In Mrs. Weatherley's
drawing-room there had been a note of incongruity. Here he seemed so
thoroughly in accord with the air of masculine and cultivated
refinement which dominated the atmosphere. He carried himself with
the ease and dignity to which his race entitled him, but, apart from
that, his manner had qualities which Arnold found particularly
attractive. His manicured nails, his spotless linen, his links and
waistcoat buttons,--cut from some quaint stone,--the slight
affectations of his dress, the unusual manner of brushing back his
hair and arranging his tie, gave him only a note of individuality.
Every word he spoke--and he talked softly but continually during the
service of the meal--confirmed Arnold's first impressions of him. He
was a man, at least, who had lived a man's life without fear or
weakness, and, whatever his standards might be, he would adhere to
them.
Dinner was noiselessly and perfectly served by the butler who had
first appeared, and a slighter and smaller edition of himself who
brought him the dishes. There was no champagne, but other wines were
served in their due order, the quality of which Arnold appreciated,
although more than one was strange to him. With the removal of the
last course, fruit was placed upon the table, with a decanter of
_Chateau Yquem_. On a small table near was a brass pot of coffee and
a flask of green liqueur. Sabatini pushed the cigarettes towards his
companion.
"I have a fancy to talk to you seriously," he said, without any
preamble.
Arnold looked at him in some surprise.
"I am not a philanthropist," continued Sabatini. "When I move out of
my regular course of life it is usually for my own advantage. I warn
you of that before we start."
Arnold nodded and lit his cigarette fearlessly. There was no safety
in life, he reflected, thinking for the moment of the warning which
he had received, like the safety of poverty.
"I am a man of forty-one," Sabatini said. "You, I believe, are
twenty-four. There can, therefore, be no impertinences in the truth
from me to you."
"There could be none in any case," Arnold assured him.
Sabatini gazed thoughtfully across the table into his guest's face.
"I do not know your history or your parentage," he went on. "Such
knowledge is unnecessary. It is obvious that your position at the
present moment is the result of an accident."
"It is the outcome of actual poverty," Arnold told him softly.
Sabatini assented.
"Ah! well," he said, "it is a poverty, then, which you have
accepted. Tell me, then, of your ambition! You are young, and the
world lies before you. You have the gifts which belong to those who
are born. Are you doing what is right to yourself in working at a
degrading employment for a pittance?"
"I must live," Arnold protested simply.
"Precisely," replied Sabatini. "We all must live. We all, however,
are too apt to accept the rulings of circumstance. I maintain that
we all have a right to live in the manner to which we are born."
"And how," asked Arnold, "does one enforce that right?"
Sabatini leaned over and helped himself to the liqueur.
"You possess the gift," he remarked, "which I admire most--the gift
of directness. Now I would speak to you of myself. When I was young,
I was penniless, with no inheritance save a grim castle, a barren
island, and a great name. The titular head of my family was a
Cardinal of Rome, my father's own brother. I went to him, and I
demanded the means of support. He answered me with an epigram which
I will not repeat, besides which it is untranslatable. I will only
tell you that he gave me a sum equivalent to a few hundred pounds,
and bade me seek my fortune."
Arnold was intensely interested.
"Tell me how you started!" he begged.
"A few hundred pounds were insufficient," Sabatini answered coolly,
"and my uncle was a coward. I waited my opportunity, and although
three times I was denied an audience, on the fourth I found him
alone. He would have driven me out but I used the means which I have
never known to fail. I left him with a small but sufficient
fortune."
Arnold looked at him with glowing eyes.
"You forced him to give it you!" he exclaimed.
"Without a doubt," Sabatini answered, coolly. "He was wealthy and he
was my uncle. I was strong and he was weak. It was as necessary for
me to live as for him. So I took him by the throat and gave him
thirty seconds to reflect. He decided that the life of a Cardinal
of Rome was far too pleasant to be abandoned precipitately."
There was a short silence. Sabatini glanced twice at his companion
and smiled.
"I will read your thoughts, my young friend," he continued. "Your
brain is a little confused. You are wondering whether indeed I have
robbed my elderly relative. Expunge that word and all that it means
to you from your vocabulary, if you can. I took that to which I had
a right by means of the weapons which have been given to
me--strength and opportunity. These are the weapons which I have
used through life."
"Supposing the Cardinal had refused?" Arnold asked.
"One need not suppose," Sabatini replied. "It is not worth while. I
should probably have done what the impulse of the moment demanded.
So far, however, I have found most people reasonable."
"There have been others, then?" Arnold demanded.
"There have been others," Sabatini agreed calmly; "always people,
however, upon whom I have had a certain claim. Life to different
people means different things. Life to a person of my tastes and
descent meant this--it meant playing a part in the affairs of the
country which gave me my birthright; it meant the carrying forward
of a great enmity which has burned within the family of Sabatini for
the house which now rules my country, for hundreds of years. If I
were a person who sought for excuses, I might say that I have robbed
my relatives for the cause of the patriot. Life to a sawer of wood
means bread. The two states themselves are identical. The man who is
denied bread breaks into riot and gains his ends. I, when I have
been denied what amounts to me as bread, have also helped myself."
"I am not sure," Arnold protested, frankly, "whether you are not
amusing yourself with me."
"Then let me put that doubt to rest, once and for all," Sabatini
replied. "It does not amuse me to trifle with the truth."
"Why do you make me your confidant?" Arnold asked.
"Because it is my intention to make a convert of you," Sabatini said
calmly.
Arnold shook his head.
"I am afraid that that is quite hopeless," he answered. "I have not
the excuse of a country which needs my help, although I have more
than one relative," he added, with a smile, "whom I should not mind
taking by the throat."
"One needs no excuse," Sabatini murmured.
"When one--"
He hesitated.
"I have no scruples," Sabatini interrupted, "in using the word which
seems to trouble you. Perhaps I am a robber. What, however, you do
not appreciate is that nine-tenths of the people in the world are in
the same position."
"I cannot admit that either," Arnold protested.
"It is, then, because you have not considered the matter," Sabatini
declared. "You live in a very small corner of the world and you have
accepted a moral code as ridiculously out of date as Calvinism in
religion. The whole of life is a system of robbery. The strong help
themselves, the weak go down. Did you call your splendid seamen of
Queen Elizabeth's time robbers, because they nailed the English
flag to their mast and swept the seas for plunder? 'We are strong,'
they cried to the country they robbed, 'and you are weak. Stand and
deliver!' I spare you a hundred instances. Take your commercial life
of to-day. The capitalist stretches out his hand and swallows up the
weaker man. He does it ten or fifty times a day and there is no one
to stop him. It is the strong taking from the weak. You cannot walk
from here to Charing Cross without seeing it. Some forms of plunder
come under the law, some do not. Your idea as to which are right and
which are wrong is simply the law's idea. The man who is strong
enough is the law."
"Your doctrines are far-reaching," Arnold said. "What about the man
who sweeps the crossings, the beggars who ask for alms?"
"They sweep crossings and they beg for alms," Sabatini replied,
"because they are weak or foolish and because I am strong. You work
for twenty-eight shillings a week because you are foolish. You can
do it if you like, if it affords you any satisfaction to make a
martyr of yourself for the sake of bolstering up a conventional
system. Either that or you have not the spirit for adventure."
"The spirit for adventure," Arnold repeated quietly. "Well, there
have been times when I thought I had that, but it certainly never
occurred to me to go out and rob."
"That," Sabatini declared, "is because you are an Englishman and
extraordinarily susceptible to conventions. Now I speak with many
experiences behind me. I had ancestors who enriched themselves with
fire and sword. I would much prefer to do the same thing. As a
matter of fact, when the conditions admit of it, I do. I have fought
in whatever war has raged since the days when I was eighteen. If
another war should break out to-morrow, I should weigh the causes,
choose the side I preferred, and fight for it. But when there is no
war, I must yet live. I cannot drill troops all day, or sit in the
cafés. I must use my courage and my brains in whatever way seems
most beneficial to the cause which lies nearest to my heart."
"I cannot imagine," Arnold said frankly, "what that cause is."
"Some day, and before long," Sabatini replied, "you may know. At any
rate, we have talked enough of this for the present. Think over what
I have said. If at any time I should have an enterprise to propose
to you, you will at least recognize my point of view."
He touched the bell. A servant entered almost at once, carrying his
overcoat and silk hat.
"I have taken a box at a music-hall," he announced. "I believe that
my sister may join us there. I hope it will amuse you?"
Arnold rose eagerly to his feet. His eyes were bright already with
anticipation.
"And as for our conversation," Sabatini continued, as they stepped
into his little electric brougham, "dismiss it, for the present,
from your memory. Try and look out upon life with larger eyes, from
a broader point of view. Forget the laws that have been made by
other men. Try and frame for yourself a more rational code of
living. And judge not with the ready-made judgment of laws, but from
your own consciousness of right and wrong. You are at an
impressionable age, and the effort should help to make a man of
you."
They glided softly along the crowded streets and up into Leicester
Square, where the blaze of lights seemed somehow comforting after
the cold darkness of the night. They stopped outside the _Empire_
and Arnold followed his guide with beating heart as they were shown
to their box. The door was thrown open. Fenella was there alone. She
was sitting a little way back in the box so as to escape observation
from the house. At the sound of their entrance she turned eagerly
toward them. Arnold, who was in advance, stopped short in the act of
greeting her. She was looking past him at her brother. She was
absolutely colorless, her lips were parted, her eyes distended as
though with terror. She had all the appearance of a woman who has
looked upon some terrible thing.