PART III

THE KEY 173

TO THE SLAVES OF THE POMEGRANATE, SONS OF ADAM AND DAUGHTERS OF EVE, WHO

DRINK AT THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE, THIS CHALICE IS OFFERED AS A LOVING-CUP.

THE ORCHARD OF TEARS

PART FIRST

AT LOWER CHARLESWOOD

I

It was high noon of a perfect summer's day. Beneath green sun blinds,

upon the terrace overlooking the lawns, Paul Mario, having finished his

lunch, lay back against the cushions of a white deck-chair and studied

the prospect. Sloping turf, rose-gay paths, and lichened brick steps,

hollowed with age, zigzagging leisurely down to the fir avenue, carried

the eye onward again to where the river wound its way through verdant

banks toward the distant town.

A lark wooed the day with sweet music. Higher and ever higher rose the

little sun-worshipper, pouring out his rapturous hymn to Apollo.

Swallows, who but lately had crossed the battlefields of southern

Europe, glided around Hatton Towers, describing mystic figures in the

air, whilst the high feeble chirping of the younger generation sounded

from the nests beneath the eaves. Amid the climbing roses bees were

busy, their communal labours an object-lesson for self-seeking man; and

almost at Mario's feet a company of ants swarmed over the yet writhing

body of an unfortunate caterpillar, who had dropped from an apple-tree

to fall a prey to that savage natural law of death to the weak. The

harsh voice of a sentinel crow spoke from a neighbouring cornfield, and

a cloud of dusky marauders took the air instantly, and before the sharp

crack of the farmer's fowling-piece came to confirm the warning. In the

hush of noon the tones of some haymakers at their patriarchal labours in

a meadow beyond the stream were clearly audible--and the atmosphere

constantly vibrated with remote booming of guns on the Western front.

Paul Mario was sufficiently distinguished in appearance to have been a

person of no importance. His virile, curling black hair had the

raven's-wing sheen betraying remote Italian forebears, and for that

matter there was in his entire cast of countenance and the poise of his

fine head something statuesquely Roman, Southern, exotic. His large but

deep-set eyes were of so dark a blue as very generally to pass for

"black"; and whilst in some moods they were soft and dreamy, in others,

notably in moments of enthusiasm, they burnt darkly fierce in his pale

olive face. In profile there was a certain resemblance to the Vatican

head of Julius Caesar, save for the mouth, which had more gentle curves,

and which was not unlike that of Dante; but seen full-face, and allowing

for the fact that Paul Mario was clean-shaven, the likeness of feature

to the traditional Christ was startling. This resemblance is equally

notable in the face of Shakespeare.

Rather above medium height, well but slightly proportioned, the uneasy

spirit of the man ever looking out of those arresting eyes so wholly

dominated him as to create a false impression of fragility, of a casket

too frail to confine the burning, eager soul within. His emotions were

dynamic, and in his every mannerism there was distinction. The vein of

femininity which is found in all creative artists betrayed itself in one

item of Mario's attire: a white French knot, which slightly overlay the

lapels of his well-worn Norfolk jacket.

To the world's caricaturists, when Paul Mario, at the age of

twenty-six, had swept across the literary terrain, storming line after

line, the white knot had proved a boon. _Delilah_, a lyrical drama,

written in French, and first published in Paris, achieved for this

darling of Minerva a reputation which no man is entitled to expect

during his lifetime. Within twelve months of the date of publication it

had appeared in almost every civilised language, and had been staged in

New York, where it created a furore. Of _Madame Caligula_, a novel,

which followed it, thirty-one editions were subscribed in six days!

The miracle of Paul Mario's success was perhaps to be explained by the

neutrality of his genius. A passionate, elemental sympathy with all

nature, a seeming capacity to hear the language of the flowers, the

voices of the stars and to love and understand the lowliest things that

God has made, bore him straight to the heart of England as surely as it

swept his name into the holy of holies of artistic France, spoke to

Russia's sombre soul and temporarily revolutionised the literature of

the United States. His work belonged to no "school," and its charm was

not due to "style"; therefore his books lost little in translation, for

true genius speaks to every man in his own tongue.

Sympathetic atmosphere was as necessary to Paul Mario as pure air to the

general. Deliberate ugliness hurt him, and the ugliness which is the

handiwork of God aroused within him a yearning sorrow for poor humanity

who might be of the White Company, were it not for avarice, hate and

lust. The war, even in its earlier phases, stirred the ultimate deeps of

his nature, and knowing himself, since genius cannot be blind, for what

he was, a world power, a spiritual sword, he chafed and fretted in

enforced inactivity, striving valiantly to reconcile himself to the

ugliness of military life. Courted as only poets and actors are courted,

he was offered posts and commissions in bewildering variety; but all of

them he scornfully rejected. The insane injustice of such selection

enraged him.

A severe nervous lesion freed him from the galley-bench of a

training-camp, and sent him on a weary pilgrimage through the military

hospitals to discharge--and freedom; freedom, which to that ardent

nature proved to be irksome. For whilst the very springs of his genius

were dammed by the agony of a world in travail, he found himself outside

the mighty theatre, a mere bystander having no part in the rebirth of

humanity.

II

Someone was approaching along the path consecrated by a million weary

feet and still known as the Pilgrim's Way, someone who wore the ugly

uniform of a Guards officer (which is a sort of du Maurier survival

demanding Dundreary whiskers). He seemed to hesitate ere he turned

aside, opened the gate and began to mount those hundred and twenty mossy

steps which led up to the terrace.

The newcomer, whose tunic had seen much service, was a man perhaps two

or three years Paul Mario's senior, and already the bleaching hand of

Time had brushed his temples with furtive fingers. He was dark but of

sanguine colouring, now overlaid with a deep tan, wore a short military

moustache and possessed those humorous grey eyes which seem to detect in

all creation hues roseate and pleasing; eyes made for laughter and which

no man other than a good fellow ever owned.

Gaining the terrace and raising his hand to his cap in salute, the

officer smiled, and his smile fulfilled all the promise of the grey eyes

and would have brought a ray of sunshine into the deepest and darkest

cell of the Bastille itself.

"I believe I am trespassing," he began--then, as Paul Mario rose: "By

all that's gracious and wonderful, it's Paul!"

"Don!" exclaimed the other, and sprang forward in his own impetuous

fashion, grasping the newcomer by both shoulders and staring eagerly

into the suntanned face. "Dear old Don! A thousand welcomes, boy!" And

releasing his grip on the shoulders, he seized both hands and shook them

with a vigour that was not assumed but was merely an outlet for his

brimming emotions.

"Some kindly coy dryad of the woods has guided my footsteps to this

blessed spot," declared Don. "The last inn which I passed--observe my

selection of the word, passed--known, I believe, as the 'Pig and

Something-or-other,' is fully three sunny miles behind me. From the arid

and dusty path below I observed the siphon on your table----"

"And you determined to become a trespasser?" cried Paul Mario joyously,

pushing his friend into the cane rest-chair and preparing a drink for

him. "I will build an altar to your dryad, Don; for there is certainly

something miraculous in your appearance at Hatton Towers."

"When I have suitably reduced my temperature I will explain. But I have

yet to learn what _you_ are doing here. I had always understood that

Hatton Towers----"

"My dear fellow, it's mine!" cried Paul excitedly. "My Uncle Jacques

dramatically bequeathed this wonderful place to me, altering his will on

the day that I renounced the pen and entered an officer's training

corps. He was a remarkable old bachelor, Don----"

Don raised his hand, checking Paul's speech. "My dear Paul, you cannot

possibly amplify your own description of Sir Jacques, with which you

entertained us one evening in a certain top set at Oxford. Do you

remember those rooms, Paul?"

"Do I remember them!"

"_I_ do, and I remember your account of the saintly Uncle, for your

acquaintance had begun and terminated during a week of the previous

long vacation which you had spent here at Hatton. 'Uncle Jacques,' you

informed us, 'is a delightful survival, bearing a really remarkable

resemblance to a camel. Excepting his weakness for classic statuary and

studies in the nude, his life is of _Mayflower_ purity. He made his

fortune on the Baltic Exchange, was knighted owing to a clerical error,

and built the appalling church at Mid Hatton.'"

Paul laughed boyishly. "At least we were sincere in our youthful

cynicism, Don. You may add the note to your very accurate recollections

of Sir Jacques that on the publication of _Delilah_ he instructed his

butler to say that he was abroad whenever I might call!"

Fascinated as of old by his whimsical language, the cap-and-bells which

he loved to assume, Paul watched affectionately the smiling face of

Donald Courtier. Momentarily a faint tinge of melancholy had clouded the

gaiety of Don's grey eyes; for this chance meeting had conjured up

memories of a youth already slipping from his grasp, devoured by the

all-consuming war; memories of many a careless hour treasured now as

exquisite relics are treasured, of many a good fellow who would never

again load his pipe from Paul Mario's capacious, celebrated and

hospitable tobacco jar, as he, Don, was doing; of days of sheer indolent

joy, of nights of wild and carefree gladness.

"Good old Paul," he murmured, raising his glass. "Here's to the late Sir

Jacques. So you are out of it?"

Paul Mario nodded and took from the pocket of his threadbare golf jacket

the very twin of Don's curved and blackened briar, drawing towards him

the tobacco jar upon the table--a Mycenaean vase from the tomb of Rameses

III. A short silence fell between them.

"Frankly, I envy you," said Don suddenly, breaking the spell, "although

I realise that actually you have suffered as deeply as many a man who

has spent two years in the trenches. One cannot imagine the lyre of

Apollo attuned to What's-the-name's marches."

"Two years," echoed Paul; "is it really two years since we met?"

"Two years on June the twenty-second. On June the twenty-second,

nineteen hundred and fifteen, you saw me off from Victoria of hateful

memory. I have been home six or seven times in the interval, but somehow

or other have always missed you. I was appalled when I heard you had

joined. God knows we need such brains as yours, but they would be wasted

on the Somme; and genius is too rare to be exposed to the sniper's

bullet. What are you doing?"

The sympathy between the two was so perfect that Paul Mario knew the

question to refer not to his private plans but to his part in the world

drama.

"Beyond daily descending lower in my own esteem--nothing."

"Yet you might do so much."

"I know," said Paul Mario. "But--it awes me."

If his work had not already proved him, the genius of the man must have

been rendered apparent by his entire lack of false modesty. Praise and

censure alike left him uninfluenced--although few artists can exist

without a modicum of the former: he knew himself born to sway the minds

of millions and was half fearful of his self-knowledge. "I know," he

said, and pipe in hand he gazed wistfully across the valley.

A faint breeze crept through the fir avenue, bearing with it a muffled

booming sound which was sufficient to raise the curtain of

distance--never truly opaque for such as he--and to display to that

acute inner vision a reeking battlefield. Before his shuddering soul

defiled men maimed, blind, bleeding from ghastly hurts; men long dead.

Women he saw in lowly hovels, weeping over cots fashioned from rough

boxes; women, dry-eyed, mutely tragic, surrounded by softness, luxury

and servitude, wearing love gifts of a hand for ever stilled, dreaming

of lover-words whispered in a voice for ever mute. He seemed to float

spiritually over the whole world upon that wave of sound and to find the

whole world stricken, desolate, its fairness mockery and its music a

sob.

"At the moment, no doubt," said Don, "you feel as though you had been

knocked out of the ring in the first round. But this phase will pass.

The point is, that you never had any business in the ring at all. No

quarrel ever actually begins with a blow, and no quarrel was ever

terminated by one. Genius--perverted, I'll grant you, but nevertheless

genius--started this war; and we are English enough to think that we can

end it by brute force. Pass the matches."

"You are really of opinion," asked Paul dreamily, "that I should be

doing my utmost if I stuck to my last?"

"Unquestionably. There are a thousand and one things of vital interest

to all humanity which have not been said yet, which only you can say, a

thousand and one aspects of the Deluge not yet presented to the world.

Above all, Paul, there are millions of poor bereaved souls who suffer

dumbly and vaguely wonder for what crime they are being punished."

"Would you have me tell them that their faith, their churches, are to

blame?"

"Not necessarily. The churches will receive many a hard knock without

you adding your quota. Merry England has always nourished the

'Down-wither'; we breed the 'Down-withers'; and they will raise their

slogan of 'Down with everything' soon enough. I see your part, Paul, as

that of a reconstructor rather than a 'Down-wither.' Any fool can smash

a Ming pot but no man living to-day can make one. You think that the

churches have failed?"

"On the whole, yes. If we here in England are firm in our spiritual

faith, why are the churches empty at such an hour as this and the salons

of the crystal-gazers full?"

"Because we are _not_ firm in our spiritual faith. But many of us know

and admit that. The point is, can you tell us why, and indicate a

remedy?"

Paul Mario's expression grew wrapt, and he stared out over the valley

into a land which it is given to few ever to explore. "I believe I can,"

he answered softly; "but I dare not attempt such a task without the

unshakable conviction that mine is the chosen hand."

"I am glad to hear you say it; those doubts prove to me that you

recognise the power of your pen. They are fools who hold that a ton of

high-explosive is worth all the rhetoric of Cicero. It was not Krupps

who plunged the Central Empires into the pit, Paul, but Bernhardi,

Nietzsche and What's-his-name. Wagner's music has done more to form the

German character than Bismarck's diplomacy. Shakespeare's _Henry the

Fifth_ means more to England than Magna Charta."

"I agree."

"When the last of our marshals has stuck the last of his pins in the

last war map, all the belligerents will still be of the same opinion as

before the war began. The statesman of to-day is perhaps past praying

for, but your book will help to form the statesman of to-morrow."

"You dazzle me. You would make me the spiritual father of a new Europe."

"And a new America. Why not? You have heard the call and you are not the

man to shirk it. Lesser men than you have tried--all honour to them if

they were sincere--to voice the yearnings, the questions, the doubts, of

a generation that has outgrown its spiritual garments. All the world

feels, knows, that a new voice _must_ come soon. The world is waiting

for you, Paul."

III

Flamby Duveen lay flat amid the bluebells, one hand outstretched before

her and resting lightly upon a little mound of moss. It was a small

brown hand and she held it in such a manner, knuckles upward, and

imparted to it so cunning and peculiar a movement that it assumed quite

an uncanny resemblance to a tiny and shrinking hare.

Some four feet in front of her, at the edge of a small clearing in the

bluebell forest, from a clump of ferns two long silky ears upstood,

motionless, like twin sentries, and from between the thick stalks of the

flowers which intermingled with the ferns one round bright eye regarded

the moving hand fascinatedly.

Flamby's lips were pursed up and a soft low whistle quite peculiar in

tone caused the silky ears of the watching hare to twitch sharply. But

the little animal remained otherwise motionless and continued to study

the odd billowy motions of the brown hand with that eager wonder-bright

eye. The whistling continued, and the hare ventured forth from cover,

coming fully twelve inches nearer to Flamby. Flamby constrained her

breathing as much as was consistent with maintaining the magical

whistle. Her hand wriggled insinuatingly forward, revealing a round bare

arm, brown as a nut upon its outer curves and creamy on the inner.

The hypnotised subject ventured a foot nearer. Flamby's siren song grew

almost inaudible above the bird-calls of the surrounding wood, but it

held its sway over the fascinated hare, for the animal suddenly sprang

across the space intervening between himself and the mysterious hand

and sat studying that phenomenon at close quarters.

A little finger softly caressed one furry forepaw. Up went the hare's

ears again and his whole body grew rigid. The caress was continued,

however, and the animal grew to like it. Two gentle fingers passed

lightly along his back and he was thrilled ecstatically. Now, his silky

ears were grasped, firmly, confidently; and unresisting, he allowed

himself to be couched in the crook of a soft arm. His heart was beating

rapidly, but with a kind of joyous fear hitherto unknown and to which he

resigned himself without a struggle.

Flamby wriggled up on to her knees and holding the hare in her lap

petted the wild thing as though it had been some docile kitten. "Sweet

little Silk Ears," she whispered endearingly. "What a funny tiny tail!"

Quite contentedly now, the hare crouched, rubbing its blunt nose against

her hands and peering furtively up into her face and quickly down again.

Flamby studied the little creature with an oddly critical eye.

"Your funny ears go this way and that way," she murmured, raising one

hand and drawing imaginary lines in the air to illustrate her words; "so

and so. I never noticed before those little specks in your fur, Silk

Ears. They only show in some lights but they are there right enough. Now

I am going to study your tiny toes, Silky, and you don't have to be

afraid...."

Raising one of the hare's feet, Flamby peered at it closely, at the same

time continuing to caress the perfectly happy animal. She was so engaged

when suddenly up went the long ears, and uttering a faint cry resembling

an infant's whimper the hare sprang from her lap into the sea of

bluebells and instantly disappeared. A harsh grip fastened upon Flamby's

shoulder.

Lithely as one of the wild things with whom she was half kin and who

seemed to recognise the kinship, Flamby came to her feet, shaking off

the restraining hand, turned and confronted the man who had crept up

behind her.

He was an undersized, foxy fellow, dressed as a gamekeeper and carrying

a fowling-piece under one arm. His small eyes regarded her through

narrowed lids.

"So I've caught you at last, have I," he said; "caught you red-handed."

He suddenly seized her wrist and dragged her towards him. The bright

colour fled from Flamby's cheeks leaving her evenly dusky; but her grey

eyes flashed dangerously.

"Poachin', eh?" sneered the gamekeeper. "Same as your father."

Deliberately, and with calculated intent, Flamby raised her right foot,

shod in a clumsy, thick-soled shoe, and kicked the speaker on the knee.

He uttered a half-stifled cry of pain, releasing her wrist and clenching

his fist. But she leapt back from him with all the easy agility of a

young antelope.

"You're a blasted liar!" she screamed, her oval face now flushing darkly

so that her eyes seemed supernormally bright. "I wasn't poaching. My

father may have poached, but _you_ hadn't the pluck to try and stop him.

Guy Fawkes! Why don't you go and fight like he did?"

Fawkes--for this was indeed the keeper's name--sprang at her clumsily;

his knee was badly bruised. But Flamby eluded him with ease, gliding

behind the trunk of a friendly oak and peering out at the enraged man

elfishly.

"When are they going to burn you?" she inquired.

Fawkes laid his gun upon the ground, without removing his gaze from the

flushed mocking face, and began cautiously to advance. He was a man for

whom Flamby in the ordinary way entertained a profound contempt, but

there was that in his slinking foxy manner which vaguely disturbed her.

For long enough there had been wordy warfare between them, but to-day

Flamby realised that she had aroused something within the man which had

never hitherto shown upon the surface; and into his eyes had come a

light which since she had passed her thirteenth year she had sometimes

seen and hated in the eyes of men, but had never thought to see and fear

in the eyes of Fawkes. For the first time within her memory she realised

that Bluebell Hollow was a very lonely spot.

"You daren't hit me," she said, rather breathlessly. "I'd play hell."

"I don't want to hit you," replied Fawkes, still advancing; "but you're

goin' to pay for that kick."

"I'll pay with another," snapped Flamby, her fiery nature reasserting

itself momentarily.

But despite the bravado, she was half fearful, and therefore some of her

inherent woodcraft deserted her, so much so that not noting a tuft of

ferns which uprose almost at her heels, she stepped quickly back,

stumbled, and Fawkes had his arms about her, holding her close.

"Now what can you do?" he sneered, his crafty face very close to hers.

"This," breathed Flamby, her colour departing again.

She seized his ear in her teeth and bit him savagely. Fawkes uttered a

hoarse scream of pain, and a second time released her, clapping his hand

to the wounded member.

"You damned witch cat," he said. "I could kill you."

Flamby leapt from him, panting. "You couldn't!" she taunted. "All you

can kill is rabbits!"

Through an opening in the dense greenwood a ray of sunlight spilled its

gold upon the carpet of Bluebell Hollow, and Flamby stood, defiant, head

thrown back, where the edge of the ray touched her wonderful, disordered

hair and magically turned it to sombre fire. Venomous yet, but doubtful,

Fawkes confronted her, now holding his handkerchief to his ear. And so

the pair were posed when Paul Mario and Donald Courtier came down the

steep path skirting the dell. Don grasped Paul by the arm.

"As I live," he said, "there surely is my kindly coy nymph of the

woods--now divinely visible--who led me to your doors!"

Together they stood, enchanted by the girl's wild beauty, which that

wonderful setting enhanced. But Flamby had heard their approach, and,

flinging one rapid glance in their direction, she ran off up a sloping

aisle of greenwood and was lost to view.

At the same moment Fawkes, hitherto invisible from the path, stooped to

recover his fowling-piece and turned, looking up at the intruders.

Recognising Paul Mario, he raised the peak of his cap and began to climb

the dell-side, head lowered shamefacedly.

"It's Fawkes," said Paul--"Uncle Jacques' gamekeeper. Presumably this

wood belonged to him."

"Lucky man," replied Don. "Did he also own the wood-nymphs?"

Paul laughed suddenly and boyishly, as was his wont, and nodded to

Fawkes when the latter climbed up on to the path beside them. "You are

Luke Fawkes, are you not?" he asked. "I recall seeing you yesterday with

the others."

"Yes, sir," answered Fawkes, again raising the peak of his cap.

Having so spoken Fawkes become like a man of stone, standing before

them, gaze averted, as a detected criminal. One might have supposed that

a bloody secret gnawed at the bosom of Fawkes; but his private life was

blameless and his past above reproach. His wife acted as charwoman at

the church built by Sir Jacques.

"Did you not observe a certain nymph among the bluebells, Fawkes?" asked

Don whimsically.

At the first syllable Fawkes sprang into an attitude of alert and

fearful attention, listened as to the pronouncement of a foreman juror,

and replied, "No, sir," with the relieved air of a man surprised to find

himself still living. "I see Flamby Duveen, I did," he continued, in his

reedy voice--"poachin', same as her father...."

"Poachin'--same as her father," came a weird echo from the wood.

Paul and Don stared at one another questioningly, but Fawkes' sandy

countenance assumed a deeper hue.

"She's the worst character in these parts," he went on hastily. "Bad as

her father, she is."

"Father, she is," mocked the echo.

"She'll come to a bad end," declared the now scarlet Fawkes.

"A bad end," concurred the magical echo, its accent and intonation

eerily reproducing those of the gamekeeper. Then: "Whose wife stole the

key of the poor-box?" inquired the spirit voice, and finally: "When are

they going to burn you?"

At that Don succumbed to uncontrollable laughter, and Paul had much ado

to preserve his gravity.

"She appears to be very young, Fawkes," he said gently; "little more

than a child. High spirits are proper and natural after all; but, of

course I appreciate the difficulties of your position. Good day."

"Good day, sir," said Fawkes, again momentarily relieved apparently from

the sense of impending harm. "Good day, sir." He raised the peak of his

cap, turned and resumed his slinking progress.

"A strange coincidence," commented Don, taking Paul's arm.

"You are pursuing your fancy about the nymph visible and invisible?"

"Not entirely, Paul. But you may remember, if the incident has not

banished the fact from your mind, that you are at present conducting me,

at my request, to Something-or-other Cottage, which I had failed to find

unassisted."

"Quite so. We are almost there. Yonder is Babylon Lane, which I

understand is part of my legacy. Dovelands Cottage, I believe, is

situated about half-way along it."

"Babylon Lane," mused Don. "Why so named?"

"That I cannot tell you. The name of Babylon invariably conjures up

strange pictures of pagan feasts, don't you find? The mere sound of the

word is sufficient to transport us to the great temple of Ishtar, and to

dazzle our imagination with processions of flower-crowned priestesses.

Heaven alone knows by what odd freak this peaceful lane was named after

the city of Semiramis. But you were speaking of a coincidence."

"Yes, it is the mother of the nymph, Flamby, that I am going to visit;

the Widow Duveen."

"Then this girl with the siren hair is she of whom you spoke?"

"Evidently none other. I told you, Paul, that I bore a message from her

father, given to me under pledge of secrecy as he lay dying, to her

mother. Paul, the man's life was a romance--a tragic romance. I cannot

divulge his secrets, but his name was not Duveen; he was a cadet of one

of the oldest families in Ireland."

"You interest me intensely. He seems to have been a wild fellow."

"Wild, indeed; and drink was his ruin. But he was a man, and by birth a

gentleman. I am anxious to meet his widow."

"Of course, she knows of his death?"

"Oh, you need fear no distressing scenes, Paul. I remember how the grief

of others affects you. He died six months ago."

"It affects me, Don, when I can do nothing to lessen it. Before helpless

grief I find myself abashed, afraid, as before a great mystery--which it

is. Only one day last week, passing through a poor quarter of South

London, my cab was delayed almost beside a solitary funeral coach which

followed a hearse. The coffin bore one poor humble little wreath. In the

coach sat a woman, a young woman, alone--and hers was the wreath upon

the coffin, her husband's coffin. He had died after discharge from a

military hospital; so much I learned from the cabman, who had known the

couple. She sat there dry-eyed and staring straight before her. No one

took the slightest notice of the hearse, or of the lonely mourner. Don,

that woman's face still haunts me. Perhaps he had been a blackguard--I

gathered that he had; but he was her man, and she had lost him, and the

world was empty for her. No pompous state funeral could have embodied

such tragedy as that solitary figure following the spectre of her

vanished joy."

Don turned impulsively to the speaker. "You dear old sentimentalist," he

said; "do you really continue to believe in the faith of woman?"

Paul glanced aside at him. "Had I ever doubted it, Yvonne would have

reassured me. Wait until you meet a Yvonne, old man; then _I_ shall ask

_you_ if you really continue to believe in the faith of woman. Here we

are."

IV

A trellis-covered path canopied with roses led up to the door of

Dovelands Cottage. On the left was a low lichened wall, and on the right

a bed of flowers bordering a trimly kept lawn, which faced the rustic

porch. Dovelands Cottage was entirely screened from the view of anyone

passing along Babylon Lane by a high and dense privet hedge, which

carried on its unbroken barrier to the end of the tiny orchard and

kitchen-garden flanking the bungalow building on the left.

As Paul opened the white gate a cattle-bell attached to it jangled

warningly, and out into the porch Mrs. Duveen came to meet them. She was

a tiny woman, having a complexion like a shrivelled pippin, and the

general appearance of a Zingari, for she wore huge ear-rings and

possessed shrewd eyes of Oriental shape and colour. There was a bluish

tinge about her lips, and she had a trick of pressing one labour-gnarled

hand to her breast. She curtsied quaintly.

Paul greeted her with the charming courtesy which he observed towards

everyone.

"Mrs. Duveen, I believe? I am Paul Mario, and this is Captain Courtier,

who has a message to give to you. I fear we may have come at an awkward

hour, but Captain Courtier's time is unfortunately limited."

Mrs. Duveen repeated the curtsey. "Will it please you to step in, sirs,"

she said, her eyes fixed upon Don's face in a sort of eager scrutiny.

"It is surely kind of you to come, sir"--to Don.

They entered a small living room, stuffy because of the

characteristically closed windows, but marked by a neatness of its

appointments for which the gipsy appearance of Mrs. Duveen had not

prepared them. There were several unframed drawings in pastel and

water-colour, of birds and animals, upon the walls, and above the little

mantelshelf hung a gleaming German helmet, surmounted by a golden eagle.

On the mantelshelf itself were fuses, bombs and shell-cases, a china

clock under a glass dome, and a cabinet photograph of a handsome man in

the uniform of a sergeant of Irish Guards. Before the clock, and resting

against it so as to occupy the place of honour, was a silver cigarette

case.

Don's eyes, as his gaze fell on this last ornament, grew unaccountably

misty, and he turned aside, staring out of the low window. Mrs. Duveen,

who throughout the time that she had been placing chairs for her

visitors (first dusting the seats with her apron) had watched the

captain constantly, at the same moment burst into tears.

"God bless you for coming, sir," she sobbed. "Michael loved the ground

you walked on, and he'd have been a happy man to-day to have seen you

here in his own house."

Don made no reply, continuing to stare out of the window, and Mrs.

Duveen cried, silently now. Presently Paul caught his friend's eye and

mutely conveying warning of his intention, rose.

"Your grief does you honour, Mrs. Duveen," he said. "Your husband was

one I should have been proud to call my friend, and I envy Captain

Courtier the memory of such a comrade. There are confidences upon which

it is not proper that I should intrude; therefore, with your permission,

I am going to admire your charming garden until you wish me to rejoin

you."

Bareheaded, he stepped out through the porch and on to the trim lawn,

noting in passing that the home-made bookshelf beside the door bore

copies of Shakespeare, Homer, Horace and other volumes rarely found in a

workman's abode. Lempriere's _Classical Dictionary_ was there, and

Kipling's _Jungle Book_, Darwin's _Origin of Species_, and Selous'

_Romance of Insect Life_. Assuredly, Sergeant Duveen had been a strange

man.

* * * * *

Some twenty minutes later the widow came out, followed by Don. Mrs.

Duveen's eyes were red, but she had recovered her composure, and now

held in her hand the silver cigarette case from the mantelpiece.

"May I show you this, sir," she said, repeating her quaint curtsey to

Paul. "Michael valued it more than anything he possessed."

Paul took the case from her hand and examined the inscription:

To Sergeant Michael Duveen,

-- Company, Irish Guards,

from Captain Donald Courtier,

in memory of February 9th, 1916.

Opening the case, he found it to contain a photograph of Don. The

latter, who was watching him, spoke:

"My affairs would have terminated on February the ninth, Paul, if Duveen

had not been there. He was pipped twice."

"His honour doesn't tell you, sir," added Mrs. Duveen, "that he brought

Michael in on his back with the bullets thick around him."

"Oh! oh!" cried Don gaily. "So that's the story, is it! Well, never

mind, Mrs. Duveen; it was all in the day's work. What the Sergeant did

deserved the V.C., and he'd have had it if I could have got it for him.

What I did was no more than the duty of a stretcher-bearer."

Mrs. Duveen shook her head, smiling wanly, the thin hand pressed to her

breast. "I'm sorry you couldn't meet Flamby, sir," she said. "She should

have been home before this."

"No matter," replied Don. "I shall look forward to meeting her on my

next visit."

They took their departure, Mrs. Duveen accompanying them to the gate and

watching Don as long as he remained in sight.

"Did you observe the drawings on the wall?" he asked Paul, as they

pursued their way along Babylon Lane.

"I did. They were original and seemed to be interesting."

"Remarkably so; and they are the work of our wood nymph."

"Really! Where can she have acquired her art?"

"From her father, I gather. Paul, I am keenly disappointed to have

missed Flamby. The child of such singularly ill-assorted parents could

not well fail to be unusual. I wonder if the girl suspects that her

father was not what he seemed? Mrs. Duveen has always taken the fact for

granted that her husband was a nobleman in disguise! It may account for

her adoration of a man who seems to have led her a hell of a life. I

have placed in her hands a certain locket which Duveen wore attached to

a chain about his neck; I believe that it contains evidence of his real

identity, but he clearly intended his wife to remain in perpetual

ignorance of this, for the locket is never to be opened except by

Flamby, and only by Flamby on the day of her wedding. I fear this

popular-novel theme will offend your aesthetic sensibilities, Paul!"

"My dear fellow, I am rapidly approaching the conclusion that life is

made up more of melodrama than of psychological hair-splitting and that

the penmen dear to the servants' hall more truly portray it than Henry

James ever hoped to do or Meredith attempted. The art of to-day is the

art of deliberate avoidance of the violent, and many critics persist in

confusing it with truth. There is nothing precious about selfish,

covetous, lustful humanity; therefore, good literature creates a refined

humanity of its own, which converses in polished periods and never comes

to blows."

"What of _Madame Caligula_? And what of the critics who hailed

_Francesca of the Lilies_ as a tragedy worthy to name with _Othello_!"

"Primitive passions are acceptable if clothed in doublet and hose, Don.

My quarrel with to-day is that it pretends to have lived them down."

"Let us give credit where credit is due. Prussia has not hesitated to

proclaim her sympathy with the primitive. Did you observe an

eagle-crowned helmet above Mrs. Duveen's fireplace?"

"Yes; you know its history?"

"Some part of its history. It was worn by a huge Prussian officer, who,

together with his staff, was surprised and captured during the

operations of March 1st, 1916; a delightful little coup. I believe I

told you that Sergeant Duveen had been degraded, but had afterwards

recovered his stripes?"

"You did, yes."

"It was this incident which led to his losing them. He was taking

particulars of rank and so forth of the prisoners, and this imposing

fellow with the golden helmet stood in front of all the others, arms

folded, head aloft, disdainfully surveying his surroundings. He spoke

perfect English and when Duveen asked him his name and rank and

requested him to hand over the sword he was wearing, he bluntly refused

to have any dealings whatever with a 'damned common sergeant.' Those

were his own words.

"Duveen very patiently pointed out that he was merely performing a duty

for which he had been detailed and added that he resented the Prussian's

language and should have resented it from one of his own officers. He

then repeated the request. The Prussian replied that if he had him in

his own lines he would tie him to a gun and flog him to death.

"Duveen stood up and walked around the empty case which was doing

service as a table. He stepped up to take the sword which the other had

refused to surrender; whereupon the Prussian very promptly and skilfully

knocked him down. Immediately some of the boys made a rush, but Duveen,

staggering to his feet, waved them back. He deliberately unbuttoned his

tunic, took off his cap and unhitching his braces, fastened his belt

around his waist. To everybody's surprise the lordly Prussian did

likewise. A ring was formed and a fight began that would have brought

in the roof of the National Sporting Club!

"Feeling ran high against the Prussian, but he was a bigger man than

Duveen and a magnificent boxer. Excited betting was in full swing when I

appeared on the scene. Of course my duty was plain. But I had young

Conroy with me and he pulled me aside before the men saw us.

"'Five to one in fivers on the sergeant!' he said.

"I declined the bet, for I knew something of Duveen's form; but I did

not interrupt the fight! And, by gad! it was a splendid fight! It lasted

for seventeen minutes without an interval, and Duveen could never have

stayed another two, I'll swear, when the Prussian made the mistake of

closing with him. I knew it was finished then. Duveen got in his pet

hook with the right and fairly lifted his opponent out of the sentient

world.

"I felt like cheering; but before I could retire Duveen turned, a bloody

sight, and looked at me, out of puffy eyes. He sprang to attention, and

'I am your prisoner, sir,' said he.

"That left me no way out, and I had to put him under arrest. Just as he

was staggering off between his guards the Prussian recovered

consciousness and managed to get upon his feet. His gaze falling on

Duveen, he held out one huge hand to him--"

"Good! he was a sportsman after all!"

"Duveen took it--and the Prussian, grasping that dangerous right of the

sergeant's in his iron grip, struck him under the ear with his left and

knocked him insensible across the improvised table!"

Paul pulled up in the roadway, his dark eyes flashing: "The swine!" he

exclaimed--"the--ee swine!"

"I had all my work cut out then to keep the men off the fellow. But

finally a car came for him he was the Grand Duke of Something or

other--and he was driven back to the base. He had resumed his golden

helmet, and he sat, in spite of his bloody face, scornfully glancing at

the hostile group about the car, like a conquering pagan emperor. Then

the car moved off out of the heap of rubbish, once a village, amid which

the incident had taken place. At the same moment, a brick, accurately

thrown, sent the golden helmet spinning into the road!

"Search was made for it, but the helmet was never found. I don't _know_

who threw the brick, Paul (Duveen was under arrest at the time), but

that is the helmet above his widow's mantelpiece! The men who have

witnessed incidents of this kind will no longer continue to believe in

the veneer of modern life, for they will know that the true savage lies

hidden somewhere underneath."

* * * * *

They were come to the end of Babylon Lane and stood now upon the London

road. Above the cornfield on the right hovered a sweet-voiced lark and

the wild hedges were astir with active bird life. Velvet bees droned on

their way and the air was laden with the fragrance of an English summer.

Along the road flashed a motor bicycle, bearing a khaki-clad messenger

and above the distant town flew a Farman biplane gleaming in the

sunlight. The remote strains of a military band were audible.

"The Roman road," mused Don, "constructed in the misty unimaginable

past, for war, and used by us to-day--for war. Oh, lud! in a week I

shall be in the thick of it again. Babylon Hall? Who resides at that

imposing mansion, Paul?"

They stood before the open gates of a fine Georgian building, lying far

back from the road amid neatly striped lawns and well-kept gardens.

"The celebrated Jules Thessaly, I believe," replied Paul; "but I have

never met him."

"Jules Thessaly! Really? I met him only three months ago near Bethune

(a neighbourhood which I always associate with Milady and the headsman

in _The Three Musketeers_)."

"What was he doing in Bethune?"

"What does he do anywhere? He was visiting the French and British

fronts, accompanied by an imposing array of 'Staffs.' He has tremendous

influence of some kind--financial probably."

"An interesting character. I hope we may meet. By the way, do you manage

to do much work nowadays? I rarely see your name."

"It is impossible to do anything but war stuff, Paul, when one is in the

middle of it. You saw the set of drawings I did for _The Courier_?"

"Yes; I thought them fine. I have them in album form. They were

excellently noticed throughout the press."

Don's face assumed an expression of whimsical disgust. "There is a

certain type of critic," he said "who properly ought to have been a

wardrobe dealer: he is eternally reaching down the 'mantle' of somebody

or other and assuring the victim of his kindness that it fits him like a

glove. Now no man can make a show in a second-hand outfit, and an artist

is lost when folks begin to talk about the 'mantle' of somebody or other

having 'fallen upon him.' A critic can do nothing so unkind as to brand

a poor poet 'The Australian Kipling,' a painter 'The Welsh Whistler,' or

a comedian 'The George Robey of South Africa.' The man is doomed."

"And what particular offender has inspired this outburst?"

"Some silly ass who has dubbed me 'the Dana Gibson of the trenches'!

It's a miserable outrage; my work isn't a scrap like Gibson's; it's not

so well drawn, for one thing, and it doesn't even remotely resemble his

in form. But never mind. When I come back I'll show 'em! What I

particularly want to ask you, Paul, is to get in touch with Duveen's

girl; she has really remarkable talent. I have never seen such an

insight into wild life as is exhibited in her rough drawings. I fear I

shall be unable to come down here again. There are hosts of sisters,

cousins and aunts, all of whom expect to be taken to the latest musical

play or for a week-end to Brighton: that's how we victimised bachelors

spend our hard-earned leave! But I promised Duveen I would do all in my

power for his daughter. It would be intolerable for a girl of that kind

to be left to run wild here, and I am fortunately well placed to help

her as she chances to be a fellow-painter. Will you find out all about

her, Paul, and let me know if we can arrange for her to study properly?"

"You really consider that she has talent?"

"My dear fellow! go and inspect her work for yourself. Considering her

limited opportunities, it is wonderful."

"Rely upon me, Don. She shall have her chance."

Don grasped his arm. "Tell Mrs. Duveen that she will receive a special

allowance on account of her husband's services," he said, bending

towards Paul. "Don't worry about expenses. You understand?"

"My dear Don, of course I understand. But I insist upon sharing this

protegee with you. Oh, I shall take no refusal. My gratitude to the man

who saved my best pal _must_ find an outlet! So say no more. Do you

return to London to-night?"

"Unfortunately, yes. But you must arrange to spend a day, or at any rate

an evening, with me in town before my leave expires. Are you thinking of

taking up your residence at Hatton Towers?"

Paul made a gesture of indecision. "It is a lovely old place," he said;

"but I feel that I need to be in touch with the pulse of life, if I am

to diagnose its ailments. Latterly London has become distasteful to me;

it seems like a huge mirror reflecting all the horrors, the shams, the

vices of the poor scarred world. To retire to Hatton in the

companionship of Yvonne would be delightful, but would also be

desertion. No idle chance brought us together to-day, Don; it was that

Kismet to which the Arab ascribes every act of life. I was hesitating on

a brink; you pushed me over; and at this very hour I am falling into the

arms of Fate. I believe it is my appointed task to sow the seed of

truth; a mighty task, but because at last I realise its dimensions I

begin to have confidence that I may succeed."

Don stood still in the road, facing Paul. "Choose your seed with care,

Paul, for generations yet unborn will eat of its fruit."

V

Paul Mario dined alone in the small breakfast-room overlooking the

sloping lawns, waited upon by Davison, the late Sir Jacques' butler, a

useful but melancholy servant, having the demeanour of a churchwarden

and a habit of glancing rapidly under tables and chairs as though he had

mislaid a cassock or a Book of Common Prayer. The huge, gloomy

dining-room oppressed the new owner of Hatton Towers, being laden with

the atmosphere of a Primitive Methodist Sunday School.

Sir Jacques had been Paul's maternal uncle, and Paul had often wondered

if there could have been anything in common between his mother--whom he

had never known--and this smug Pharisee. His father, who had died whilst

Paul was at Oxford, had rarely spoken of Paul's mother; but Paul had

chanced to overhear an old clubman refer to her as having possessed "the

most fascinating ankles in London." The remark had confirmed his earlier

impression that his mother had been a joyous butterfly. For his father,

a profound but sombre scholar, he cherished a reverence which was almost

Roman in its character. His portrait in oils occupied the place of

honour in Paul's study, and figuratively it was a shrine before which

there ever burned the fires of a deathless love and admiration.

* * * * *

Paul's acute response to environment rendered him ill at ease in Hatton

Towers. The legacy embarrassed him. He hated to be so deeply indebted to

a man he could never repay and from whom he would not willingly have

accepted the lightest favour. It has been truly said that the

concupiscence of the eye outlives desire. Tiberius succumbed to

premature senility (and was strangled by Macro) in a bedchamber

decorated with figures from the works of Elephantis; and Sir Jacques'

secret library, which he had omitted to destroy or disperse, bore

evidence to the whited sepulchre of his intellectual life.

This atmosphere was disturbing. Paul could have worked at Hatton Towers,

but not upon the mighty human theme with which at that hour his mind was

pregnant. For his intellect was like a sensitive plate upon which the

thoughts of those who had lived and longed and died in whatever spot he

might find himself, were reproduced eerily, almost clairvoyantly. It was

necessary that he should work amid sympathetic colour--that he should

appropriately set the stage for the play; and Fame having coming to him,

not empty-handed but laden with gold, he made those settings opulent.

He did spontaneously the things that lesser men do at behest of their

press-agents. The passionate mediaeval tragedy _Francesca of the

Lilies_, destined to enshrine his name in the temple of the masters, he

wrote at the haunted Palazzo Concini in Tuscany, where, behind tomb-like

doors, iron-studded and ominous, he worked in a low-beamed windowless

room at a table which had belonged to Gilles de Rais, and by light of

three bronze lamps found in the ruins of the Mamertine dungeons.

For company he had undying memories of sins so black that only the

silent Vatican archives held record of them; memories of unholy loves,

of deaths whose manner may not be written, of births whereat the angels

shuddered. Torch-scarred walls and worm-tunnelled furniture whispered

their secrets to him, rusty daggers confessed their bloody histories,

and a vial still bearing ghastly frost of Borgian _contarella_ spoke of

a virgin martyr and of a princely cardinal whose deeds were forgotten by

all save Mother Church. Paul's genius was absorbent, fructiferous,

prolific of golden dreams.

But the atmosphere of Hatton Towers stifled inspiration, was definitely

antagonistic. The portrait of the late Sir Jacques, in the dining-room,

seemed to dominate the house, as St. Peter's dominates Rome, or even as

the Pyramids dominate Lower Egypt. The scanty beard and small eyes; the

flat, fleshy nose; the indeterminable, mask-like expression; all were

faithfully reproduced by the celebrated academician--and humorist--who

had executed the painting. Soft black hat, flat black tie, and

ill-fitting frock coat might readily have been identified by the

respectable but unfashionable tradesmen patronised by Sir Jacques.

Paul, pipe in mouth, confronting the likeness after dinner, recalled,

and smiled at the recollection, a saying of Don's: "Never trust a

whiskered man who wears a soft black felt hat and a black frock coat.

The hat conceals the horns; the coat hides the tail!"

From room to room he rambled, and even up into the octagonal turret

chambers in the tower. Here he seemed to be rid of the aura of the

dining-room portrait and in a rarefied atmosphere of Tudor turbulence.

In one of the turret chambers, that overlooking the orchard, he found

himself surveying the distant parkland with the eyes of a captive and

longing for the coming of one who ever tarried yet was ever expected.

The long narrow gallery over the main entrance, with its six mullioned

windows and fine collection of paintings, retained, as a jar that has

held musk retains its scent, a faint perfume of Jacobean gallantry. But

the pictures, many of them undraped studies collected by Sir Jacques,

which now held the place once sacred to ancestors, cast upon the gallery

a vague shadow of the soft black hat.

From a tiny cabinet at one end of the gallery a stair led down to my

lady's garden where bushes masqueraded as birds, a sundial questioned

the smiling moon and a gathering of young frogs leapt hastily from the

stone fountain at sound of Paul's footsteps. Monkish herbs and

sweet-smelling old-world flowers grew modestly in this domain once

sacred to the chatelaine of Hatton; and Paul kept ghostly tryst with a

white-shouldered lady whose hair was dressed high upon her head, and

powdered withal, and to whose bewitching red lips the amorous glance was

drawn by a patch cunningly placed beside a dimple. My lady's garden was

a reliquary of soft whispers, and Paul by the magic of his genius

reclaimed them all and was at once the lover and the mistress.

In the depths of the house he found a delightful dungeon. More modern

occupiers of Hatton had used the dungeon as a wine-cellar and Sir

Jacques had converted it to the purposes of a dark-room, for he had been

a skilful and enthusiastic amateur of photography; but that it had at

some period of its history served other ends, Paul's uncanny instinct

told him. A sense of chill, not physical, indeed almost impersonal,

attacked him as he entered, hurricane-lantern aloft. For the poet that

informed his lightest action dictated that the ray of a lantern and not

the glare of a modern electric appliance should illuminate that

memory-haunted spot.

Gyves fastened up his limbs and dread of some cruel doom struck at his

heart as he stooped to enter the place. Here again the powerful

influence of Sir Jacques was imperceptible; the dungeon lay under the

spell of a stronger and darker personality; and as he curiously examined

its structure and form, to learn that it was older than the oldest part

of the house above, he knew himself to be in a survival of some

forgotten stronghold upon whose ashes a Tudor mansion had been reared.

Searing irons glared before his eyes; in a dim, arched corner a brazier

glowed dully; ropes creaked.

Returning to the library, he found himself again within the aura of his

departed uncle. It was in this book-lined apartment that Sir Jacques had

transacted the affairs of the ugly little church at Mid Hatton and the

volumes burdening the leather-edged shelves were of a character meet for

the eye of an elder. The smaller erotic collection in the locked bureau

in the study presumably had companioned Sir Jacques' more leisured

hours.

Paul sank into a deep, padded arm-chair. The library of Hatton Towers

was in the south-east wing, and now because of the night's stillness dim

booming of distant guns was audible. A mood of reflection claimed him,

and from it he sank into sleep, to dream of the portrait of Sir Jacques

which seemed to have become transparent, so that the camel-like head now

appeared, as in those monstrous postcard caricatures which at one time

flooded the Paris shops, to be composed of writhing nudities cunningly

intertwined, of wanton arms, and floating locks and leering woman-faces.

VI

Through the sun-gay gardens, wet with dew, Paul made his way on the

following morning. The songs of the birds delighted him and the homely

voices of cattle in the meadows were musical because the skies were

blue. A beetle crawled laboriously across the gravel path before him,

and he stepped aside to avoid crushing it; a ladybird discovered on the

brim of his hat had to be safely deposited on a rose bush, nor in

performing this act of charity did he disturb the web of a small spider

who resided hard by. Because the flame of life burnt high within him, he

loved all life to-day.

The world grew blind in its old age, reverencing a man-hewn symbol, a

fragment of wood, a sacerdotal ring, when the emblem of creation, of

being, the very glory of God made manifest, hung resplendent in the

heavens! Men scoffed at miracles, and the greatest miracle of all rose

daily before their eyes; questioned the source of life, and every blade

of grass pointed upward to it, every flower raised its face adoring it;

doubted eternity whilst the eternal flames that ever were, are and ever

shall be, burned above their heads! Those nameless priests of a vanished

creed who made Stonehenge, drew nearer perhaps to the Divine mystery

than modern dogma recognised.

So ran his thoughts, for on a sunny morning, although perhaps

sub-consciously, every man becomes a fire-worshipper. Then came the dim

booming--and a new train of reflection. Beneath the joyous heavens men

moiled and sweated at the task of slaying. Doubting souls, great

companies of them, even now were being loosed upon their mystic journey.

Man slew man, beast slew beast, and insect devoured insect. The tiny red

beetle that he had placed upon the rose bush existed only by the death

of the aphides which were its prey; the spider, too, preyed. But man was

the master slayer. It was jungle law--the law of the wilderness

miscalled life; which really was not life but a striving after life.

Realising, anew, how wildly astray from simple truth the world had

wandered, how ridiculous were the bickerings which passed for religious

thought, how puerile, inadequate, the dogmas that men named creeds, he

trembled spiritually before the magnitude of his task. He doubted his

strength and the purity of his motives. "Any fool can smash a Ming pot,

but no man living to-day can make one." Dear old Don had a way of

saying quaint things that meant much. The world was very fair to look

upon; but for some odd reason a mental picture of Damascus seen from the

Lebanon Mountains arose before him. Perhaps that was how the world

looked to the gods--until they sought to live in it.

* * * * *

Coming out into the narrow winding lane beyond the lodge gates, Paul saw

ahead of him a shambling downcast figure, proceeding up the slope.

"Good morning, Fawkes," he called.

Fawkes stopped as suddenly as Lot's wife, but unlike Lot's wife without

looking around, and stood in the road as rigid as she. Paul came up to

his side, and the gamekeeper guiltily raised the peak of his cap and

remained standing there silent and downcast.

"A glorious morning, Fawkes," said Paul, cheerily.

"Yes, sir," agreed Fawkes, his breath bated.

"I want to tell you," continued Paul, "whilst I remember, that Mrs.

Duveen's daughter, Flamby, is to be allowed to come and go as she likes

anywhere about the place. She does no harm, Fawkes; she is a student of

wild life and should be encouraged."

Fawkes' face assumed an expression of complete bewilderment. "Yes, sir,"

he said, his reedy voice unsteady; "as you wish, sir. But I don't know

about not doing no harm. She spoils all the shootin', alarms the birds

and throws things at the beaters, she does; and this year she stopped

the hounds, she did."

"Stopped the hounds, Fawkes?"

"Yes, sir. The fox he ran to cover down Babylon Lane, and right into

Dovelands Cottage. The hounds come through the hedge hard after him,

they did, and all the pack jumped the gate and streamed into the garden.

Colonel Wycherley and Lady James and old John Darbey, the huntsman, they

was close on the pack, and they all three took the gate above Coates'

Farm and come up in a bunch, you might say."

Fawkes paused, glanced guiltily at Paul's face, and, reassured, lowered

his head again and raced through the remainder of his story

breathlessly.

"Flamby, she was peelin' potatoes in the porch, and she jumps up and

runs down to the gate all on fire. The hounds was bayin' all round her

as fierce as tigers, and she took no more notice of 'em than if they'd

been flies. She see old John first, and she calls to him to get the pack

out of the garden, in a way it isn't for me to say...."

"On the contrary, Fawkes, I take an interest in Flamby Duveen, and I

wish to hear exactly what she said."

"Well, sir, if you please, sir, she hollers: 'Call your blasted dogs out

of my garden, John Darbey!'

"'The fox is a-hiding somewhere here,' says John.

"'To hell with the fox and you, too!' shouts Flamby, and pickin' up a

big stick that's lyin' on the ground, she slips into them dogs like a

mad thing. I'm told everybody was sure they'd attack her; but would you

believe it, sir, she chased 'em out like a flock of sheep. She don't hit

like a girl, Flamby don't; she means it."

"She loves animals, Fawkes, and knows them; therefore she has great

influence over them. I don't suppose one of them was hurt."

"Anyway, sir, she got 'em all out in the lane and stood lookin' over the

gate. John Darbey he was speechless in his saddle, like, but Lady James

she told Flamby what she thought about her."

Fawkes paused for breath and darted a second furtive glance at Paul.

"Proceed, Fawkes," directed the latter. "What was the end of the

episode?"

"Well, sir, Flamby answered her back, but it's not for me to repeat what

she said...."

"Since the story is evidently known to the whole countryside, you need

have no scruples about the matter, Fawkes. What did Lady James say to

Flamby?"

"She says, 'You're a low, vulgar creature!' And Flamby says, 'Perhaps I

am,' she says, 'but I ain't afraid to tell anybody where I spend my

week-ends!'"

"Ah," interrupted Paul, hurriedly, "you should not have repeated that,

Fawkes; but I am to blame. See to it that you are more discreet in

future."

"Yes, sir," said Fawkes, all downcast immediately. "Shall I tell you

what happened to the fox, sir?"

"Yes, you might tell me what happened to the fox."

"Flamby had him locked in the tool-shed, sir!"

He uttered the words as a final, crushing indictment, and ventured a

swift look at Paul in order to note its effect. Paul's face was

expressionless, however, as a result of the effort to retain his

composure.

"An awful character, Fawkes!" he said. "Good morning."

"Good morning, sir," said Fawkes, raising the peak of his cap with that

queer air of relief.

* * * * *

Paul set off along the lane, now smiling unrestrainedly, came to the

stile where the footpath through the big apple orchard began, crossed it

and stood for a moment watching a litter of tiny and alarmed pigs

scampering wildly after their mother. One lost his way and went racing

along distant aisles of apple trees in quest of a roundabout route of

his own. Paul, who symbolised everything, found food for reflection in

the incident.

He lingered in the fragrant orchard looking at a flock of sheep who

grazed there, and admiring the frolics of the lambs. In the beauty of

nature he always found cause for sorrow, because every living thing is

born to pain. Animals knew this law instinctively and received it as a

condition of their being, but men shut their eyes to so harsh a truth,

and cried out upon heaven when it came home to them. He thought of

Yvonne and his happiness frightened him. Gautama Buddha had left a

lovely bride, to question the solitude and the sorrows of humanity

respecting truth; he, Paul Mario, dared to believe that the light had

come without the sacrifice. This mood bore him company to Babylon Lane,

but the sight of the white gate of Dovelands Cottage terminated a train

of thought. Here it was that the story related by Fawkes had had its

setting.

No one responded to the ringing of the cattle-bell, and the door of the

cottage was closed. In the absence of a knocker Paul rapped with his

stick, and having satisfied himself that Mrs. Duveen and her daughter

were not at home turned away disappointed. He had counted upon an

intimate chat with Flamby, which should enable him to form some personal

impression of her true character.

He returned slowly along Babylon Lane, and passing the path through the

orchard, he chose that which would lead him through the fringe of the

wood wherein he and Don had first seen Flamby. Evidently the wood was a

favourite haunt of the girl's, for as he crossed the adjoining meadow he

saw her in front of him, lying flat upon a carpet of wild flowers, now

shadowed by the trees, her chin resting in one palm and her elbow upon

the ground. In her right hand she held a brush, which now and again she

applied with apparent carelessness to a drawing lying on the grass

before her, but without perceptibly changing her pose.

The morning was steamy and still, giving promise of another tropically

hot day, but Paul approached so quietly that he came within a few yards

of Flamby without disturbing her. There he stopped, watching and

admiring. She was making a water-colour drawing of a tiny lamb which

lay quite contentedly within reach of her hand, sometimes looking up

into her face confidently and sometimes glancing at the woolly mother

who grazed near the fringe of the trees. Flamby was so absorbed in her

work that she noted nothing of Paul's approach, but the mother sheep

looked up, startled, and the lamb made a sudden move in her direction.

"Be good, Woolly," said Flamby, and her voice had that rare vibrant note

which belongs to the Celtic tongue; "I have nearly finished now."

But the lamb's courage had failed, and not even the siren voice could

restore it. With the uncertain steps of extreme youth it sought its

mother's side, and the two moved away towards the flock which grazed in

a distant corner of the meadow.

"I fear I have disturbed you."

The effect of Paul's words was singular. Flamby dropped her brush and

seemed to shrink as from a threatened blow, drawing up her shoulders and

slowly turning her head to see who had spoken. As her face came into

view, Paul saw that it was blanched with fear.

"Please forgive me," he said with concern; "but I did not mean to

frighten you."

"Oh," moaned Flamby, "but you did. I thought----" She rose to her knees

and then to her feet, the quick colour returning in a hot blush.

"What did you think?" asked Paul gently.

"I thought you were Sir Jacques."

She uttered the words impulsively and seemed to regret them as soon as

spoken, standing before Paul with shyly lowered eyes. The attitude

surprised him. From what he had seen and heard of Flamby he had not

anticipated diffidence, and he regarded her silently for a moment,

smiling in his charming way. She had evidently made some attempt this

morning to arrange her rebellious hair, for it had been parted and

brushed over to one side so that the rippling waves gleamed like minted

copper where the sun kissed them. Flamby had remarkable hair, nut-brown

in its shadows, and in the light glowing redly like embers or a newly

extinguished torch.

Her face was a perfect oval, and she had the most beautifully chiselled

straight little nose imaginable. Her face and as much of her neck as was

exposed by a white jumper were tanned to gipsy hue; so that when, shyly

raising her eyes, she responded to Paul's smile, the whiteness of her

teeth was extraordinary. A harsh critic might have said that her mouth

was too large; but no man of flesh and blood would have quarrelled with

such lips as Flamby's. She was below medium height, but shaped like a

sylph and had the airy grace of one. As Paul stood regarding her he

found wonder to be growing in his mind, for such wild roses as Flamby

are rare enough in the countryside, as every artist knows.

"Why," he asked, "should you be so afraid of Sir Jacques?"

"He's dead!" replied Flamby, an elfin light of mischief kindling in her

eyes; yet she was by no means at her ease.

"And what made you mistake me for him?"

"Your voice."

"Ah," said Paul, to whom others had remarked on this resemblance; "but

you had no cause to fear him?--alive, I mean."

"No," replied Flamby, stooping to pick up her sketching materials.

Her monosyllabic reply was not satisfactory; but recognising that if she

did not wish to talk about the late Sir Jacques he must merely defeat

his own purpose by endeavouring to make her do so, he abandoned the

topic.

"My name is Paul Mario," he said, "and I came to see you this morning."

Flamby stood up, paint-box, brushes and sketch in hand. "To see _me_?"

"Yes! why not?"

Flamby confronted him, her natural self-confidence restored, and studied

him with grave grey eyes. "What did you want to see me about?" she

asked; and in the tone of the question there was a restrained anxiety

which Paul could not understand. Also there was a faint and fascinating

suggestion of brogue in her accent.

"About yourself, of course," he replied, and wondered more and more

because of the knowledge--borne to him by that acute, almost feminine,

intuition which was his--that the girl was fencing with him, and because

of her strangeness and her beauty as she stood before him, hair flaming

in the sunlight, and her eyes watching him observantly.

Now, her expression changed, and her pupils growing momentarily larger,

he knew that her thoughts were in the past--and that they had brought

relief from some secret anxiety which had been with her.

"Of course!" she said, and laughed with a sudden joyousness that was in

harmony with the morning; "you came yesterday with Captain Courtier. I

understand, now."

Swiftly as her laughter had come, it vanished, and her eyes grew dim

with tears. Such tempestuous emotions must have nonplussed the average

man, but to Paul Mario her moods read clearly as a printed page, so that

almost as the image arose in Flamby's mind, it arose also in his; and he

saw before him one who wore the uniform of a sergeant of Irish Guards.

Hotly pursuing the tears came brave smiles. Flamby shook her curls back

from her brow, gave Paul a glance which was half apologetic and wholly

appealing, then laughed again and swept him a mocking curtsey.

"I am your honour's servant," she said; "what would you with me?"

The elfin light danced in her eyes again, and in this country damsel

who used the language of an obsolete vassalage he saw one who mocked at

his manorial rights and cared naught for king or commoner. Beyond doubt,

Sergeant Duveen had been a strange man, and strangely had he trained his

daughter.

"May I see your drawing?"

Flamby hesitated. "Are you really interested?" she said wistfully, "or

are you just trying to be kind?"

Paul was tempted to laugh outright, but his delicate sensibilities told

him that laughter would give offence. "I am really interested," he

assured her earnestly, "Captain Courtier is of opinion that you have a

remarkable gift for portraying wild life."

He selected his words deliberately with the design of reassuring her

respecting the sincerity of his interest. He was aware of a vague fear

that some ill-chosen remark would send Flamby flying from him, the coy

wood-nymph to whom Don had likened her, and that she would disappear as

she had done from Bluebell Hollow. But still she hesitated.

"You look as though you mean it," she conceded, furtively glancing down

at the sketching-board in her hand. "But it's a rotter."

"I'm afraid I am to blame. I spoiled it."

"No you didn't. It was a mess before you came." She glanced at him

doubtfully, keeping the drawing turned away. "You see," she continued,

"the shadowy part of a lamb on a sunny morning is quite blue--_quite_

blue. Did you know that?"

"Well," replied Paul, musingly, shielding his eyes and looking toward

the distant flock, "now that you have drawn my attention to the fact I

perceive it to be so--yes."

"But when you haven't got many colours," explained Flamby, "it's not so

easy to paint. I've made my lamb too blue for anything!" She displayed

the drawing, her eyes dancing with laughter. "No man ever saw a blue

lamb," she said--"while he was sober!"

The words shed a sidelight upon the domestic habits of the late Sergeant

Duveen, as Paul did not fail to note; and in the masculinity of Flamby's

jesting he glimpsed something of the closeness of the intimacy which had

existed between father and daughter. But, taking the drawing from her

hands, he was astonished at the skill which it displayed and which

surpassed that of any work he had seen outside the best exhibitions. It

possessed none of the graceful insipidity of the water colours which

young ladies are taught to produce at all good boarding-schools and

convents, but was characterised by the same vigour which informed

Flamby's conversation. Furthermore, it represented a living animal, soft

of fleece and inviting a caress and was drawn with almost insolent ease.

Paul looked into the girl's watching eyes.

"You are an artist, Flamby," he said; "and like all artists you are

unduly critical of your work."

A rich colour glowed through the tan upon Flamby's cheeks and she was

aware of a delicious little nervous thrill. Paul Mario's fascinating

voice had laid its thrall upon her and his eyes were far more beautiful

even than she had supposed, when, confronting Fawkes in Bluebell Hollow,

she had suddenly looked up to find Paul watching her. That easy

self-possession which she had learned from her father and which deserted

her rarely enough, threatened to desert her now; also, a poisonous doubt

touched her joy. With its coming came a return of confidence and Flamby

laid her hand confidingly upon Paul's arm.

"You really do mean what you say, don't you?" she asked wistfully.

"My dear little girl, why are you so doubtful of my honesty?"

Flamby lowered her fiery head. "Except father," she said, "I never knew

anybody who really thought I could paint. Some pretended to think so;

and Miss Kingsbury at High Fielding, who ought to know, laughed at

me--after she had asked me to go and see her--and told me to 'try and

find a nice domestic situation.'"

The mimicry in the concluding words was delightfully funny, but Paul

nodded sympathetically. A mental picture of Miss Kingsbury arose before

him, and it was in vain that he sought to consider her and her kind

without rancour. Beauty is a dangerous gift for any girl, making

countless enemies amongst her own sex and often debarring her from

harmless pleasures open to her plainer sisters. But the Miss Kingsburys

of the smaller county towns are an especial menace to such as Flamby,

although charity rarely assumes the dimensions of a vice among any of

the natives of England's southern shires.

"And your father had intended that you should become a painter?"

Unconsciously, he found himself speaking of the late Michael Duveen as

of one belonging to his own station in life, nor did the wild appearance

and sometimes uncouth language of Flamby serve wholly to disguise the

blue streak in her blood.

"When he was sober," she replied, and suddenly bursting into gay

laughter she snatched the drawing and turned away, waving her hand to

Paul. "Goodbye, Mr. Mario," she cried. "I like you heaps better than

your uncle!"

Her impudence was delicious, and Paul detained her. "You must not run

away like that," he said. "Captain Courtier made me promise that I would

arrange for you to pursue your art studies----"

Flamby shook her head. "How can I do that?" she asked, in a gust of

scorn. Then, as suddenly, her gaze grew wrapt and her face flushed. "But

how I would love to!" she whispered.

"You shall. It is all arranged," declared Paul earnestly. "The--special

pension which your mother will receive and which Captain Courtier is

arranging will be sufficient to cover all costs."

Flamby looked up at him, her eyes aglow with excitement. "Oh, Mr.

Mario," she said, "please don't think me ungrateful and a little beast;

but--is it true?"

"Why should I mislead you in the matter, Flamby?"

"I don't know; but--if you knew how I've longed and longed to be able to

go to London, among people who understand; to get away from these men

and women who are really half vegetables!"

Paul laughed gaily. "But you love the country?"

"I could not live long away from it. But the people! And I love the

birds and the animals, and--oh!"--her voice rose excitedly--"don't kill

it!"

A wasp was humming dangerously about Paul's head, and although his love

of all things that had life was as strong as Flamby's, the

self-protective instinct had led him to endeavour to knock the wasp

away. Now, Flamby extending one motionless hand, the gaudily-striped

insect alighted upon her finger and began busily to march from thence to

the rosy tip of the next, and so on until it reached Flamby's little

curved thumb. Holding the thumb upright, so that the wasp stood upon a

miniature tower, she pursed her lips entrancingly and blew the insect

upon its way as gently as if borne upon a summer zephyr.

"They only sting if you hurt them," she explained; "and so would you!"

"But," said Paul, who had watched the incident wonderingly, "if all

insects were permitted to live unmolested, and all animals for that

matter, the world would become uninhabitable for man."

"I know," replied Flamby pensively--"and I cannot understand why nature

is so cruel."

Paul studied the piquant, sun-kissed face with a new interest. "Flamby,"

he said earnestly, "one day you will be a great artist."

She looked into his eyes, but only for a moment, turned and fled. There

were a hundred things he had wanted to say to her, a hundred questions

he had wanted to ask. But off she ran along the margin of the wood, and

where a giant elm stood, a forest outpost at a salient, paused and waved

her hand to him.

VII

For all the exquisite sympathy of his nature and intuitive understanding

of others, there was a certain trait in the character of Paul Mario not

infrequently found in men of genius. From vanity he was delightfully

free, nor had adulation spoiled him; but his interest in the world was

strangely abstract, and his outlook almost cosmic. He dreamed of

building a ladder of stars for all earth-bound humanity, and thought not

in units, but in multitudes. Picturesque distress excited his emotions

keenly, and sometimes formed ineffaceable memories, but memories oddly

impersonal, little more than appreciations of sorrow as a factor in that

mystic equation to the solving of which he had bent all his intellect.

On the other hand he was fired by a passionate desire to aid; nor when

occasion had arisen had he hesitated to sacrifice self for another's

good. But such altruism was born of impulse and never considered. The

spectacle of the universe absorbed him, and listening for the

Pythagorean music of the spheres he sometimes became deaf to the voices

of those puny lives about him. His attention being called to them,

however, his solicitude was sweet and sincere, but once removed from his

purview they were also dismissed from his mind; and because of his

irresistible charm there were some who wept to be so soon forgotten. His

intellect was patrician--almost deiform in the old Roman sense.

Probably all great masters have been similarly endowed, for if in order

that one shall successfully conduct a military campaign he must think in

armies and not in squads, so, if another would aspire to guide Thought,

presumably must he think in continents. It does not follow that he shall

lack genius for love and friendship, but merely that he cannot distract

his mind in seeking out individual sorrows. The physician tends the

hurts of the body, the priest ministers to the ills of the spirit; Paul

Mario yearned to heal the wounds of a stricken world.

But Flamby interested him keenly, and therefore he draped her in a

mantle of poesy, obscuring those shades displeasing to his

sensibilities; as, an occasional coarseness due to association with her

father; and enhancing her charms and accomplishments. Her beauty and

spirit delighted the aesthete, and her mystery enthralled the poet. She

had feared Sir Jacques. Why? Paul toyed with the question in his own

fashion and made of Hatton Towers a feudal keep and of his deceased

uncle a baron of unsavoury repute. The maid Flamby, so called because

men had likened the glory of her hair to a waving flambeau, he caused to

reside in a tiny cottage beneath the very shadow of Sir Jacques'

frowning fortress; and the men-at-arms looking down from battlement and

bartizan marvelled when the morning wove a halo around the head of the

witch's daughter. (In the poem-picture which grew thus in his mind as he

swung along towards Hatton, Mrs. Duveen had become even more shrivelled

than nature had made her; her eyes had grown brighter and her earrings

longer).

Word of the maid's marvellous comeliness reaching Sir Jacques, he won

entrance to the cottage crouching against his outer walls, disguised as

a woodman; for the mighty weald had reclaimed its own in the period

visited by Paul's unfettered spirit and foresters roamed the greenwood.

He wooed maid Flamby, employing many an evil wile, but she was obdurate

and repulsed him shrewdly. Whereupon he caused Dame Duveen to be seized

as a weaver of spells and one who had danced before Asmodeus at the

Witches' Sabbath to music of the magic pipe. To serve his end Sir

Jacques invoked inhuman papal witch-law; the stake was set, each faggot

laid. But by stratagem of a humble cowherd who loved her with a fidelity

staunch unto death, Flamby secured the Dame's escape and the two fled

together covertly, through the forest and by night....

VIII

A few paces beyond the giant elm, Flamby paused, breathless, looking

down at the drawing which she held in her hand. Then turning, she

retraced her steps until she could peep around the great trunk of the

tree. Thus peeping she stood and watched Paul Mario until, coming to the

stile at the end of the meadow, he climbed over and was hidden by the

high hedgerow.

Flamby looked at the sketch again, seized it as if to tear the board

across; then changed her mind, studied the drawing attentively, smiled,

and looked straight before her, but not at anything really visible. She

was dreaming, as many another had dreamed who had heard Paul Mario's

voice and looked into Paul Mario's eyes. From these maiden dreams, which

may not be set down because they are formless, like all spiritual

things, her mind drifted into a channel of reflection.

The memory of Paul's voice came back again and thrilled her as though he

had but just spoken. She grew angry because she had imagined his voice

to resemble that of Sir Jacques. Poor little Flamby, the very name of

Sir Jacques was sufficient to make her shudder, to cast black shadows

upon the sunny fields of her dream-world. She dared not believe that

Paul's interest was sincere and disinterested--yet her heart believed

it.

Almost the earliest recollection of her young womanhood was of a man's

interest in her welfare; that was at the big racing stables in Yorkshire

where her father had trained for Lord Loamhurst. Flamby was thirteen,

then, and already her beauty, later to develop into that elfin

loveliness which had excited the wonder of Don, was unusual. The man in

question was his lordship's nephew, and his interest had grown so marked

that Michael Duveen had spoken to him, had received an insolent reply

and had struck down the noble youth with one blow of his formidable

fist. The episode had terminated Duveen's career as a trainer.

Thereafter had begun the nomadic life, with its recurrent phases of

brawls, drunken debauches by her father, occasional brief intervals of

prosperity and longer ones of abject poverty. Lower Charleswood had

seemed as an oasis in the wilderness and the employment offered by Sir

Jacques too bountiful to be real. Nevertheless, it was real enough, and

all went well for a season. Michael Duveen gave the bottle a go-by, and

the first real home that Flamby had known established its altars in

Dovelands Cottage. The understanding between father and daughter was

complete and was rendered more perfect by the necessity for

companionship experienced by both. Poor Mrs. Duveen possessed the

personality of a chameleon, readily toning with any background; but

intellectually she was never present. Why Michael Duveen had selected

such a mate was a mystery which Flamby, who loved her mother the more

dearly for her helplessness, could never solve. It was a mystery to

which Duveen, in his darker moods, devoted himself cruelly, and many

were the nights that Flamby had sobbed herself to sleep, striving to

deafen her ears to the hateful insults and merciless taunts which Duveen

would hurl at his wife.

Following such an outburst, Michael Duveen would exhibit penitence

which was almost as shocking as his brutality--but it was always to

Flamby that he came for forgiveness, bringing some love-gift which he

would proffer shamefacedly, tears trembling in his eyes.

"Ask your mother to come into town with me, Flamby asthore; I've seen a

fine coat at Dale's that'll make her heart glad."

It was invariably the same, and never was the olive branch rejected for

a moment by his long-suffering wife. Hers was the dog-like fidelity

which men of Duveen's pattern have the gift of inspiring in women, and

had he been haled to the felon's dock she would gladly and proudly have

stood beside her man. So the years stole by, and Flamby crept nearer to

womanhood and closer to her father's heart. The drinking-bouts grew less

frequent and only once again did Duveen offer violence to his wife. It

was on the occasion of a house-party at Hatton Towers, and a racy young

French commercial man who was one of Sir Jacques' guests fell to the

lure of Flamby's ever increasing charms.

Flamby, who now was wise with a wisdom possessed by few women, and who

could confound a gallant with the wit of Propertius, or damn his eyes

like any trooper, amused herself with the overdressed youth, and ate

many expensive chocolates. Mistaking the situation, and used to the

complaisance of the French peasant, M. le Petit-Maitre presented himself

at Dovelands Cottage and made certain overtures of a financial nature to

Mrs. Duveen. Between his imperfect English, his delicate mode of

expressing the indelicate, and his great charm, poor Mrs. Duveen found

confusion, brewed tea and reported the conversation to her husband.

Michael Duveen grew black with wrath, and, taking up a heavy dish from

the table, he hurled it at the poor, foolish woman. As he did so the

door opened and Flamby came in. The dish, crashing against the edge of

the door, was shattered and a fragment struck Flamby's bare arm,

inflicting a deep wound.

Like a cloak discarded, Duveen's wrath fell from him at sight of the

blood on that soft round arm. He was a man suddenly sick with remorse;

and, to the last, the faint scar which the wound left was as a crucifix

before which he abased himself. He did not even thrash the Frenchman,

but was content with sending to that astonished gallant an

acknowledgment of his offer couched in such pure and scathing French

prose that it stung more surely than any lash.

Duveen's was a strange nature, and to Flamby, as her powers of

observation grew keener, he presented a study at once fascinating and

mournful. He had deeper scholarship than many a man who holds a

university chair; he knew the classics as lesser men know their party

politics; and the woodlands, fields and brooks, with their countless

inhabitants, held no mysteries for him. Yet he was content to be as

Flamby had always known him--a manual labourer. The larder of Dovelands

Cottage was well stocked, winter and summer alike, and Mrs. Duveen, who

accepted what the gods offered unquestioningly, never troubled to

inquire how folks so poor as they could procure game and fish at all

proper seasons. Fawkes could have enlightened her; but there was no man

in Lower Charleswood, or for that matter in the county, of a hardihood

to cross Michael Duveen. Furthermore, Sir Jacques, who was a Justice of

the Peace, would hear no ill of him. Finally, one bitter winter's

morning in the first year of the war, Flamby learned why.

Sir Jacques, for the first time since the Duveens had resided there,

crossed the threshold of Dovelands Cottage, bringing a letter which he

had received from Duveen, then newly arrived in Flanders. That

memorable visit was the first of many; and the diabolical patience with

which Sir Jacques for over two years had awaited his opportunity was

further exemplified in his conduct of the affair now that he was truly

entered upon it.

At his first word of greeting, Flamby read his secret and her soul rose

up in arms; by the time that he took his departure she doubted her

woman's intuition--and wondered. Such was the magic of the silver voice,

the Christian humility expressed in the bearing of that black figure.

And when he had come again, and yet again, the first, true image began

to fade more and more, and she listened with less and less misgiving to

the words of encouragement which he bestowed upon her drawings. Her

father, although himself no draughtsman, understood art as he understood

all that was beautiful, and had taught her the laws of perspective and

the tricks of the pencil as he had taught her the ways of the woodland

and of the creatures who dwelt there. On her sixteenth birthday he had

presented Flamby with a complete water-colour outfit, together with a

number of text books; and many a golden morning had they spent together

in solving the problem of why, although all shadows look black, some are

really purple and others blue, together with kindred mysteries of the

painter's craft.

Now came Sir Jacques, a trained critic and collector, with helpful

suggestion and inspiring praise. He made no mistakes; his suggestions

held no covert significance, his praise was never extravagant. Miss

Kingsbury, of High Fielding, the local Lady Butler, hearing of Sir

Jacques' protegee, as she heard of everything else in the county, sent a

message of honeyed sweetness to Flamby, desiring her to call and bring

some of her work. Flamby had never forgotten the visit. The honey of

Miss Kingsbury was honey of Trebizond, and it poisoned poor Flamby's

happiness for many a day. Strange is the paradox of a woman's heart;

for Flamby, well knowing that this spinster's venom was a product of

jealousy--jealousy of talent, super-jealousy of youth and beauty--yet

took hurt from it and hugged the sting of cruel criticism to her breast.

In this, for all her engrafted wisdom, she showed herself a true limb of

Eve.

It was Sir Jacques who restored her confidence, and Sir Jacques who

seized the opportunity to invite her to study the works in his

collection. The original image of the master of Hatton Towers (which had

possessed pointed ears and the hoofs of a goat) was faded by this time,

and was supplanted by that of a courtly and benevolent patron. Flamby

went to Hatton Towers, and meeting with nothing but kindness at the

hands of Sir Jacques, went again many times. With the art of a Duc de

Richelieu, Sir Jacques directed her studies, familiarising her mind with

that "broad" outlook which is essential to the artist. It was done so

cleverly that even Flamby the wise failed to recognise whither the

rose-strewn path was tending, and might have pursued it to the end but

that Fate--or Pan, god of the greenwood, jealous of trespass--intervened

and unmasked the presumptuous Silenus.

Like one of those nymphs to whom Don had detected her resemblance,

Flamby, throughout the genial months, often betook herself at early

morning to a certain woodland stream far from all beaten tracks and

inaccessible from the highroads. Narcissi carpeted the sloping banks

above a pool like a crystal mirror, into which the tiny rivulet purled

through forest ways sacred to the wild things and rarely profaned by

foot of man. In their shy, brief hour, violets lent their sweetness to

the spot, and at dusk came quiet creatures afoot and awing timidly to

slake their thirst at the magic fountain. A verdant awning, fanlike,

swayed above, and perhaps in some forgotten day an altar had stood in

the shady groves which protected all approaches to this pool whereby

Keats might have dreamed his wonder dreams.

One morning as she stepped out like Psyche from her bath, and stood for

a moment where an ardent sunbeam entering slyly through the bower above

wrapped her in golden embrace, upon that sylvan mystery intruded a sound

which blanched the roses on Flamby's cheeks and seemed to turn her body

to marble. It was a very slight sound, no more than a metallic click;

but like the glance of Gyges it stilled her heart's beating. She had

never known such helpless fear; for, without daring, or having power, to

turn her head, she divined who hid beside the pool and the purpose of

his coming.

In great leaps her heart resumed its throbbing, and Flamby, trembling

and breathless, sprang into the undergrowth upon that side of the pool

farthest from the high bank which masked the intruder and there crouched

pitifully, watching. Another than she might have failed to discern him,

so craftily did he crawl away; but Flamby, daughter of the woods, saw

the wriggling figure, and knew it; moreover she knew, by the familiarity

with the pathway which he displayed, that this was not the first time

Sir Jacques had visited the spot.

She returned to the cottage, her courage restored and a cold anger in

her breast, to find her mother alternately laughing and sobbing--because

Michael Duveen would be home that day on leave. Whatever plan Flamby had

cherished she now resigned, recognising that only by silence could she

avert a tragedy. But from that morning the invisible guardians of the

pool lamented a nymph who came no more, and the old joy of the woods was

gone for Flamby. At one moment she felt that she could never again

suffer the presence of Sir Jacques, at another that if she must remain

in Lower Charleswood and not die of shame she must pretend that she did

not suspect him to have been the intruder. The subterfuge, ostrich-like,

woman-like, finally was adopted; and meeting Sir Jacques in Babylon Lane

she managed to greet him civilly, employing her mother's poor state of

health as an excuse for discontinuing her visits to Hatton Towers. But

if Flamby's passionate spirit had had its way Sir Jacques that day must

have met the fate of Candaules at the hands of this modern Nyssia.

* * * * *

Standing there beneath the giant elm, Flamby lived again through the

sunshine and the shadows of the past, her thoughts dwelling bitterly

upon the memory of Sir Jacques and of his tireless persecution, which,

from the time that she ceased her visits to Hatton Towers, became more

overt and pursued her almost to the day of Sir Jacques' death. Finally,

and inevitably, she thought again of Paul Mario, and still thinking of

him returned to Dovelands Cottage.

Mrs. Duveen had gone into the town, an expedition which would detain her

for the greater part of the day, since she walked slowly, and the road

was hilly. Therefore Flamby proceeded to set the house in order. A

little red-breasted robin hopped in at the porch, peeped around the

sitting-room and up at the gleaming helmet above the mantelpiece, then

finding the apartment empty hopped on into the kitchen to watch Flamby

at work. Sunlight gladdened the garden and the orchard where blackbirds

were pecking the cherries; a skylark rose from the meadow opposite the

cottage, singing rapturously of love and youth--so that presently, the

while she worked, Flamby began to sing, too.

IX

It was late on the following afternoon when the solicitors left Hatton

Towers, and Paul, who detested business of every description, heaved a

great sigh of relief as he watched the dust resettle in the fir avenue

behind the car which was to bear the two legal gentlemen to the station.

The adviser of the late Sir Jacques had urged him to keep up Hatton

Towers, "in the interests of the county," even if he lived there only

occasionally, and his own solicitor seemed to agree with his colleague

that it would be a pity to sell so fine a property. A yearning for

solitude and meditation was strong upon Paul, and taking a stout ash

stick he went out on to the terrace at the rear of the house, crossed

the lawns and made his way down to the winding path which always, now,

he associated with Don.

An hour's walk brought him to the brink of the hilly crescent which

holds the heathland of the county as a giant claw grasping a platter.

Below him lay mile upon mile of England, the emerald meadows sharply

outlined by their hedges, cornfields pale patches of gold, roofs of

farms deep specks of grateful red, and the roads blending the whole into

an intricate pattern like that of some vast Persian carpet. Upon its

lighter tones the heat created a mirage of running water.

Human activity was represented by faint wisps of smoke, and by specks

which one might only determine to be men by dint of close scrutiny,

until a train crept out from the tunnel away to the left and crossed the

prospect like a hurried caterpillar, leaving little balls of woolly

vapour to float away idly upon the tideless air. A tang of the heather

rose even to that height, and mingled its scent with the perfume of the

many wildflowers cloaking the hillside. The humming of bees and odd

chirping of grasshoppers spoke the language of summer, and remotely

below childish voices and laughter joined in the gladness.

Paul began to descend the slope. In the joyous beauty of English summer

there was something at variance with his theme, and he found himself

farther than ever from the task which he had taken up. Almost he was

tempted to revise his estimate of the worth of things worldly and of

the value of traditional beliefs. His imagination lingered delightedly

over a tiny hamlet nestling about a Norman church as the brood about the

mother. He pictured the knight of the Cross kneeling before the hidden

altar and laying his sword and his life at the feet of the Man of

Sorrows. He saw, as it is granted to poets to see, the plumed Cavalier

leading his lady to that same altar and saw the priest bless them in the

holy name. Almost he could read the inscriptions upon the tombs which

told of generations of country gentlemen who had worshipped at the

simple shrine, unquestioning, undoubting. The Roundheads dour, with

their pitiless creed, had failed to destroy its fragrant sanctity, which

lingered in those foot-worn aisles like the memory of incense, the echo

of a monkish prayer. Was it all a great delusion?--or were our fathers

wise in their simplicity? In the past men had died for every faith;

to-day it would be hard to find men having any faith to die for.

A shadow crept over his mind, and although in his preoccupation he

failed to observe the fact, it corresponded with the coming of an

ominous cloud over the hill crest above and behind him; for we are but

human lutes upon which nature plays at will, now softly and gently, now

sounding chords of gladness, now touching to deep melancholy and the

grandeur of despair. The promise of those days of tropical heat was

about to be fulfilled, and already, three miles behind, black banks

lowered over the countryside turning its smile to a frown.

But even the remote booming of thunder failed to awaken Paul to the

reality of the brewing tempest; it reached him in his daydream, but as a

message not of the wrath of heaven but of the wrath of man. He mistook

it for the ceaseless voice of the guns and weaved it into his brooding

as Wagner wove the Valkyrie theme into the score of the _Nibeluengen_. A

faint breeze whispered through the tree-tops.

Paul came to the foot of the slope; and below him ran a continuous gully

roofed over by stunted trees and conforming to the hillside as a brim

conforms to a hat. Entrance might be made through any one of several

gaps, and Paul, scrambling down, found himself in a dark tunnel, its

brown, leafy floor patched at irregular intervals by grey light

reflected from the creeping thunder cloud. Right and left it went, this

silent gallery, and although he was unaware of the fact, it joined other

like galleries which encircled the slopes and met and intercrossed so

that one might wander for hours along these mystic aisles of the hills.

Below again, beyond a sloping woody thicket, lay the meadows and

farmlands sweeping smoothly onward to the heath. Now, the shadow of the

storm had draped hillside and valley and was touching the bloom of the

heather with the edge of its sable robe. Bird voices were still and all

life was hushed before the coming of the tempest. The ghostly trees

bending low above the aisles whispered fearfully one to another, and

about Paul was a darkness like that of a crypt. The earth and her

children shrank as from an impending blow.

Several large raindrops, heralds of the torrent to come, fell through an

opening above and pattered upon the dusty carpet at Paul's feet. He

glanced upward at the darkening pall which seemed to rest upon the hill

top. Its oppressive blackness suggested weight, so that one trembled for

the stability of the chalky scarp which must uphold that ebon canopy.

Paul moved further along the aisle to a spot where the foliage was

unbroken, as rain began a rapid tattoo upon the leafy roof. In the

following instant the hillside was illuminated wildly as lightning wrote

its message in angular characters across the curtain of darkness. Life

cowered affrighted to the bosom of mother earth. The raindrops ceased,

awaiting the crashing word of the thunder. It came, deafening, awesome;

buffeting this bluff and that rebounding, rebounding again and

muttering down the valleys and the aisles of the hills. Then burst the

rain, torrential, tropical.

In the emotional vision of Paul, horror rode the tempest. Man,

discarding the emblem of the Cross and prostrating himself at the feet

of strange idols, now was chained to a planet deserted by God, doomed

and left to the mercy of monstrous earth spirits revitalised by homage

and made potent again. To this gruesome fancy he resigned himself with

the spiritual abandonment whereof he was capable and his capacity for

which had made his work what it was: he grovelled before a nameless

power which dwelt in primeval caverns of the underworld and spoke with

the voice of the storm. Fear touched him, because the Divine face was

turned from man. Awe wrapped him about, because the Word had failed to

redeem, and a new message must be given. The Prince of Darkness became a

real figure--and seemed to be very near him. As if the lightning had

been a holy fire, with it enlightenment burst upon his mind, and he saw

himself no longer unwanted, flotsam, a thing supine, but a buckler--a

shield--one chosen and elected to a mighty task. The words of Don had

first raised the curtain; now it was rent as the Temple veil and his

eyes were dazzled. The Gate of Tophet had opened and Something had crept

out upon the world; it was for him to cast It back into the Pit!

He seemed to grow physically cold. Again the lightning blazed; and Paul,

starting as one rudely awakened from sleep, saw that a man was standing

close beside him.

X

That inclination to the marvellous which belongs to creative

temperaments led Paul to invest the stranger with the attributes of an

apparition; he seemed to be a materialisation of the darkness which

cloaked the modern world, a menace and a challenge; to stand for

Lucifer. He was a man above average height, having a vast depth of chest

and weight of limb, a strong, massive man. His suit of blue serge

displayed his statuesque proportions to full advantage, and Paul's

all-embracing glance did not fail to take note of the delicacy of hand

and foot which redeemed the great frame from any suggestion of

grossness. The stranger's head was bare, for he held in one gloved hand

a hard black felt hat, flat topped and narrow of brim; and his small

head, with close tight curls, set upon a neck like that of a gladiator,

was markedly Neronian. The hue of this virile curling hair was a most

uncompromising and fiery red, and equally red were the short moustaches

and close-cut curling beard. It was a remarkable head, the head of a

pagan emperor, rendered even more statuesque by an unusual ivory pallid

skin and by large and somewhat prominent eyes of limpid golden brown.

He was staring at Paul, as Paul was staring at him; and, out of the

darkness which instantly fell again, as the booming of thunder went

rolling, demoniac, along the valleys, he spoke. His voice was rich and

cultured.

"I fear I startled you--and you certainly startled me. I did not observe

your approach."

Paul laughed. "Nor I yours. But I believe I was preoccupied, for I

failed to notice the gathering storm until the rain attracted my

attention."

"I can guess at the nature of your preoccupation," continued the deep

voice. "Unless the illustrated press has deceived me I have the pleasure

of sharing this shelter with Mr. Paul Mario."

"That is my name. May I ask if you are one of my neighbours?"

"I am called Jules Thessaly, and I have made Babylon Hall locally

unpopular for some time past."

"A stormy meeting but none the less a welcome one, Mr. Thessaly. We

have several mutual friends. Captain Courtier spoke of you to me only

yesterday."

"Captain 'Don' Courtier?--a clever artist and I believe a useful

officer. I should have appreciated an opportunity of meeting him again.

He has leave?"

"A few days; but the usual demands upon his time, poor fellow. You were

also, I think, a friend of my late uncle?"

"I was acquainted with Sir Jacques--yes. Mr. Mario, our present meeting

is more gratifying to me than I can hope to express. I may say that I

had designed to call upon you had Fate not taken a hand."

"Your visit would have been very welcome. I have been so busy with

unavoidable affairs since my arrival, that I fear I have quite neglected

social duties. With one or two exceptions I know nothing of my

neighbours. May I count upon the pleasure of your company at dinner

to-night?"

"You forestall me, Mr. Mario. I was about to ask you to come over to me.

Apart from my natural interest in yourself there is a matter which I

particularly desire to discuss with you. I trust you will excuse my

apparent rudeness, but indeed I know you will. Social dogma is the

armour of the parvenu."

Paul laughed again; Jules Thessaly was a welcome stimulant. "Clearly we

have many things in common," he said. "I shall be more than glad to join

you. Fascinating rumours are afloat concerning your collection of

Eastern wonders. May I hope that it is housed at Babylon Hall?"

A blaze of lightning came, illuminating the two figures, showing Paul

Mario's fine face turned expectantly toward Jules Thessaly, and alive

with an eagerness almost boyish; showing the Neronian countenance of the

other, softened by a smile which revealed small, strong teeth beneath

the crisp red moustache.

"Rumour is a lying jade, Mr. Mario. My collection I admit is a good

one, but there are at least three others in Europe and two in America

which are better. It is unique in one particular: the section containing

religious objects, totems, and gods of all ages is more complete than

that of any other collector, or of any museum. The bulk of it

unfortunately is at my house in London."

"In these days of air raids would it not be safer at Babylon Hall?"

"If all the gods to whom man has offered prayer cannot protect their

images in Park Lane, they cannot protect them in Lower Charleswood."

"Diogenes speaks from his tub!"

"The truth is often cynical."

"I fear that life has not a single illusion left for you."

"All men work like rebels, Mr. Mario, to win freedom from youth's

sweetest mistress--illusion, and spend the twilight of old age groping

for what they have lost."

"Yours must be a barren outlook. If I thought all the world a mere dream

of some wanton god I should lay down my pen--for I should have nothing

to say."

"There can be nothing really new to say until man climbs up to another

planet or until creatures of another planet climb down to this one."

"A doctrine of despair."

"Not at all--unless for the materialist."

"How is that?"

"Would you trammel the soul with the shackles of the flesh?"

"You mean that literature and art persistently look in the gutter for

subjects when they would be more worthily employed in questioning the

stars?"

"I mean that if literature and art were not trades, inspiration might

have a chance."

"And you regard inspiration as a spiritual journey?"

"Certainly; and imagination as the memory of the soul. There is no such

thing as intellectual creation. We are instruments only. John Newman did

not invent _The Dream of Gerontius_; he remembered it. There is a strain

in the music of _Samson et Dalila_ which was sung in the temples of

Nineveh, where it must have been heard by Saint Saens. The wooing of

Tarone in your _Francesca of the Lilies_ is a faithful account of a

scene enacted in Florence during the feuds between the Amidei and

Buondelmonti."

Paul Mario fell silent. The storm was passing, and now raged over the

remote hills which looked out upon the sea; but the darkness prevailed,

and he became aware of a vague disquiet which stirred within him. The

conversation of Jules Thessaly impressed him strangely, not because of

its hard brilliance, but because of a masterful certainty in that quiet

voice. His words concerning Newman and Saint Saens were spoken as though

he meant them to be accepted literally--and there was something

terrifying in the idea. For he averred that which many have suspected,

but which few have claimed to know. Presently Paul found speech again.

"You believe, as I believe, that our 'instincts' are the lessons of

earlier incarnations. Perhaps you are a disciple of Pythagoras, Mr.

Thessaly?"

"I am, in one sense. I am a disciple of his Master."

"Do you refer to Orpheus?"

Jules Thessaly hesitated, but the pause was scarcely perceptible. "The

Orphic traditions certainly embody at least one cosmic truth."

"And it is?"

"That for every man there is a perfect maid, and for every maid a

perfect lover; that their union will be eternal, but that until it is

accomplished each must remain incomplete--a work in two volumes of which

one is missing."

"Would you then revive the Eleusinian Mysteries?"

"Why not?"

"You would scandalise society!"

"In other words become the pet of the petty. You care as little for the

institution called 'Society' as I do, Mr. Mario. Moreover, there is no

Society nowadays. Murray's has taken its place."

Again the lightning flashed--less vividly; and in the glimpse thus

afforded him of the speaker's face Paul derived the impression that

Jules Thessaly was laughing, but of this he could not be sure. The

thunder when it came spoke with a muted voice, for the storm was

speeding coastward, and a light cool breeze stole through the aisles of

the hills. A grey eerie light began to spread ghostly along the gallery.

The ebon cloud was breaking, but torrents of rain continued to descend.

Paul's keen intuition told him that Jules Thessaly was indisposed to

pursue the Orphic discussion further at the moment, but he realised that

the owner of Babylon Hall was no ordinary man, but one who had delved

deeply into lore which had engaged much of his own attention. He found

himself looking forward with impatient curiosity to his visit to the

home of this new acquaintance.

"You are comparatively a new-comer in Lower Charleswood, Mr. Thessaly?"

"Yes, Babylon Hall had been vacant for some years, having formerly

belonged to a certain Major Rushin, a retired Anglo-Indian of

sixty-five, with a nutmeg liver and a penchant for juvenile society. He

was drowned one morning in the lake which lies beyond the house, whilst

bathing with three young ladies who were guests of his at the time. He

was one of the pillars of the late Sir Jacques' church."

Paul laughed outright. "Do you quarrel with the whole of humanity, Mr.

Thessaly?"

"Not at all. I love every creature that has life; I share the very

tremors of the sheep driven to the slaughter-house. Human sorrow affects

me even more profoundly."

"But you are hotly intolerant of human hypocrisy? So am I."

"Yet it may be one of the principles of nature. Witness the leaf

insect."

"You don't believe it to be, though. You probably regard it as a hateful

disguise imposed upon man by a moral code contrary to that of nature."

"Mr. Mario, your words contain the germ of a law upon the acceptance of

which I believe humanity's spiritual survival to depend."