THE MASTER SPIRIT
[Illustration: “‘Alexia--has the time come?’” (Page 163.)]
THE MASTER
SPIRIT
BY
SIR WILLIAM MAGNAY
_Author of “The Red Chancellor,” “A Prince of Lovers,” etc._
_ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN CAMERON_
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1906
_Copyright, 1906_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published October, 1906
Printers
S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I A DWELLER IN DARKNESS 1
II THE HISTORY OF A COMPACT 9
III A SOCIETY SENSATION 23
IV THE DUCAL POINT OF VIEW 37
V THE MAN WHO GUESSED 50
VI THE MAN BEHIND 63
VII THE FIERY ORDEAL 70
VIII THE VAUX HOUSE CASE 81
IX ALEXIA’S DENIAL 88
X A SENSATIONAL APPEARANCE 94
XI HERRIARD AND ALEXIA 102
XII THE PROFESSOR IS PUZZLED 113
XIII A MAYFAIR COUNSELLOR 126
XIV THE TRAGEDY DEEPENS 140
XV A HALF-WON VICTORY 152
XVI NEARING A CRISIS 162
XVII AMAZEMENT 175
XVIII RESURRECTION 187
XIX HERRIARD STANDS ALONE 196
XX THE SOLUTION OF THE MYSTERY 204
XXI THE MASK FALLS 214
XXII THE STRUGGLE 229
XXXIII THE WAYS OF MAYFAIR 240
XXXIV HERRIARD’S CONFESSION 247
XXV A RIOT 259
XXVI ALEXIA’S VISITOR 265
XXVII THE END OF THE INTERVIEW 274
XXVIII THE FACE IN THE BOX 285
XXIX A PORTENT 297
XXX THE LAST MEETING 308
THE MASTER SPIRIT
CHAPTER I
A DWELLER IN DARKNESS
The light on the Clock Tower, that cheerful beacon which assures
Britons that good and picked men are kept from their beds to raise
the standard of their liberties, and, incidentally, their taxes, had
just gone out, sharply, as though glad to announce to yet-stirring
London a respite from the babble of lawmaking; and the great workshop
of Westminster where the artisans are so many and busy, and the
results perhaps so meagre, discharged its crowd into the illuminated
night. Out they came hurrying, for the hour was late: the sitting had
been animated and prolonged, and even professional, to say nothing
of casual, politicians are nowadays too busy in wasting the nation’s
time not to set a high value on their own. Out they streamed, still
chattering and arguing, as became the priests in that great Temple of
the Tongue, those of them whose voices were seldom heard and never
listened to in the House talking the loudest outside; a varied crew
typifying the component parts of their country’s greatness. Ministers,
bent, fine-drawn and unkempt, as men whose ceaseless rolling of
Sisyphian stones gave no time to spare for the clothes-brush, superior
Under-Secretaries, some dapper, others affecting a soul and a mission
above the niceties of costume, all far more important than any Prime
Minister who ever lived, and displaying a pretty contempt for those of
the rank and file who took upon themselves to criticise the conduct of
the debate; then the mob of hungry politicians, keen hustlers; here
sharp-faced wood-cutters in the tangled forests of the Law, each with
his axe to grind; there egotistical, opulent tradesmen, members by
virtue of contributions to the Party coffers, and with a never-sleeping
eye on the Birthday Honours list; now smart men of leisure gained by
their fathers’ toil, merely adding the House of Commons to their clubs;
and so on, with here and there a single-minded politician who imagined,
misguided man, that he served his country by supporting his own shade
of opinion, seeking nothing for himself, and getting nothing--but
influenza and the privilege of leaving to his party the legacy of an
inconvenient bye-election.
“Capital speech of yours, Herriard. Won’t do you any harm.” The speaker
was a genial, middle-aged man of fashion who liked to be in the House
as he liked to have the _entrée_ everywhere, and to stand well with
everybody from the Premier to the latest blatant labour member.
“Glad you liked it, Sir Henry. I was rather afraid I should be squeezed
out after Darrell’s interminable effort,” answered Herriard, as he
swung himself into a hansom. “Can I give you a lift?”
“Thanks. No. My man ought to be here. Many congratulations. Good-night.”
Herriard nodded and leaned back. “Park Lane,” he called out to the
driver. As the cab turned out of the courtyard the more brilliant
lights of Great George Street fell upon the face within it, that of
a young man, interesting enough, handsome and not without character,
which latter trait was perhaps just then more strongly accentuated than
usual by the illuminating expression of the hour’s success. It was a
face more interesting by its suggestion of possibilities than by any
marked indication of actual, present power.
A short distance up Park Lane Herriard dismissed the cab and walked
on. On his left, under a crescent moon, the Park lay slumbering still,
and, save for a few nocturnal prowlers, lifeless: in vivid contrast to
the still busy, if languid, roll of traffic on the other side of its
railings. Herriard, walking briskly, turned up Hertford Street, and
presently taking a little used thoroughfare, made his way deep into the
intricacies of Mayfair, that curious maze of mansions and slums where
Peers live next door to slop-shops, and the chorus from a footman’s
Free-and-Easy at the public-house across the street may keep awake a
dowager countess or weave melody into ducal dreams.
At the end of an out-of-the-way spur from what was half street, half
mews, Herriard stopped before the old-fashioned portico of a house the
frontage of which, at any rate, was squeezed up in a corner, giving at
the same time a suggestion of greater expansion at the back. A curious
eighteenth century residence, built on unconventional and, with regard
to space, ingeniously utilitarian lines; a house that nineteen out of
twenty passers-by would fail to notice and the twentieth would stop to
wonder at, since the genuinely quaint has of late years in London given
way to the hideously regular or the pretentiously unconventional. As he
reached the projecting doorway, Herriard turned sharply and glanced
back down the short street. He was alone there; obviously no one
without special business would be likely to pass that way. Then he took
out a latch-key and let himself in, passed through an octagon hall hung
with rare tapestry, went up a broad staircase so heavily carpeted that
no footfall could be heard, gave a slight knock at one of the doors on
the square landing, and went in.
If the hall and stairway were marvels of costly decoration, the room
Herriard had entered was, particularly in contrast to the house’s
dingy exterior, a still greater revelation, and, in its bearing upon
the character of the inmate, should have a short word of description.
The walls were hung with dark crimson silk of which, however, little
could be seen between the exquisitely toned frames of the multitudes of
striking pictures, mostly or all of the French school, with which it
was covered. But the whole tone and furniture of the room were French,
and French at its most ingenious and its quaintest. The eye fed on a
mass of art, simple and applied, never flamboyant, and subdued with
such skill and taste that the sense of crowding and profusion was
kept from obtruding itself. Everything was novel, unexpected, and yet
logically fitted to its place, and the general toning-down effect was
aided by the many exquisite bronzes which were placed with an artistic
eye about the room. To make an end, the ceiling was a radiant specimen
of Angelica Kaufmann’s brush-work, showing so little age that the newer
glories below could not kill it, and the floor was covered with a rare
Aubusson of a design that invited and yet defied analysis.
Projecting from one side of the room was a singular piece of furniture,
half bed, half sofa, with a fantastic canopy arranged on carved
supports, and with a coverlet of the finest silk. On this couch lay
a man. The face that, with the exception of a long thin hand resting
on the silken coverlet, was all that could be seen of him, showed a
man of singular power and character. The impression which this vivid
personality gave might be summed up in one word, concentration: intense
concentration physical as well as mental. The dark eyes seemed to
scintillate as under the high pressure of a fully charged brain. The
black hair was clinched close to the head in tight, crisp curls, the
thin lips were compressed, the whole being seemed to palpitate with
concentrated vitality, and yet it was a wreck, or why was he lying
there?
He welcomed Herriard with a smile which held more than mere greeting.
“You are late, Geof. A field-night of course. Well?”
Herriard took the hand that was raised towards him, then wheeled round
a chair and sat down.
“I got on all right.”
“That’s well. So you did speak?”
Herriard nodded. “And, I think, made every point you gave me. They beat
us by only thirty-three.”
The dark eyes lighted up with malicious triumph. “Good! That’s a nasty
rap for Master Askew. We had the logic and they the numbers, eh?”
Herriard gave a short laugh. “Certainly we got in our hits every time.”
“That’s as it should be.”
“They were feeble, and not over-confident after the first hour. It was
quite fun to watch them.”
“Weaklings! Fancy losing their nerve and half their majority. What are
such sheep good for but to follow their leader through the hedge? I
wish I had been there.”
A look of almost passionate regret crossed the man’s face as he spoke
the last words.
“I wish you had, my dear Gastineau. We would have had more fun still,
and they more funk.”
“Congreve?”
“Spoke for twenty minutes. An exhibition of the superior person in the
throes of embarrassment. That point of yours about the repudiation of
the Colonies hit them hard.”
“Ah, you made the most of that. Good! Congreve the Superior could not
touch it?” He spoke eagerly.
“Touch it? He could not get near it. I wished afterwards, as I listened
to his floundering, that I had elaborated it still more.”
Gastineau’s thoughts seemed to be far away; as though he were living in
the scene his brain reconstructed. “I don’t doubt you did very well, my
dear boy,” he murmured, still preoccupied. Suddenly he flashed out with
a spiteful laugh, “The pattern Robert Congreve at a loss! His Baliol
quibbles at a discount for once. Faugh! A brilliant party to depend for
its allies upon the callow prigs of the Oxford Union! Ah, to be back
again! to be back again!” His clenched hand rose and fell; he gave a
great sigh of impotence.
“It is hard on you, old fellow,” Herriard said sympathetically;
“cruelly hard. As it is, I only wish that, as your proxy, I could do
you more justice.”
The look of almost savage impatience on Gastineau’s face had given
place to a quiet smile as he replied. “I could not find a better man
for my purpose, Geof. We must both of us have patience,” he gave a
short bitter laugh, “a virtue that you should find easier to practise
than I, since its exercise need last but a short time with you, while I
must die of it. But the _savoir attendre_ pays, Geof, both in the House
and at the Bar.”
Herriard smiled. “That’s just as well, since one has no option but to
wait.”
Gastineau gave a quick shake of the head. “Many men won’t wait; they
can’t play the game. The world thinks they are waiting, and they
flatter themselves so too. But they are really out of it, Geof. They
have shot their bolt and missed. Why? Because they were in a hurry.
Then there are others, like this fellow Congreve, who get pushed up
by the stupid party that mistakes academical show and froth for real
power. They manage to keep balanced on their pedestals by the weights
of self-advertisement and self-confidence. They act upon the well-known
ethical principle that the majority of mankind, being fools too lazy to
think for themselves, will appraise a man at his own value, if only he
will take care to proclaim the precious figure in season and out. If I
were a living instead of a dead man, Geoffrey, I’d blow that fellow out
of the water in which he swims so complacently.”
Perhaps it was his glance at the malignant face beneath him that made
Herriard remark, “You are a good hater, Gastineau.”
In an instant the sinister expression had relaxed. “Yes,” with a
half-apologetic smile. “I hate prigs and, above all, the superior
person, with his impudence in assuming a rank in the human category to
which he is not in the least entitled. Ah, well, you shall smash him up
for me one of these days, Geof. I’m going to make a real, a brilliant
success of you. When you are perfect in your guard, I am going to
teach you how to hit still harder.”
“It is very good of you.”
“Nonsense! If you knew how much of selfishness there is in my tuition
you would not give me much credit. I shouldn’t expect you to let me
use you as a mask for my battery were it not that the benefits of my
marksmanship go to you. There, that’s enough of that. Now, about these
briefs. I have looked through them.”
“They are all simple enough, eh?”
“Absolutely. In Slater _v._ Sudbury Tramway, though, I should make a
strong point of the contributory negligence and, as a second shot,
cross-examine closely as to the father’s actual income and financial
position and prospects. I see they claim six thousand. A glorious
British jury is pretty sure to find against you, and your best point
will be to suggest a try-on and go for mitigation. There you are.”
He gave Herriard the parcel of briefs with an encouraging smile and nod
of confidence. “Now you had better turn in,” he said, “or you won’t be
fit for Court in the morning. Who tries the tramway case?”
“Gartree.”
“That old fool? He will probably misdirect, and give you a second
chance. Good-night, my dear boy. So glad you scored to-night.”
They shook hands affectionately, and in another minute Herriard, in
spite of a long, exciting day, was walking, with the brisk step of that
elation which knows no fatigue, towards his rooms in Mount Street.