After dinner, in the privacy of an inner drawing room, Saul Hartz
sought Helen again. It was agony almost for her to be with him, to hear
his strange voice clothe yet stranger words; and yet it was a form of
experience that no constructive mind would ever willingly forego. She
was a woman of strong will, a woman sound in heart and brain, but of a
sudden there returned upon her the memory of that night of subtle fear,
some two months back, when she had paid a surprise visit to Carlton
House Terrace--that unforgettable night of his dealing the man she
loved a felon’s blow. Not then had she known him for the thing he was.
For her, at least, his purpose was still masked. But now everything was
clear. The hood had lifted, the veil was rent. He stood forth, open and
declared, an enemy of mankind.
The knowledge filled Helen with curious emotion. She now felt the
challenge of his nature in a way that frightened her. Beside her sat
the very genius of negation. Was not she, too, just a poor silly gnat?
The sense of his sheer animal power made her almost long at this
moment to feel his arms about her; with his sorcery upon her she half
wished that his lips would crush out her life. And she knew that she
was powerless. As he sat very close to her in that cushioned nook, she
might have been under the spell of a fabulous monster. Shivering with
fear, she began to realize that her defenses were failing. Raised to
this pitch, such a creature was all that had been, all that could ever
be. Somehow she felt that the old prophecies were true. The living,
sentient being whose hand now held hers was the incarnation of Evil.
Was he, to whom in the past she owed so much, about to amuse himself
in the rôle of Don Juan? Pray heaven he would be content to-night with
that of Lucifer! Oh, why had she come to this house? Oh, why had she
come there alone?
She felt the touch of a cool palm on her lightly clad knees. It brought
riot to her brain a hint of madness. She tried to free herself, but
laughingly he pinned her down. If she could but get away! Held by his
will she could hardly move or breathe. Was it possible, despite all
she could do, that he was about to make good his vile boast of two
months back? Where was the God in whom she believed? One part of her
mind besought that Friend who for her had always been at the back of
everything, while the other part glimpsed the joys of surrender to one
who had declared war upon authority.
With an insight which she felt to be terrifying, the Colossus was able
to read her thought. To him the human mind was an open page. Looking
deep into those honest eyes he smiled at the naked terror that he saw
there. With a softness more than feline he began to stroke the delicate
fabric of crêpe de chine that so inefficiently covered her. “If I ask
you to put your arms about my neck and kiss me, what will you do?” Not
by the lips was that speech uttered, but by eyes that glowed and burned
like those which glow and burn in jungle grass.
She tried again to get away. But with the flick of a paw he cast her
back to her cushions and held her. “One can never understand,” he
purred with an odd gentleness whose effect upon her was as wine and
music, “why a creature of your intelligence, and particularly a woman,
should ever truly believe that Right must triumph and Wrong must fail.”
“One does believe it, all the same.”
His laugh drove the blood from her heart. “And that is so amazing!
Look at this horrible world we live in for our sins, and tell me quite
honestly if there is any evidence at all of a power more benign than an
impersonal, blind, animal force? The wind blows, the clouds rain, the
stars shine. Some of us who are geared high smoke big cigars and own
newspapers; some of us, geared not so high, are women broken in body
and soul, whose daughters are on the streets and whose sons have been
condemned by the State to the battue. So much, my dear girl, for this
God of yours! On this little planet, you can’t tell me, He is making
any headway at all.”
She felt as if he had hit her in the face. “I do believe,” she gasped.
“And--and--no matter what happens”--his grip was on her shrinking
knees--“to me--or to mine--I shall go on believing.”
“And I shall go on disbelieving.” He chuckled softly. “All the same, I
like your pluck!” The father was speaking again to a favorite daughter.
Helen shivered at the intolerable memories wrought by that tone. “How
well you fight with your back to the wall.” He raised her hand in his
and pressed his lips upon it lightly. “I respect your courage.” Voice
and smile grew even more paternal. “And between ourselves, that is the
only thing in the life one knows that one does respect. Courage. That
alone is sacred. Courage. No matter when, no matter where one meets
that, one pays homage.”
Smiling at his thoughts, he got up from the sofa on which they sat. As
he stood before her in the arrogance of his mental and physical power,
she could not kill a sense, try to stifle it as she would, that here
perhaps was the noblest thing on which her eyes had looked.
He still kept close track of her mind. “Bless you, dear child!” She
felt his eyes pass through her like a sword, and she bit her lip in
an agony that had a touch of ecstasy. And then came terror again. She
fought against a sob she could not control. Hearing it, he sighed
tenderly. “One mustn’t hurt you too much,” he said, half to himself.
“You’ve always been a particularly nice girl. I have always liked
you.” His voice had grown gentle, charming, whimsical. “Good luck.
_Bon voyage._ You are a good woman. Your husband is a good man. And
I am a very, very bad one. But please remember that it is against
all experience to suppose that the bad people don’t come out on top.
Believe me, they always do--and they always must.”