The _Chien Noir_, where Susie Boyd and Margaret generally dined, was
the most charming restaurant in the quarter. Downstairs was a public
room, where all and sundry devoured their food, for the little place
had a reputation for good cooking combined with cheapness; and the
_patron_, a retired horse-dealer who had taken to victualling in order
to build up a business for his son, was a cheery soul whose loud-voiced
friendliness attracted custom. But on the first floor was a narrow
room, with three tables arranged in a horse-shoe, which was reserved
for a small party of English or American painters and a few Frenchmen
with their wives. At least, they were so nearly wives, and their manner
had such a matrimonial respectability, that Susie, when first she and
Margaret were introduced into this society, judged it would be vulgar
to turn up her nose. She held that it was prudish to insist upon the
conventions of Notting Hill in the Boulevard de Montparnasse. The young
women who had thrown in their lives with these painters were modest in
demeanour and quiet in dress. They were model housewives, who had
preserved their self-respect notwithstanding a difficult position, and
did not look upon their relation with less seriousness because they had
not muttered a few words before _Monsieur le Maire_.
The room was full when Arthur Burdon entered, but Margaret had kept him
an empty seat between herself and Miss Boyd. Everyone was speaking at
once, in French, at the top of his voice, and a furious argument was
proceeding on the merit of the later Impressionists. Arthur sat down,
and was hurriedly introduced to a lanky youth, who sat on the other
side of Margaret. He was very tall, very thin, very fair. He wore a
very high collar and very long hair, and held himself like an exhausted
lily.
“He always reminds me of an Aubrey Beardsley that’s been dreadfully
smudged,” said Susie in an undertone. “He’s a nice, kind creature, but
his name is Jagson. He has virtue and industry. I haven’t seen any of
his work, but he has absolutely _no_ talent.”
“How do you know, if you’ve not seen his pictures?” asked Arthur.
“Oh, it’s one of our conventions here that nobody has talent,” laughed
Susie. “We suffer one another personally, but we have no illusions
about the value of our neighbour’s work.”
“Tell me who everyone is.”
“Well, look at that little bald man in the corner. That is Warren.”
Arthur looked at the man she pointed out. He was a small person, with a
pate as shining as a billiard-ball, and a pointed beard. He had
protruding, brilliant eyes.
“Hasn’t he had too much to drink?” asked Arthur frigidly.
“Much,” answered Susie promptly, “but he’s always in that condition,
and the further he gets from sobriety the more charming he is. He’s the
only man in this room of whom you’ll never hear a word of evil. The
strange thing is that he’s very nearly a great painter. He has the most
fascinating sense of colour in the world, and the more intoxicated he
is, the more delicate and beautiful is his painting. Sometimes, after
more than the usual number of _apéritifs_, he will sit down in a café
to do a sketch, with his hand so shaky that he can hardly hold a brush;
he has to wait for a favourable moment, and then he makes a jab at the
panel. And the immoral thing is that each of these little jabs is
lovely. He’s the most delightful interpreter of Paris I know, and when
you’ve seen his sketches—he’s done hundreds, of unimaginable grace and
feeling and distinction—you can never see Paris in the same way again.”
The little maid who looked busily after the varied wants of the
customers stood in front of them to receive Arthur’s order. She was a
hard-visaged creature of mature age, but she looked neat in her black
dress and white cap; and she had a motherly way of attending to these
people, with a capacious smile of her large mouth which was full of
charm.
“I don’t mind what I eat,” said Arthur. “Let Margaret order my dinner
for me.”
“It would have been just as good if I had ordered it,” laughed Susie.
They began a lively discussion with Marie as to the merits of the
various dishes, and it was only interrupted by Warren’s hilarious
expostulations.
“Marie, I precipitate myself at your feet, and beg you to bring me a
_poule au riz_.”
“Oh, but give me one moment, _monsieur_,” said the maid.
“Do not pay any attention to that gentleman. His morals are detestable,
and he only seeks to lead you from the narrow path of virtue.”
Arthur protested that on the contrary the passion of hunger occupied at
that moment his heart to the exclusion of all others.
“Marie, you no longer love me,” cried Warren. “There was a time when
you did not look so coldly upon me when I ordered a bottle of white
wine.”
The rest of the party took up his complaint, and all besought her not
to show too hard a heart to the bald and rubicund painter.
“_Mais si, je vous aime, Monsieur Warren,_” she cried, laughing, “_Je
vous aime tous, tous._”
She ran downstairs, amid the shouts of men and women, to give her
orders.
“The other day the Chien Noir was the scene of a tragedy,” said Susie.
“Marie broke off relations with her lover, who is a waiter at
Lavenue’s, and would have no reconciliation. He waited till he had a
free evening, and then came to the room downstairs and ordered dinner.
Of course, she was obliged to wait on him, and as she brought him each
dish he expostulated with her, and they mingled their tears.”
“She wept in floods,” interrupted a youth with neatly brushed hair and
fat nose. “She wept all over our food, and we ate it salt with tears.
We besought her not to yield; except for our encouragement she would
have gone back to him; and he beats her.”
Marie appeared again, with no signs now that so short a while ago
romance had played a game with her, and brought the dishes that had
been ordered. Susie seized once more upon Arthur Burdon’s attention.
“Now please look at the man who is sitting next to Mr Warren.”
Arthur saw a tall, dark fellow with strongly-marked features, untidy
hair, and a ragged black moustache.
“That is Mr O’Brien, who is an example of the fact that strength of
will and an earnest purpose cannot make a painter. He’s a failure, and
he knows it, and the bitterness has warped his soul. If you listen to
him, you’ll hear every painter of eminence come under his lash. He can
forgive nobody who’s successful, and he never acknowledges merit in
anyone till he’s safely dead and buried.”
“He must be a cheerful companion,” answered Arthur. “And who is the
stout old lady by his side, with the flaunting hat?”
“That is the mother of Madame Rouge, the little palefaced woman sitting
next to her. She is the mistress of Rouge, who does all the
illustrations for _La Semaine_. At first it rather tickled me that the
old lady should call him _mon gendre_, my son-in-law, and take the
irregular union of her daughter with such a noble unconcern for
propriety; but now it seems quite natural.”
The mother of Madame Rouge had the remains of beauty, and she sat bolt
upright, picking the leg of a chicken with a dignified gesture. Arthur
looked away quickly, for, catching his eye, she gave him an amorous
glance. Rouge had more the appearance of a prosperous tradesman than of
an artist; but he carried on with O’Brien, whose French was perfect, an
argument on the merits of Cézanne. To one he was a great master and to
the other an impudent charlatan. Each hotly repeated his opinion, as
though the mere fact of saying the same thing several times made it
more convincing.
“Next to me is Madame Meyer,” proceeded Susie. “She was a governess in
Poland, but she was much too pretty to remain one, and now she lives
with the landscape painter who is by her side.”
Arthur’s eyes followed her words and rested on a cleanshaven man with a
large quantity of grey, curling hair. He had a handsome face of a
deliberately aesthetic type and was very elegantly dressed. His manner
and his conversation had the flamboyance of the romantic thirties. He
talked in flowing periods with an air of finality, and what he said was
no less just than obvious. The gay little lady who shared his fortunes
listened to his wisdom with an admiration that plainly flattered him.
Miss Boyd had described everyone to Arthur except young Raggles, who
painted still life with a certain amount of skill, and Clayson, the
American sculptor. Raggles stood for rank and fashion at the Chien
Noir. He was very smartly dressed in a horsey way, and he walked with
bowlegs, as though he spent most of his time in the saddle. He alone
used scented pomade upon his neat smooth hair. His chief distinction
was a greatcoat he wore, with a scarlet lining; and Warren, whose
memory for names was defective, could only recall him by that
peculiarity. But it was understood that he knew duchesses in
fashionable streets, and occasionally dined with them in solemn
splendour.
Clayson had a vinous nose and a tedious habit of saying brilliant
things. With his twinkling eyes, red cheeks, and fair, pointed beard,
he looked exactly like a Franz Hals; but he was dressed like the
caricature of a Frenchman in a comic paper. He spoke English with a
Parisian accent.
Miss Boyd was beginning to tear him gaily limb from limb, when the door
was flung open, and a large person entered. He threw off his cloak with
a dramatic gesture.
“Marie, disembarrass me of this coat of frieze. Hang my sombrero upon a
convenient peg.”
He spoke execrable French, but there was a grandiloquence about his
vocabulary which set everyone laughing.
“Here is somebody I don’t know,” said Susie.
“But I do, at least, by sight,” answered Burdon. He leaned over to Dr
Porhoët who was sitting opposite, quietly eating his dinner and
enjoying the nonsense which everyone talked. “Is not that your
magician?”
“Oliver Haddo,” said Dr Porhoët, with a little nod of amusement.
The new arrival stood at the end of the room with all eyes upon him. He
threw himself into an attitude of command and remained for a moment
perfectly still.
“You look as if you were posing, Haddo,” said Warren huskily.
“He couldn’t help doing that if he tried,” laughed Clayson.
Oliver Haddo slowly turned his glance to the painter.
“I grieve to see, O most excellent Warren, that the ripe juice of the
_aperitif_ has glazed your sparkling eye.”
“Do you mean to say I’m drunk, sir?”
“In one gross, but expressive, word, drunk.”
The painter grotesquely flung himself back in his chair as though he
had been struck a blow, and Haddo looked steadily at Clayson.
“How often have I explained to you, O Clayson, that your deplorable
lack of education precludes you from the brilliancy to which you
aspire?”
For an instant Oliver Haddo resumed his effective pose; and Susie,
smiling, looked at him. He was a man of great size, two or three inches
more than six feet high; but the most noticeable thing about him was a
vast obesity. His paunch was of imposing dimensions. His face was large
and fleshy. He had thrown himself into the arrogant attitude of
Velasquez’s portrait of Del Borro in the Museum of Berlin; and his
countenance bore of set purpose the same contemptuous smile. He
advanced and shook hands with Dr Porhoët.
“Hail, brother wizard! I greet in you, if not a master, at least a
student not unworthy my esteem.”
Susie was convulsed with laughter at his pompousness, and he turned to
her with the utmost gravity.
“Madam, your laughter is more soft in mine ears than the singing of
Bulbul in a Persian garden.”
Dr Porhoët interposed with introductions. The magician bowed solemnly
as he was in turn made known to Susie Boyd, and Margaret, and Arthur
Burdon. He held out his hand to the grim Irish painter.
“Well, my O’Brien, have you been mixing as usual the waters of
bitterness with the thin claret of Bordeaux?”
“Why don’t you sit down and eat your dinner?” returned the other,
gruffly.
“Ah, my dear fellow, I wish I could drive the fact into this head of
yours that rudeness is not synonymous with wit. I shall not have lived
in vain if I teach you in time to realize that the rapier of irony is
more effective an instrument than the bludgeon of insolence.”
O’Brien reddened with anger, but could not at once find a retort, and
Haddo passed on to that faded, harmless youth who sat next to Margaret.
“Do my eyes deceive me, or is this the Jagson whose name in its inanity
is so appropriate to the bearer? I am eager to know if you still devote
upon the ungrateful arts talents which were more profitably employed
upon haberdashery.”
The unlucky creature, thus brutally attacked, blushed feebly without
answering, and Haddo went on to the Frenchman, Meyer as more worthy of
his mocking.
“I’m afraid my entrance interrupted you in a discourse. Was it the
celebrated harangue on the greatness of Michelangelo, or was it the
searching analysis of the art of Wagner?”
“We were just going,” said Meyer, getting up with a frown.
“I am desolated to lose the pearls of wisdom that habitually fall from
your cultivated lips,” returned Haddo, as he politely withdrew Madame
Meyer’s chair.
He sat down with a smile.
“I saw the place was crowded, and with Napoleonic instinct decided that
I could only make room by insulting somebody. It is cause for
congratulation that my gibes, which Raggles, a foolish youth, mistakes
for wit, have caused the disappearance of a person who lives in open
sin; thereby vacating two seats, and allowing me to eat a humble meal
with ample room for my elbows.”
Marie brought him the bill of fare, and he looked at it gravely.
“I will have a vanilla ice, O well-beloved, and a wing of a tender
chicken, a fried sole, and some excellent pea-soup.”
“_Bien, un potage, une sole,_ one chicken, and an ice.”
“But why should you serve them in that order rather than in the order I
gave you?”
Marie and the two Frenchwomen who were still in the room broke into
exclamations at this extravagance, but Oliver Haddo waved his fat hand.
“I shall start with the ice, O Marie, to cool the passion with which
your eyes inflame me, and then without hesitation I will devour the
wing of a chicken in order to sustain myself against your smile. I
shall then proceed to a fresh sole, and with the pea-soup I will finish
a not unsustaining meal.”
Having succeeded in capturing the attention of everyone in the room,
Oliver Haddo proceeded to eat these dishes in the order he had named.
Margaret and Burdon watched him with scornful eyes, but Susie, who was
not revolted by the vanity which sought to attract notice, looked at
him curiously. He was clearly not old, though his corpulence added to
his apparent age. His features were good, his ears small, and his nose
delicately shaped. He had big teeth, but they were white and even. His
mouth was large, with heavy moist lips. He had the neck of a bullock.
His dark, curling hair had retreated from the forehead and temples in
such a way as to give his clean-shaven face a disconcerting nudity. The
baldness of his crown was vaguely like a tonsure. He had the look of a
very wicked, sensual priest. Margaret, stealing a glance at him as he
ate, on a sudden violently shuddered; he affected her with an
uncontrollable dislike. He lifted his eyes slowly, and she looked away,
blushing as though she had been taken in some indiscretion. These eyes
were the most curious thing about him. They were not large, but an
exceedingly pale blue, and they looked at you in a way that was
singularly embarrassing. At first Susie could not discover in what
precisely their peculiarity lay, but in a moment she found out: the
eyes of most persons converge when they look at you, but Oliver
Haddo’s, naturally or by a habit he had acquired for effect, remained
parallel. It gave the impression that he looked straight through you
and saw the wall beyond. It was uncanny. But another strange thing
about him was the impossibility of telling whether he was serious.
There was a mockery in that queer glance, a sardonic smile upon the
mouth, which made you hesitate how to take his outrageous utterances.
It was irritating to be uncertain whether, while you were laughing at
him, he was not really enjoying an elaborate joke at your expense.
His presence cast an unusual chill upon the party. The French members
got up and left. Warren reeled out with O’Brien, whose uncouth sarcasms
were no match for Haddo’s bitter gibes. Raggles put on his coat with
the scarlet lining and went out with the tall Jagson, who smarted still
under Haddo’s insolence. The American sculptor paid his bill silently.
When he was at the door, Haddo stopped him.
“You have modelled lions at the Jardin des Plantes, my dear Clayson.
Have you ever hunted them on their native plains?”
“No, I haven’t.”
Clayson did not know why Haddo asked the question, but he bristled with
incipient wrath.
“Then you have not seen the jackal, gnawing at a dead antelope, scamper
away in terror when the King of Beasts stalked down to make his meal.”
Clayson slammed the door behind him. Haddo was left with Margaret, and
Arthur Burdon, Dr Porhoët, and Susie. He smiled quietly.
“By the way, are _you_ a lion-hunter?” asked Susie flippantly.
He turned on her his straight uncanny glance.
“I have no equal with big game. I have shot more lions than any man
alive. I think Jules Gérard, whom the French of the nineteenth century
called _Le Tueur de Lions_, may have been fit to compare with me, but I
can call to mind no other.”
This statement, made with the greatest calm, caused a moment of
silence. Margaret stared at him with amazement.
“You suffer from no false modesty,” said Arthur Burdon.
“False modesty is a sign of ill-breeding, from which my birth amply
protects me.”
Dr Porhoët looked up with a smile of irony.
“I wish Mr Haddo would take this opportunity to disclose to us the
mystery of his birth and family. I have a suspicion that, like the
immortal Cagliostro, he was born of unknown but noble parents, and
educated secretly in Eastern palaces.”
“In my origin I am more to be compared with Denis Zachaire or with
Raymond Lully. My ancestor, George Haddo, came to Scotland in the suite
of Anne of Denmark, and when James I, her consort, ascended the English
throne, he was granted the estates in Staffordshire which I still
possess. My family has formed alliances with the most noble blood of
England, and the Merestons, the Parnabys, the Hollingtons, have been
proud to give their daughters to my house.”
“Those are facts which can be verified in works of reference,” said
Arthur dryly.
“They can,” said Oliver.
“And the Eastern palaces in which your youth was spent, and the black
slaves who waited on you, and the bearded sheikhs who imparted to you
secret knowledge?” cried Dr Porhoët.
“I was educated at Eton, and I left Oxford in 1896.”
“Would you mind telling me at what college you were?” said Arthur.
“I was at the House.”
“Then you must have been there with Frank Hurrell.”
“Now assistant physician at St Luke’s Hospital. He was one of my most
intimate friends.”
“I’ll write and ask him about you.”
“I’m dying to know what you did with all the lions you slaughtered,”
said Susie Boyd.
The man’s effrontery did not exasperate her as it obviously exasperated
Margaret and Arthur. He amused her, and she was anxious to make him
talk.
“They decorate the floors of Skene, which is the name of my place in
Staffordshire.” He paused for a moment to light a cigar. “I am the only
man alive who has killed three lions with three successive shots.”
“I should have thought you could have demolished them by the effects of
your oratory,” said Arthur.
Oliver leaned back and placed his two large hands on the table.
“Burkhardt, a German with whom I was shooting, was down with fever and
could not stir from his bed. I was awakened one night by the uneasiness
of my oxen, and I heard the roaring of lions close at hand. I took my
carbine and came out of my tent. There was only the meagre light of the
moon. I walked alone, for I knew natives could be of no use to me.
Presently I came upon the carcass of an antelope, half-consumed, and I
made up my mind to wait for the return of the lions. I hid myself among
the boulders twenty paces from the prey. All about me was the immensity
of Africa and the silence. I waited, motionless, hour after hour, till
the dawn was nearly at hand. At last three lions appeared over a rock.
I had noticed, the day before, spoor of a lion and two females.”
“May I ask how you could distinguish the sex?” asked Arthur,
incredulously.
“The prints of a lion’s fore feet are disproportionately larger than
those of the hind feet. The fore feet and hind feet of the lioness are
nearly the same size.”
“Pray go on,” said Susie.
“They came into full view, and in the dim light, as they stood chest
on, they appeared as huge as the strange beasts of the Arabian tales. I
aimed at the lioness which stood nearest to me and fired. Without a
sound, like a bullock felled at one blow, she dropped. The lion gave
vent to a sonorous roar. Hastily I slipped another cartridge in my
rifle. Then I became conscious that he had seen me. He lowered his
head, and his crest was erect. His lifted tail was twitching, his lips
were drawn back from the red gums, and I saw his great white fangs.
Living fire flashed from his eyes, and he growled incessantly. Then he
advanced a few steps, his head held low; and his eyes were fixed on
mine with a look of rage. Suddenly he jerked up his tail, and when a
lion does this he charges. I got a quick sight on his chest and fired.
He reared up on his hind legs, roaring loudly and clawing at the air,
and fell back dead. One lioness remained, and through the smoke I saw
her spring to her feet and rush towards me. Escape was impossible, for
behind me were high boulders that I could not climb. She came on with
hoarse, coughing grunts, and with desperate courage I fired my
remaining barrel. I missed her clean. I took one step backwards in the
hope of getting a cartridge into my rifle, and fell, scarcely two
lengths in front of the furious beast. She missed me. I owed my safety
to that fall. And then suddenly I found that she had collapsed. I had
hit her after all. My bullet went clean through her heart, but the
spring had carried her forwards. When I scrambled to my feet I found
that she was dying. I walked back to my camp and ate a capital
breakfast.”
Oliver Haddo’s story was received with astonished silence. No one could
assert that it was untrue, but he told it with a grandiloquence that
carried no conviction. Arthur would have wagered a considerable sum
that there was no word of truth in it. He had never met a person of
this kind before, and could not understand what pleasure there might be
in the elaborate invention of improbable adventures.
“You are evidently very brave,” he said.
“To follow a wounded lion into thick cover is probably the most
dangerous proceeding in the world,” said Haddo calmly. “It calls for
the utmost coolness and for iron nerve.”
The answer had an odd effect on Arthur. He gave Haddo a rapid glance,
and was seized suddenly with uncontrollable laughter. He leaned back in
his chair and roared. His hilarity affected the others, and they broke
into peal upon peal of laughter. Oliver watched them gravely. He seemed
neither disconcerted nor surprised. When Arthur recovered himself, he
found Haddo’s singular eyes fixed on him.
“Your laughter reminds me of the crackling of thorns under a pot,” he
said.
Haddo looked round at the others. Though his gaze preserved its fixity,
his lips broke into a queer, sardonic smile.
“It must be plain even to the feeblest intelligence that a man can only
command the elementary spirits if he is without fear. A capricious mind
can never rule the sylphs, nor a fickle disposition the undines.”
Arthur stared at him with amazement. He did not know what on earth the
man was talking about. Haddo paid no heed.
“But if the adept is active, pliant, and strong, the whole world will
be at his command. He will pass through the storm and no rain shall
fall upon his head. The wind will not displace a single fold of his
garment. He will go through fire and not be burned.”
Dr Porhoët ventured upon an explanation of these cryptic utterances.
“These ladies are unacquainted with the mysterious beings of whom you
speak, _cher ami_. They should know that during the Middle Ages
imagination peopled the four elements with intelligences, normally
unseen, some of which were friendly to man and others hostile. They
were thought to be powerful and conscious of their power, though at the
same time they were profoundly aware that they possessed no soul. Their
life depended upon the continuance of some natural object, and hence
for them there could be no immortality. They must return eventually to
the abyss of unending night, and the darkness of death afflicted them
always. But it was thought that in the same manner as man by his union
with God had won a spark of divinity, so might the sylphs, gnomes,
undines, and salamanders by an alliance with man partake of his
immortality. And many of their women, whose beauty was more than human,
gained a human soul by loving one of the race of men. But the reverse
occurred also, and often a love-sick youth lost his immortality because
he left the haunts of his kind to dwell with the fair, soulless
denizens of the running streams or of the forest airs.”
“I didn’t know that you spoke figuratively,” said Arthur to Oliver
Haddo.
The other shrugged his shoulders.
“What else is the world than a figure? Life itself is but a symbol. You
must be a wise man if you can tell us what is reality.”
“When you begin to talk of magic and mysticism I confess that I am out
of my depth.”
“Yet magic is no more than the art of employing consciously invisible
means to produce visible effects. Will, love, and imagination are magic
powers that everyone possesses; and whoever knows how to develop them
to their fullest extent is a magician. Magic has but one dogma, namely,
that the seen is the measure of the unseen.”
“Will you tell us what the powers are that the adept possesses?”
“They are enumerated in a Hebrew manuscript of the sixteenth century,
which is in my possession. The privileges of him who holds in his right
hand the Keys of Solomon and in his left the Branch of the Blossoming
Almond are twenty-one. He beholds God face to face without dying, and
converses intimately with the Seven Genii who command the celestial
army. He is superior to every affliction and to every fear. He reigns
with all heaven and is served by all hell. He holds the secret of the
resurrection of the dead, and the key of immortality.”
“If you possess even these you have evidently the most varied
attainments,” said Arthur ironically.
“Everyone can make game of the unknown,” retorted Haddo, with a shrug
of his massive shoulders.
Arthur did not answer. He looked at Haddo curiously. He asked himself
whether he believed seriously these preposterous things, or whether he
was amusing himself in an elephantine way at their expense. His manner
was earnest, but there was an odd expression about the mouth, a hard
twinkle of the eyes, which seemed to belie it. Susie was vastly
entertained. It diverted her enormously to hear occult matters
discussed with apparent gravity in this prosaic tavern. Dr Porhoët
broke the silence.
“Arago, after whom has been named a neighbouring boulevard, declared
that doubt was a proof of modesty, which has rarely interfered with the
progress of science. But one cannot say the same of incredulity, and he
that uses the word impossible outside of pure mathematics is lacking in
prudence. It should be remembered that Lactantius proclaimed belief in
the existence of antipodes inane, and Saint Augustine of Hippo added
that in any case there could be no question of inhabited lands.”
“That sounds as if you were not quite sceptical, dear doctor,” said
Miss Boyd.
“In my youth I believed nothing, for science had taught me to distrust
even the evidence of my five senses,” he replied, with a shrug of the
shoulders. “But I have seen many things in the East which are
inexplicable by the known processes of science. Mr Haddo has given you
one definition of magic, and I will give you another. It may be
described merely as the intelligent utilization of forces which are
unknown, contemned, or misunderstood of the vulgar. The young man who
settles in the East sneers at the ideas of magic which surround him,
but I know not what there is in the atmosphere that saps his unbelief.
When he has sojourned for some years among Orientals, he comes
insensibly to share the opinion of many sensible men that perhaps there
is something in it after all.”
Arthur Burdon made a gesture of impatience.
“I cannot imagine that, however much I lived in Eastern countries, I
could believe anything that had the whole weight of science against it.
If there were a word of truth in anything Haddo says, we should be
unable to form any reasonable theory of the universe.”
“For a scientific man you argue with singular fatuity,” said Haddo
icily, and his manner had an offensiveness which was intensely
irritating. “You should be aware that science, dealing only with the
general, leaves out of consideration the individual cases that
contradict the enormous majority. Occasionally the heart is on the
right side of the body, but you would not on that account ever put your
stethoscope in any other than the usual spot. It is possible that under
certain conditions the law of gravity does not apply, yet you will
conduct your life under the conviction that it does so invariably. Now,
there are some of us who choose to deal only with these exceptions to
the common run. The dull man who plays at Monte Carlo puts his money on
the colours, and generally black or red turns up; but now and then zero
appears, and he loses. But we, who have backed zero all the time, win
many times our stake. Here and there you will find men whose
imagination raises them above the humdrum of mankind. They are willing
to lose their all if only they have chance of a great prize. Is it
nothing not only to know the future, as did the prophets of old, but by
making it to force the very gates of the unknown?”
Suddenly the bantering gravity with which he spoke fell away from him.
A singular light came into his eyes, and his voice was hoarse. Now at
last they saw that he was serious.
“What should you know of that lust for great secrets which consumes me
to the bottom of my soul!”
“Anyhow, I’m perfectly delighted to meet a magician,” cried Susie
gaily.
“Ah, call me not that,” he said, with a flourish of his fat hands,
regaining immediately his portentous flippancy. “I would be known
rather as the Brother of the Shadow.”
“I should have thought you could be only a very distant relation of
anything so unsubstantial,” said Arthur, with a laugh.
Oliver’s face turned red with furious anger. His strange blue eyes grew
cold with hatred, and he thrust out his scarlet lips till he had the
ruthless expression of a Nero. The gibe at his obesity had caught him
on the raw. Susie feared that he would make so insulting a reply that a
quarrel must ensure.
“Well, really, if we want to go to the fair we must start,” she said
quickly. “And Marie is dying to be rid of us.”
They got up, and clattered down the stairs into the street.