GILDERMAN had made an appointment by note to dine that evening at the
"Romans" with his friend Stirling West. His father-in-law had asked him
to dine at the rectory, but he had declined. The truth was, that he was
hungering for a taste of that sort of masculine society which he could
only find at the club.
The "Romans" was a pseudonym for the International Club. Why it was
so called can better be understood than explained. The International
Club, though large, was really one of the most select clubs in the
metropolis. Its membership was almost entirely composed of plutocrats.
With these was a sprinkling intermixture of the politicratic class. The
chief ruler of the nation was an honorary member; Governor Pilate was a
member, and so were others among the rulers of the nation. But almost
the entire body of the club was composed of plutocrats--such men as Mr.
Dorman-Webster among the patriarchs, and Gilderman among the juniors.
The club was always pretty full at this time of the year. Wives and
families were yet out of town, and the men came here to dine. Gilderman
went early and secured a table by the open window, and sat there
reading while he waited for his friend to come. The breeze came in at
the open windows every now and then, swaying and bellying the gaudy
awning outside. The stony street below looked hot and empty in the
sloping light of the sinking sun. Every now and then Gilderman looked
around from his paper--the room was beginning to fill. There was a
distinct air of informality about everything. Many of the men wore
tweed suits.
At last, Stirling West sauntered into the room and dropped into his
place. "How d'e do, old man?" said he. "Beastly hot, isn't it? How did
you leave the madam?"
"Not very well--her mother's with her."
"So I heard. By-the-way, I see his reverence is at the rectory."
"Yes; he came down last night in the _Nautilus_. Have a cocktail?"
* * * * *
The dinner was over and they were sitting in the café. Gilderman had
been talking to his friend concerning his religious views. He had been
led into that current of talk from discussing the execution of John the
Baptist.
"By Jove! old man," said Stirling West, "I wish I had your
enthusiasm--I do, indeed. I believe you really believe in all that sort
of stuff you're talking to me about."
The air about them was blue with tobacco smoke. Their coffee-cups at
their elbows were empty, except for a black remainder at the bottom;
the saucers half full of the scattered cigar-ashes that had been tilted
into them.
Gilderman recognized that his talk was out of place, but he still
continued. "Why do you call it stuff, Stirling? It's only stuff to you
because you don't believe in it. The future life in another world is as
real to me as--as going out of this café into the smoking-room yonder.
What is life without such a belief as that? If you regard this life as
all that there is for a man to live, then the world is a pit of misery
worse than hell, and God is a jesting devil juggling with the misery
and the pangs of mankind whom He created for His own amusement. Just
look at it, Stirling, in the light of reason. Here we are with more
than we want, trying to tickle our stomachs into an appetite by all
this made-up stuff we've been eating. Go only just around the corner
yonder and you'll find men and women living like maggots."
"Oh yes; I know all about that sort of socialistic rot," put in
Stirling West. "But how the deuce am I to help it, old man? I didn't
put 'em there, and I can't go nosing around in their beastly tenements.
What's the use of thinking and worrying about it, anyhow? What's the
use of stirring up all that sort of a row about a thing a man can't
help?"
"But, don't you see," cried Gilderman, enthusiastically, stretching out
his hand across the table and opening it tensely, "if this life's only
the first step in a man's existence, how beautifully all the inequality
and the injustice of the world is made equal and orderly in view of the
world to come. We are all passing through a little state of probation.
What does it matter if a man is rich or poor for these few short years
of life?"
"By Jove! it matters a deuced deal, I can tell you," said Stirling
West. "Look here, Gildy, you don't know, and nobody knows, that he has
a life to live after he's dead."
"Yes, I do," said Gilderman; "I know it as well as I know that I'm
alive now." But even as he spoke he knew that there were moments when
he doubted it.
"No; you don't know it. You believe it, but you don't know it. Well,
old man, a bird in the hand's worth two in the bush, any day. My life's
a bird in the hand--it's a lark, you know--and I'm going to get all
the fun out of it there is in it. I'm dead sure I'm alive now, and I'm
not sure of what is to come after I'm dead. You may bet your life I'm
not going to throw away my present chances for something I don't know
about."
Gilderman paused for a little while. "Oh, well," he said, presently,
"it doesn't matter. If God don't want you to see the truth, you can't
see it, and no man can make you see it. He has His own divine way of
regenerating every man. I believe--you don't believe; I see--you don't
see. It is neither to my credit nor to your discredit. It is simply
that we're made as we are." A sudden chill of doubt came over him even
as he spoke. Such a chill of doubt often struck across his spirit
even when he was in the very heat of his enthusiasm. And then again
it occurred to him how absurd and out of place it was for him to be
discussing such things in the café of the International Club, in the
midst of the smoking, the empty coffee-cups, and the humming undertone
of masculine talking.
Stirling West sat smoking in meditative silence for a while. By-and-by
he suddenly spoke again. "By-the-way," he said, "have you seen Olivia
Carrington yet?"
Olivia Carrington was a notable concert-hall dancer who had just been
imported into the country. Gilderman had thought that his companion had
been meditating upon what they had been saying. The sudden change of
topic made him feel still more the absurdity of his late enthusiasm.
"No, I haven't seen her," he said.
"By Jove, she's a daisy! What do you say to go around to the
Westminster and see her this evening?"
"I don't know. All right, I'll go with you."
They pushed back their chairs and arose. Gilderman realized very
thoroughly what an egregious fool he had been.
* * * * *
They went out into the smoking-room. A group of men were clustered at
the great, wide window that looked out upon the street below. Some
of the men were standing, some were sitting. Among them was Pontius
Pilate. He looked up at Gilderman as he drew near. He was a large,
rather fat, smooth-faced man. His skin was colorless and sallow. He
had a high, bald forehead, closely cropped gray hair, a hooked nose,
and keen, gray eyes deep set under straight, hard brows. His face was
square, and his mouth was set in a singular impassivity of expression.
His whole face wore the same air of impassive calm--it was like a mask
that covered the life within. He looked rather than spoke recognition
as Gilderman approached.
Gilderman drew near. The man who was talking was one Latimer-Moire. He
had just returned from an automobile expedition, during which he had
come into touch with the marvellous works that were afterwards to stir
the whole world into a religious belief. He was telling the others
how the divine miracles of Christ appeared to a young Roman who, like
himself, looked down upon them from the pinnacle of his earthly station.
"... And, by Jove! I tell you what it is," he said, "you fellows have
no idea of all the crazy hurrah those poor devils are kicking up down
there. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. You can't even
get a decent meal anywhere for the crowds of people everywhere who eat
up everything. You can't go anywhere but you hear of the Man and His
miracles. It wasn't till we got to that place, though, that we struck
the worst of it all. The town was full of people--a beastly crowd.
"Well, nothing would do Tommy Ryan but he must see one of those
miracles they're all talking about. So we put up at the hotel, and got
some one to show us where He was to be found. Tommy's man went along
with us, and it was a good thing we took him, for when we got near the
house, there was the street all packed and jammed with the crowd. It
seemed there was a delegation of preachers and elders or something, who
had come to interview Him and get Him to do something. Tommy was all
for seeing what they were at. So his man, and another fellow he tipped,
pushed a way for us through the crowd, and we managed to get into the
house. We contrived to edge our way along the entry until we came to
a room where He and the ministers were. The place was packed so that
we could hardly see anything. Hot? Well, rather! And so close that we
could hardly draw a breath. As for the smell--you could cut it with a
knife--I thought of all kinds of things you might catch and be sick.
"The ministers and their people were as dead in earnest as though their
lives depended upon it. What they wanted was for Him to show them a
miracle. As for Him, He just sat there and never made a motion. 'Show
us a sign,' says one of the ministers. 'If you are, indeed, the Christ,
show us a sign.' 'A wicked and adulterous generation,' said He, 'ask
for a sign, but there shall be no sign given them but the sign of the
prophet Jonah.'"
"What did He mean by that?" said young Palliser.
Everybody laughed, and even Governor Pilate smiled.
"But what in the deuce did He mean?" insisted Palliser.
"Mean?" said Latimer-Moire. "How should I know what He meant?"
"What did He look like?" asked Gilderman.
"Look like? Oh, I don't know; just like any other man. Well, after
we had come out of the place, we saw some of His people outside--His
mother and His brothers. His brothers had come to look after Him. I
felt deucedly sorry for 'em--decent, respectable-looking people enough."
"By-the-way," said Sprague, "did you read about His feeding all those
people?"
"Oh yes," said Latimer-Moire; "they were all talking about it down
there."
"Hullo, Stirling," said a young man who had just that moment joined
the group. "How about Olivia Carrington? Are you going to see her
to-night?"