I was introduced that evening at dinner to Mr. Harland's physician, and
also to his private secretary. I was not greatly prepossessed in favour
of either of these gentlemen. Dr. Brayle was a dark, slim, clean-shaven
man of middle age with expressionless brown eyes and sleek black hair
which was carefully brushed and parted down the middle,--he was quiet
and self-contained in manner, and yet I thought I could see that he was
fully alive to the advantages of his position as travelling medical
adviser to an American millionaire. I have not mentioned till now that
Morton Harland was an American. I was always rather in the habit of
forgetting the fact, as he had long ago forsworn his nationality and
had naturalised himself as a British subject. But he had made his vast
fortune in America, and was still the controlling magnate of many large
financial interests in the States. He was, however, much more English
than American, for he had been educated at Oxford, and as a young man
had been always associated with English society and English ways. He
had married an English wife, who died when their first child, his
daughter, was born, and he was wont to set down all Miss Catherine's
mopish languors to a delicacy inherited from her mother, and to lack of
a mother's care in childhood. In my opinion Catherine was robust
enough, but it was evident that from a very early age she had been
given her own way to the fullest extent, and had been so accustomed to
have every little ailment exaggerated and made the most of that she had
grown to believe health of body and mind as well-nigh impossible to the
human being. Dr. Brayle, I soon perceived, lent himself to this
attitude, and I did not like the covert gleam of his mahogany-coloured
eyes as he glanced rapidly from father to daughter in the pauses of
conversation, watching them as narrowly as a cat might watch a couple
of unwary mice. The secretary, Mr. Swinton, was a pale, precise-looking
young man with a somewhat servile demeanour, under which he concealed
an inordinately good opinion of himself. His ideas were centred in and
bounded by the art of stenography,--he was an adept in shorthand and
typewriting, could jot down, I forget how many crowds of jostling words
a minute, and never made a mistake. He was a clock-work model of
punctuality and dispatch, of respectfulness and obedience,--but he was
no more than a machine,--he could not be moved to a spontaneous
utterance or a spontaneous smile, unless both smile and utterance were
the result of some pleasantness affecting himself. Neither Dr. Brayle
nor Mr. Swinton were men whom one could positively like or
dislike,--they simply had the power of creating an atmosphere in which
my spirit found itself swimming like a gold-fish in a bowl, wondering
how it got in and how it could get out.
As I sat rather silently at table I felt, rather than saw, Dr. Brayle
regarding me with a kind of perplexed curiosity. I was as fully aware
of his sensations as of my own,--I knew that my presence irritated him,
though he was not clever enough to explain even to himself the cause of
his irritation. So far as Mr. Swinton was concerned, he was comfortably
wrapped up in a pachydermatous hide of self-appreciation, so that he
thought nothing about me one way or the other except as a guest of his
patrons, and one therefore to whom he was bound to be civil. But with
Dr. Brayle it was otherwise. I was a puzzle to him, and--after a brief
study of me--an annoyance. He forced himself into conversation with me,
however, and we interchanged a few remarks on the weather and on the
various beauties of the coast along which we had been sailing all day.
"I see that you care very much for fine scenery," he said--"Few women
do."
"Really?" And I smiled. "Is admiration of the beautiful a special
privilege of men only?"
"It should be,"--he answered, with a little bow--"We are the admirers
of your sex."
I made no answer. Mr. Harland looked at me with a somewhat quizzical
air.
"You are not a believer in compliments," he said.
"Was it a compliment?" I asked, laughingly--"I'm afraid I'm very dense!
I did not see that it was meant as one."
Dr. Brayle's dark brows drew together in a slight frown. With that
expression on his face he looked very much like an Italian poisoner of
old time,--the kind of man whom Caesar Borgia might have employed to
give the happy dispatch to his enemies by some sure and undiscoverable
means known only to intricate chemistry.
Presently Mr. Harland spoke again, while he peeled a pear slowly and
delicately with a deft movement of his fruit knife that suggested
cruelty and the flaying alive of some sentient thing.
"Our little friend is of a rather strange disposition," he
observed--"She has the indifference of an old-world philosopher to the
saying of speeches that are merely socially agreeable. She is ardent in
soul, but suspicious in mind! She imagines that a pleasant word may
often be used to cover a treacherous action, and if a man is as rude
and blunt as myself, for example, she prefers that he should be rude
and blunt rather than that he should attempt to conceal his roughness
by an amiability which it is not his nature to feel." Here he looked up
at me from the careful scrutiny of his nearly flayed pear. "Isn't that
so?"
"Certainly,"--I answered--"But that's not a 'strange' or original
attitude of mind."
The corners of his ugly mouth curled satirically.
"Pardon me, dear lady, it is! The normal and strictly reasonable
attitude of the healthy human Pigmy is that It should accept as gospel
all that It is told of a nature soothing and agreeable to Itself. It
should believe, among other things, that It is a very precious Pigmy
among natural forces, destined to be immortal, and to share with Divine
Intelligence the privileges of Heaven. Put out by the merest trifle,
troubled by a spasm, driven almost to howling by a toothache, and
generally helpless in all very aggravated adverse circumstances, It
should still console Itself with the idea that Its being, Its
proportions and perfections are superb enough to draw down Deity into a
human shape as a creature of human necessities in order that It, the
Pigmy, should claim kinship with the Divine now and for ever! What
gorgeous blasphemy in such a scheme!--what magnificent arrogance!" I
was silent, but I could almost hear my heart beating with suppressed
emotion. I knew Morton Harland was an atheist, so far as atheism is
possible to any creature born of spirit as well as matter, but I did
not think he would air his opinions so openly and at once before me the
first evening of my stay on board his yacht. I saw, however, that he
spoke in this way hoping to move me to an answering argument for the
amusement of himself and the other two men present, and therefore I did
what was incumbent upon me to do in such a situation--held my peace.
Dr. Brayle watched me curiously,--and poor Catherine Harland turned her
plaintive eyes upon me full of alarm. She had learned to dread her
father's fondness for starting topics which led to religious
discussions of a somewhat heated nature. But as I did not speak, Mr.
Harland was placed in the embarrassing position of a person propounding
a theory which no one shows any eagerness to accept or to deny, and,
looking slightly confused, he went on in a lighter and more casual way--
"I had a friend once at Oxford,--a wonderful fellow, full of strange
dreams and occult fancies. He was one of those who believed in the
Divine half of man. He used to study curious old books and manuscripts
till long past midnight, and never seemed tired. His father had lived
by choice in some desert corner of Egypt for forty years, and in Egypt
this boy had been born. Of his mother he never spoke. His father died
suddenly and left him a large fortune under trustees till he came of
age, with instructions that he was to be taken to England and educated
at Oxford, and that when he came into possession of his money, he was
to be left free to do as he liked with it. I met him when he was almost
half-way through his University course. I was only two or three years
his senior, but he always looked much younger than I. And he was, as we
all said, 'uncanny '--as uncanny as our little friend,"--here
indicating me by a nod of his head and a smile which was meant to be
kindly--"He never practised or 'trained' for anything and yet all
things came easily to him. He was as magnificent in his sports as he
was in his studies, and I remember--how well I remember it!--that there
came a time at last when we all grew afraid of him. If we saw him
coming along the 'High' we avoided him,--he had something of terror as
well as admiration for us,--and though I was of his college and
constantly thrown into association with him, I soon became infected
with the general scare. One night he stopped me in the quadrangle where
he had his rooms--"
Here Mr. Harland broke off suddenly.
"I'm boring you,"--he said--"I really have no business to inflict the
recollections of my youth upon you."
Dr. Brayle's brown eyes showed a glistening animal interest.
"Pray go on!" he urged--"It sounds like the chapter of a romance."
"I'm not a believer in romance,"--said Mr. Harland, grimly--"Facts are
enough in themselves without any embroidered additions. This fellow was
a Fact,--a healthy, strong, energetic, living Fact. He stopped me in
the quadrangle as I tell you,--and he laid his hand on my shoulder. I
shrank from his touch, and had a restless desire to get away from him.
'What's the matter with you, Harland?' he said, in a grave, musical
voice that was peculiarly his own--'You seem afraid of me. If you are,
the fault is in yourself, not in me!' I shuffled my feet about on the
stone pavement, not knowing what to say--then I stammered out the
foolish excuses young men make when they find themselves in an awkward
corner. He listened to my stammering remarks about 'the other fellows'
with attentive patience,--then he took his hand from my shoulder with a
quick, decisive movement. 'Look here, Harland'--he said--'You are
taking up all the conventions and traditions with which our poor old
Alma Mater is encrusted, and sticking them over you like burrs. They'll
cling, remember! It's a pity you choose this way of going,--I'm
starting at the farther end--where Oxford leaves off and Life begins!'
I suppose I stared--for he went on--'I mean Life that goes
forward,--not Life that goes backward, picking up the stale crumbs
fallen from centuries that have finished their banquet and passed on.
There!--I won't detain you! We shall not meet often--but don't forget
what I have said,--that if you are afraid of me, or of any other man,
or of any existing thing,--the fault is in yourself, not in the persons
or objects you fear.' 'I don't see it,' I blurted out, angrily--'What
of the other fellows? They think you're queer!' He laughed. 'Bless the
other fellows!' he said--'They're with you in the same boat! They think
me queer because THEY are queer--that is,--out of line--themselves.' I
was irritated by his easy indifference and asked him what he meant by
'out of line.' 'Suppose you see a beautiful garden harmoniously
planned,' he said, still smiling, 'and some clumsy fellow comes along
and puts a crooked pigstye up among the flower beds, you would call
that "out of line," wouldn't you? Unsuitable, to say the least of it?'
'Oh!' I said, hotly--'So you consider me and my friends crooked
pigstyes in your landscape?' He made me a gay, half apologetic gesture.
'Something of the type, dear boy!' he said--'But don't worry! The
crooked pigstye is always a most popular kind of building in the world
you will live in!' With that he bade me good-night, and went. I was
very angry with him, for I was a conceited youth and thought myself and
my particular associates the very cream of Oxford,--but he took all the
highest honours that year, and when he finally left the University he
vanished, so to speak, in a blaze of intellectual glory. I have never
seen him again--and never heard of him--and so I suppose his studies
led him nowhere. He must be an elderly man now,--he may be lame, blind,
lunatic, or what is more probable still, he may be dead, and I don't
know why I think of him except that his theories were much the same as
those of our little friend,"--again indicating me by a nod--"He never
cared for agreeable speeches,--always rather mistrusted social
conventions, and believed in a Higher Life after Death."
"Or a Lower,"--I put in, quietly.
"Ah yes! There must be a Down grade, of course, if there is an Up. The
two would be part of each other's existence. But as I accept neither,
the point does not matter."
I looked at him, and I suppose my looks expressed wonder or pity or
both, for he averted his glance from mine.
"You are something of a spiritualist, I believe?"--said Dr. Brayle,
lifting his hard eyes from the scrutiny of the tablecloth and fixing
them upon me.
"Not at all,"--I answered, at once, and with emphasis. "That is, if you
mean by the term 'spiritualist' a credulous person who believes in
mediumistic trickery, automatic writing and the like. That is sheer
nonsense and self-deception."
"Several experienced scientists give these matters considerable
attention,"--suggested Mr. Swinton, primly.