various ladies he did not in the least remember, but who remembered him.
He did not, of course, desire to exchange banalities with these other
ladies, yet did so gallantly enough. If they found him absent-minded
they excused him since he was the famous mental specialist whom
everybody was proud to know. And all the time his eyes never left the
tall graceful figure that allured him almost to the point of casting a
spell upon him.
His first impression deepened as he watched. He was aware of excitement,
curiosity, longing; there was a touch even of exaltation in him; yet
he took no steps to seek the introduction which was easily enough
procurable. He checked himself, if with an effort. Several times
their eyes met across the crowded room; he dared to believe--he felt
instinctively--that his interest was returned. Indeed, it was more than
instinct, for she was certainly aware of his presence, and he even
caught her indicating him to a woman she spoke with, and evidently
asking who he was. Once he half bowed, and once, in spite of himself, he
went so far as to smile, and there came, he was sure, a faint, delicious
brightening of the eyes in answer. There was, he fancied, a look of
yearning in the face. The young woman charmed him inexpressibly; the
very way she moved delighted him. Yet at last he slipped out of the room
without a word, without an introduction, without even knowing her name.
He chose his moment when her back was turned. It was characteristic of
him.
For Owen Francis had ever regarded marriage, for himself at least, as a
disaster that could be avoided. He was in love with his work, and his
work was necessary to humanity. Others might perpetuate the race, but he
must heal it. He had come to regard love as the bait wherewith Nature
lays her trap to fulfill her own ends. A man in love was a man enjoying
a delusion, a deluded man. In his case, and he was nearing forty-five,
the theory had worked admirably, and the dangerous exception that proved
it had as yet not troubled him.
"It's come at last--I do believe," he thought to himself, as he walked
home, a new tumultuous emotion in his blood; "the exception, quite
possibly, has come at last. I wonder...."
And it seemed he said it to the tall graceful figure by his side, who
turned up dark eyes smilingly to meet his own, and whose lips repeated
softly his last two words "I wonder...."
The experience, being new to him, was baffling. A part of his nature,
long dormant, received the authentic thrill that pertains actually to
youth. He was a man of chaste, abstemious custom. The reaction was
vehement. That dormant part of him became obstreperous. He thought of
his age, his appearance, his prospects; he looked thirty-eight, he was
not unhandsome, his position was secure, even remarkable. That gorgeous
young woman--he called her gorgeous--haunted him. Never could he forget
that face, those eyes. It was extraordinary--he had left her there
unspoken to, unknown, when an introduction would have been the simplest
thing in the world.
"But it still is," he replied. And the reflection filled his being with
a flood of joy.
He checked himself again. Not so easily is established habit routed. He
felt instinctively that, at last, he had met his mate; if he followed it
up he was a man in love, a lost man enjoying a delusion, a deluded man.
But the way she had looked at him! That air of intuitive invitation
which not even the sweetest modesty could conceal! He felt an immense
confidence in himself; also he felt oddly sure of her.
The presence of that following figure, already precious, came with him
into his house, even into his study at the back where he sat over a
number of letters by the open window. The pathetic little London garden
showed its pitiful patch. The lilac had faded, but a smell of roses
entered. The sun was just behind the buildings opposite, and the garden
lay soft and warm in summer shadows.
He read and tossed aside the letters; one only interested him, from
Edward Farque, whose journey to China had interrupted a friendship of
long standing. Edward Farque's work on eastern art and philosophy, on
Chinese painting and Chinese thought in particular, had made its mark.
He was an authority. He was to be back about this time, and his friend
smiled with pleasure. "Dear old unpractical dreamer, as I used to call
him," he mused. "He's a success, anyhow!" And as he mused, the presence
that sat beside him came a little closer, yet at the same time faded.
Not that he forgot her--that was impossible--but that just before
opening the letter from his friend, he had come to a decision. He had
definitely made up his mind to seek acquaintance. The reality replaced
the remembered substitute.
"As the newspapers may have warned you," ran the familiar and kinky
writing, "I am back in England after what the scribes term my ten
years of exile in Cathay. I have taken a little house in Hampstead
for six months, and am just settling in. Come to us to-morrow night
and let me prove it to you. Come to dinner. We shall have much to
say; we both are ten years wiser. You know how glad I shall be to
see my old-time critic and disparager, but let me add frankly
that I want to ask you a few professional, or, rather, technical,
questions. So prepare yourself to come as doctor and as friend. I
am writing, as the papers said truthfully, a treatise on Chinese
thought. But--don't shy!--it is about Chinese Magic that I want
your technical advice [the last two words were substituted for
"professional wisdom," which had been crossed out] and the benefit
of your vast experience. So come, old friend, come quickly, and come
hungry! I'll feed your body as you shall feed my mind.--Yours,
"EDWARD FARQUE."
"P.S.--'The coming of a friend from a far-off land--is not this true
joy?'"
Dr. Francis laid down the letter with a pleased anticipatory chuckle,
and it was the touch in the final sentence that amused him. In spite of
being an authority, Farque was clearly the same fanciful, poetic dreamer
as of old. He quoted Confucius as in other days. The firm but kinky
writing had not altered either. The only sign of novelty he noticed was
the use of scented paper, for a faint and pungent aroma clung to the big
quarto sheet.
"A Chinese habit, doubtless," he decided, sniffing it with a puzzled air
of disapproval. Yet it had nothing in common with the scented sachets
some ladies use too lavishly, so that even the air of the street is
polluted by their passing for a dozen yards. He was familiar with every
kind of perfumed note-paper used in London, Paris, and Constantinople.
This one was difficult. It was delicate and penetrating for all its
faintness, pleasurable too. He rather liked it, and while annoyed that
he could not name it, he sniffed at the letter several times, as though
it were a flower.
"I'll go," he decided at once, and wrote an acceptance then and there.
He went out and posted it. He meant to prolong his walk into the Park,
taking his chief preoccupation, the face, the eyes, the figure, with
him. Already he was composing the note of inquiry to Mrs. Malleson, his
hostess of the tea-party, the note whose willing answer should give him
the name, the address, the means of introduction he had now determined
to secure. He visualized that note of inquiry, seeing it in his mind's
eye; only, for some odd reason, he saw the kinky writing of Farque
instead of his own more elegant script. Association of ideas and
emotions readily explained this. Two new and unexpected interests had
entered his life on the same day, and within half an hour of each other.
What he could not so readily explain, however, was that two words in his
friend's ridiculous letter, and in that kinky writing, stood out sharply
from the rest. As he slipped his envelope into the mouth of the red
pillar-box they shone vividly in his mind. These two words were "Chinese
Magic."
2
It was the warmth of his friend's invitation as much as his own state of
inward excitement that decided him suddenly to anticipate his visit by
twenty-four hours. It would clear his judgment and help his mind, if he
spent the evening at Hampstead rather than alone with his own thoughts.
"A dose of China," he thought, with a smile, "will do me good. Edward
won't mind. I'll telephone."
He left the Park soon after six o'clock and acted upon his impulse. The
connexion was bad, the wire buzzed and popped and crackled; talk was
difficult; he did not hear properly. The Professor had not yet come in,
apparently. Francis said he would come up anyhow on the chance.
"Velly pleased," said the voice in his ear, as he rang off.
Going into his study, he drafted the note that should result in the
introduction that was now, it appeared, the chief object of his life.
The way this woman with the black, twinkling eyes obsessed him was--he
admitted it with joy--extraordinary. The draft he put in his pocket,
intending to re-write it next morning, and all the way up to Hampstead
Heath the gracious figure glided silently beside him, the eyes were ever
present, his cheek still glowed where the feather boa had touched his
skin. Edward Farque remained in the background. In fact, it was on the
very door-step, having rung the bell, that Francis realized he must pull
himself together. "I've come to see old Farque," he reminded himself,
with a smile. "I've got to be interested in him and his, and, probably,
for an hour or two, to talk Chinese----" when the door opened
noiselessly, and he saw facing him, with a grin of celestial welcome on
his yellow face, a China-man.
"Oh!" he said, with a start. He had not expected a Chinese servant.
"Velly pleased," the man bowed him in.
Dr. Francis stared round him with astonishment he could not conceal. A
great golden idol faced him in the hall, its gleaming visage blazing out
of a sort of miniature golden palanquin, with a grin, half dignified,
half cruel. Fully double human size, it blocked the way, looking so
life-like that it might have moved to meet him without too great a shock
to what seemed possible. It rested on a throne with four massive legs,
carved, the doctor saw, with serpents, dragons, and mythical monsters
generally. Round it on every side were other things in keeping. Name
them he could not, describe them he did not try. He summed them up in
one word--China: pictures, weapons, cloths and tapestries, bells, gongs,
and figures of every sort and kind imaginable.
Being ignorant of Chinese matters, Dr. Francis stood and looked about
him in a mental state of some confusion. He had the feeling that he had
entered a Chinese temple, for there was a faint smell of incense hanging
about the house that was, to say the least, un-English. Nothing English,
in fact, was visible at all. The matting on the floor, the swinging
curtains of bamboo beads that replaced the customary doors, the silk
draperies and pictured cushions, the bronze and ivory, the screens hung
with fantastic embroideries, everything was Chinese. Hampstead vanished
from his thoughts. The very lamps were in keeping, the ancient lacquered
furniture as well. The value of what he saw, an expert could have told
him, was considerable.
"You likee?" queried the voice at his side.
He had forgotten the servant. He turned sharply.
"Very much; it's wonderfully done," he said. "Makes you feel at home,
John, eh?" he added tactfully, with a smile, and was going to ask how
long all this preparation had taken, when a voice sounded on the stairs
beyond. It was a voice he knew, a note of hearty welcome in its deep
notes.
"The coming of a friend from a far-off land, even from Harley Street--is
not this true joy?" he heard, and the next minute was shaking the hand
of his old and valued friend. The intimacy between them had always been
of the truest.
"I almost expected a pigtail," observed Francis, looking him
affectionately up and down, "but, really--why, you've hardly changed at
all!"
"Outwardly, not as much, perhaps, as Time expects," was the happy
reply, "but inwardly----!" He scanned appreciatively the burly figure of
the doctor in his turn. "And I can say the same of you," he declared,
still holding his hand tight. "This is a real pleasure, Owen," he went
on in his deep voice, "to see you again is a joy to me. Old friends
meeting again--there's nothing like it in life, I believe, nothing." He
gave the hand another squeeze before he let it go. "And we," he added,
leading the way into a room across the hall, "neither of us is a
fugitive from life. We take what we can, I mean."
The doctor smiled as he noted the un-English turn of language, and
together they entered a sitting-room that was, again, more like some
inner chamber of a Chinese temple than a back room in a rented Hampstead
house.
"I only knew ten minutes ago that you were coming, my dear fellow,"
the scholar was saying, as his friend gazed round him with increased
astonishment, "or I would have prepared more suitably for your
reception. I was out till late. All this"--he waved his hand--"surprises
you, of course, but the fact is I have been home some days already, and
most of what you see was arranged for me in advance of my arrival. Hence
its apparent completion. I say 'apparent,' because, actually, it is far
from faithfully carried out. Yet to exceed," he added, "is as bad as to
fall short."
The doctor watched him while he listened to a somewhat lengthy
explanation of the various articles surrounding them. The speaker--he
confirmed his first impression--had changed little during the long
interval; the same enthusiasm was in him as before, the same fire and
dreaminess alternately in the fine grey eyes, the same humour and
passion about the mouth, the same free gestures, and the same big voice.
Only the lines had deepened on the forehead, and on the fine face the
air of thoughtfulness was also deeper. It was Edward Farque as of old,
scholar, poet, dreamer and enthusiast, despiser of western civilization,
contemptuous of money, generous and upright, a type of value, an
individual.
"You've done well, done splendidly, Edward, old man," said his friend
presently, after hearing of Chinese wonders that took him somewhat
beyond his depth perhaps. "No one is more pleased than I. I've watched
your books. You haven't regretted England, I'll be bound?" he asked.
"The philosopher has no country, in any case," was the reply, steadily
given. "But out there, I confess, I've found my home." He leaned
forward, a deeper earnestness in his tone and expression. And into his
face, as he spoke, came a glow of happiness. "My heart," he said, "is in
China."
"I see it is, I see it is," put in the other, conscious that he could
not honestly share his friend's enthusiasm. "And you're fortunate to be
free to live where your treasure is," he added after a moment's pause.
"You must be a happy man. Your passion amounts to nostalgia, I suspect.
Already yearning to get back there, probably?"
Farque gazed at him for some seconds with shining eyes. "You remember
the Persian saying, I'm sure," he said. "'You see a man drink, but you
do not see his thirst.' Well," he added, laughing happily, "you may see
me off in six months' time, but you will not see my happiness."
While he went on talking, the doctor glanced round the room, marvelling
still at the exquisite taste of everything, the neat arrangement, the
perfect matching of form and colour. A woman might have done this thing,
occurred to him, as the haunting figure shifted deliciously into the
foreground of his mind again. The thought of her had been momentarily
replaced by all he heard and saw. She now returned, filling him with
joy, anticipation and enthusiasm. Presently, when it was his turn to
talk, he would tell his friend about this new, unimagined happiness that
had burst upon him like a sunrise. Presently, but not just yet. He
remembered, too, with a passing twinge of possible boredom to come, that
there must be some delay before his own heart could unburden itself in
its turn. Farque wanted to ask some professional questions, of course.
He had for the moment forgotten that part of the letter in his general
interest and astonishment.
"Happiness, yes...." he murmured, aware that his thoughts had wandered,
and catching at the last word he remembered hearing. "As you said just
now in your own queer way--you haven't changed a bit, let me tell you,
in your picturesqueness of quotation, Edward--one must not be fugitive
from life; one must seize happiness when and where it offers."
He said it lightly enough, hugging internally his own sweet secret; but
he was a little surprised at the earnestness of his friend's rejoinder:
"Both of us, I see," came the deep voice, backed by the flash of the
far-seeing grey eyes, "have made some progress in the doctrine of life
and death." He paused, gazing at the other with sight that was obviously
turned inwards upon his own thoughts. "Beauty," he went on presently,
his tone even more serious, "has been my lure; yours, Reality...."
"You don't flatter either of us, Edward. That's too exclusive a
statement," put in the doctor. He was becoming every minute more and
more interested in the workings of his friend's mind. Something about
the signs offered eluded his understanding. "Explain yourself, old
scholar-poet. I'm a dull, practical mind, remember, and can't keep pace
with Chinese subtleties."
"_You've_ left out Beauty," was the quiet rejoinder, "while _I_ left out
Reality. That's neither Chinese nor subtle. It is simply true."
"A bit wholesale, isn't it?" laughed Francis. "A big generalization,
rather."
A bright light seemed to illuminate the scholar's face. It was as though
an inner lamp was suddenly lit. At the same moment the sound of a soft
gong floated in from the hall outside, so soft that the actual strokes
were not distinguishable in the wave of musical vibration that reached
the ear.
Farque rose to lead the way in to dinner.
"What if I----" he whispered, "have combined the two?" And upon his face
was a look of joy that reached down into the other's own full heart with
its unexpectedness and wonder. It was the last remark in the world he
had looked for. He wondered for a moment whether he interpreted it
correctly.
"By Jove...!" he exclaimed. "Edward, what d'you mean?"
"You shall hear--after dinner," said Farque, his voice mysterious, his
eyes still shining with his inner joy. "I told you I have some questions
to ask you--professionally." And they took their seats round an ancient,
marvellous table, lit by two swinging lamps of soft green jade, while
the Chinese servant waited on them with the silent movements and deft
neatness of his imperturbable celestial race.
3
To say that he was bored during the meal were an over-statement of Dr.
Francis's mental condition, but to say that he was half-bored seemed the
literal truth; for one-half of him, while he ate his steak and savoury
and watched Farque manipulating _chou chop suey_ and _chou om dong_ most
cleverly with chop-sticks, was too pre-occupied with his own romance to
allow the other half to give its full attention to the conversation.
He had entered the room, however, with a distinct quickening of what may
be termed his instinctive and infallible sense of diagnosis. That last
remark of his friend's had stimulated him. He was aware of surprise,
curiosity, and impatience. Willy-nilly, he began automatically to study
him with a profounder interest. Something, he gathered, was not quite as
it should be in Edward Farque's mental composition. There was what might
be called an elusive emotional disturbance. He began to wonder and to
watch.
They talked, naturally, of China and of things Chinese, for the scholar
responded to little else, and Francis listened with what sympathy and
patience he could muster. Of art and beauty he had hitherto known
little, his mind was practical and utilitarian. He now learned that all
art was derived from China, where a high, fine, subtle culture had
reigned since time immemorial. Older than Egypt was their wisdom. When
the western races were eating one another, before Greece was even heard
of, the Chinese had reached a level of knowledge and achievement that
few realized. Never had they, even in earliest times, been deluded by
anthropomorphic conceptions of the Deity, but perceived in everything
the expressions of a single whole whose giant activities they reverently
worshipped. Their contempt for the western scurry after knowledge,
wealth, machinery, was justified, if Farque was worthy of belief. He
seemed saturated with Chinese thought, art, philosophy, and his natural
bias towards the celestial race had hardened into an attitude to life
that had now become ineradicable.
"They deal, as it were, in essences," he declared; "they discern the
essence of everything, leaving out the superfluous, the unessential, the
trivial. Their pictures alone prove it. Come with me," he concluded,
"and see the 'Earthly Paradise,' now in the British Museum. It is like
Botticelli, but better than anything Botticelli ever did. It was
painted"--he paused for emphasis--"600 years B.C."
The wonder of this quiet, ancient civilization, a sense of its depth,
its wisdom, grew upon his listener as the enthusiastic poet described
its charm and influence upon himself. He willingly allowed the
enchantment of the other's Paradise to steal upon his own awakened
heart. There was a good deal Francis might have offered by way of
criticism and objection, but he preferred on the whole to keep his own
views to himself, and to let his friend wander unhindered through the
mazes of his passionate evocation. All men, he well knew, needed a dream
to carry them through life's disappointments, a dream that they could
enter at will and find peace, contentment, happiness. Farque's dream was
China. Why not? It was as good as another, and a man like Farque was
entitled to what dream he pleased.
"And their women?" he inquired at last, letting both halves of his mind
speak together for the first time.
But he was not prepared for the expression that leaped upon his friend's
face at the simple question. Nor for his method of reply. It was no
reply, in point of fact. It was simply an attack upon all other types of
woman, and upon the white, the English, in particular--their emptiness,
their triviality, their want of intuitive imagination, of spiritual
grace, of everything, in a word, that should constitute woman a meet
companion for man, and a little higher than the angels into the bargain.
The doctor listened spellbound. Too humorous to be shocked, he was, at
any rate, disturbed by what he heard, displeased a little, too. It
threatened too directly his own new tender dream.
Only with the utmost self-restraint did he keep his temper under, and
prevent hot words he would have regretted later from tearing his
friend's absurd claim into ragged shreds. He was wounded personally as
well. Never now could he bring himself to tell his own secret to him.
The outburst chilled and disappointed him. But it had another effect--it
cooled his judgment. His sense of diagnosis quickened. He divined an
_idee fixe_, a mania possibly. His interest deepened abruptly. He
watched. He began to look about him with more wary eyes, and a sense of
uneasiness, once the anger passed, stirred in his friendly and
affectionate heart.
They had been sitting alone over their port for some considerable time,
the servant having long since left the room. The doctor had sought to
change the subject many times without much success, when suddenly
Farque changed it for him.
"Now," he announced, "I'll tell you something," and Francis guessed that
the professional questions were on the way at last. "We must pity the
living, remember, and part with the dead. Have you forgotten old
Shan-Yu?"
The forgotten name came back to him, the picturesque East End dealer of
many years ago. "The old merchant who taught you your first Chinese? I
do recall him dimly; now you mention it. You made quite a friend of him,
didn't you? He thought very highly of you--ah, it comes back to me
now--he offered something or other very wonderful in his gratitude,
unless my memory fails me?"