It was, then, offended _amour propre_ which had prompted him to hand

over to Nevin, his solicitor, this sacred charge entrusted to him by

Don? It was. Now he scourged himself remorselessly. If only because her

fault was chargeable on one of his own kin he should have striven with

might and main to help Flamby. The fact that she was daughter of the man

who had saved Don's life at peril of his own redoubled the sanctity of

the charge. And how had he acquitted himself of his stewardship?

Pitifully. A hot flush rose to his brow, and he hesitated to open a

letter from Nevin which also awaited his attention. But he forced

himself to the task and read that which completed his humility. Mrs.

Duveen had died of heart-failure two months before, whilst Paul had been

abroad, and Flamby was an orphan.

"Captain Courtier, who is at present home on leave, has favoured us with

direct instructions in the matter," Nevin continued, "and has placed a

generous credit at our disposal for the purpose of securing suitable

apartments for Miss Duveen, and for meeting the cost of her immediate

maintenance and fees, together with other incidental disbursements. We

have also secured authority to watch her interests in regard to any

pension or gratuity to which she may be entitled as a minor and orphan

of a non-commissioned officer killed in action...."

In the drawing-room, Yvonne very softly was playing a setting of Edgar

Allan Poe's exquisite verses, _To One in Paradise_, and such is the

magic of music wedded to poetry that it opened a door in Paul's heart

and afforded him a glimpse of his inner self. He had neglected poor

little Flamby, and his sensitive mind refused to contemplate her

loneliness now that her last friend had been taken from her.

"Thou wast all that to me, love,

For which my soul did pine--

A green isle in the sea, love,

A fountain and a shrine,

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,

And all the flowers were mine...."

Paul rose and quietly entered the drawing-room. Yvonne looked up as he

opened the door, and he saw that her eyes were dim. He knelt on a corner

of the music-chair and clasped his arms tightly about her shoulders,

pressing her cheek against his. As she ceased playing and turned her

head he kissed her ardently, holding her fast and watching her with

those yearning eyes whose gaze can make a woman's heart beat faster. She

leaned back against him, sighing.

"Do you know that that is the first time you have kissed me since you

returned?" she asked.

"Yvonne, forgive me. Don't misunderstand. You never doubt me, do you?"

"Sometimes--I don't seem to matter to you so much as I did."

Never releasing her he moved around so that they were side by side upon

the narrow seat. "You matter more than anything in the world," he said.

"You are so near to my heart day and night that I seem to have you

always in my arms." He spoke softly, his lips very close to Yvonne's;

her golden hair brushed his forehead. "You are the music to which I

write the words. The memory of your lightest action since the very hour

we met I treasure and revere. Without you I am nothing. All I dream and

all I hope I dream and hope for you."

Yvonne ran her white fingers through his hair and looked up into his

face. Paul kissed her, laughing happily. "My darling Yvonne," he

whispered, "Do I sometimes forget to make love to you? It is only

because I feel that you are so sure of me. Do you know that since I left

you I have heard your voice like a prayer at twilight, seen your eyes

watching me as I slept and found your hair gleaming in many a golden

sunset."

"Of course I don't," cried Yvonne, with mock severity. "How can I

possibly know what you are thinking when you are hundreds of miles away!

I only know that when you come back you forget to kiss me."

"I don't forget, Yvonne. I think of you a thousand times a day, and

every thought is a kiss."

"Then you have only thought of me twice to-day," said Yvonne, standing

up and crossing to a Chesterfield. She seated herself, resting her head

upon a black cushion and posing deliberately with the confidence of a

pretty woman.

"That is a challenge," replied Paul, "and I accept it."

He followed her, but she covered her face with her hands tauntingly, and

only resigned her lips after a long struggle. Then they sat silently,

very close together, the golden head leaning against the dark one, and

ere long Paul's restless mind was at work again.

"Don is on leave, Yvonne," he said. "Isn't that fine?"

"Oh, yes," replied Yvonne, stifling a sigh. "He called yesterday."

"He called!" cried Paul, sitting upright excitedly. "You did not tell

me."

"How could I tell you, Paul? I have not seen you alone until now. Don

did not know you were away. A letter came from him two days ago----"

"I know. That was how I learned of his being home."

"He said he would come this afternoon. Oh--perhaps here he is."

Yvonne smoothed her skirt and moved to a discreet distance from Paul as

a parlourmaid came in. Paul leapt up, eagerly.

"Captain Courtier?" he cried to the girl.

"Yes, sir."

Paul ran out into the hall. Yvonne rose from the Chesterfield and slowly

walked back to the piano. She stood for a while idly turning over the

pages of music; then, as her husband did not return, she went up to her

room. She could hear Paul talking excitedly as she passed the study

door.

VI

Don gazed curiously around the large and lofty room. In early Victorian

days this apartment had been a drawing-room or salon, wherein crinolined

dames and whiskered knights had discoursed exclusively in sparkling

epigrams according to certain memoirs in which this salon was frequently

mentioned. It had been selected by Paul for a workroom because of its

charming outlook upon the secluded little garden with its sundial and

irregularly paved paths, and because it was the largest room in the

house. Although in a lesser degree than Paul, Don also was responsive to

environment, and he found himself endeavouring to analyse the impression

made upon his mind by Paul's study.

He had last seen it during the time that Paul, newly returned from

Florence, was passing the proofs of his great tragedy, _Francesca of the

Lilies_. Then it had been the study of a Cardinal of the Middle Ages or

of a mediaeval noble devoted to the arts. In what respect did it differ

now? The massive table of cedar of Lebanon, figured in ivory and mother

o' pearl with the Rape of Proserpine, the work of a pupil of Benvenuto

Cellini, remained, as also did the prie-dieu, enriched with silver

daisies, which Michelangelo had designed for Margaret of Navarre. The

jewelled crucifix was gone, together with the old chain bible and ebony

lectern from the Cistercian Monastery at La Trappe. The curious chalice,

too, of porphyry starred with beryl, taken at the sack of Panama, and

recovered a century later from an inn at Saragossa, had disappeared from

its place; and where illuminated missals and monkish books had formerly

lain upon the long window seat were works dealing with the war,

associated with its causes or arising out of it: Ambassador Gerard to

_The Book of Artemas_, _God the Invisible King_ and _Also Sprach

Zarathustra_. Even the magnificent _Book of Hours_ bearing the monogram

of Diana of Poictiers and bound by Aldo Manuzio, Byzantine fashion, in

carved ivory wreathed about with gold filigree and studded with fourteen

precious stones, was hidden.

Those tapestries for which Paul had paid so extravagant a price at the

sale of the Mayence heirlooms were stripped from the wall, and gone were

the Damascus sword, the lance-head and black armour of Godfrey de

Bouillon. A definite note was lacking; the stage was in a state of

transition, and not yet set for the new drama.

Paul came in, hands extended in cordial welcome. "Good old Don!" he

cried. "On Friday I was within twenty miles of the part of the line

where I imagined you to be, but was unable to get across."

"How fortunate. You would have had a vain journey, Paul. I was in

Derbyshire on Friday. I would have met you this morning, but I knew you

would prefer to be _tete-a-tete_ with Yvonne."

"My dear fellow, Bassett ordained it otherwise. I found myself

surrounded by pressmen and picture people. Of course, he disclaimed

responsibility as usual, but I could read his guilt in his eyes. He

persists in 'booming' me as though I were an operatic nightingale with a

poor voice or a variety comedian who was not funny."

"Yvonne told you I had called?"

"Yes. You did not know I was away?"

"My knowledge of your movements up to the time that I left France was

based upon those two or three brief communications, partially

undecipherable, with which you have favoured me during the past six

months. I read your paper, _Le Bateleur_, in the _Review_. Everybody has

read it. Paul, you have created a bigger sensation with those five or

six thousand words than Hindenburg can create with an output of five or

six thousand lives!"

"It was designed to pave the way, Don. You think it has succeeded?"

"Succeeded! You have stirred up the religious world from Little Bethel

to St. Peter's." Don dropped into an armchair and began to load his pipe

from the Mycenaean vase. "Some of your facts are startlingly novel. For

instance, where on earth did you get hold of that idea about the

initiation of Christ by the Essenes at Lake Moeris in Egypt?"

Paul's expression grew wrapt and introspective. "From material in the

possession of Jules Thessaly," he replied. "In a tomb near the Pyramid

of Hawara in the Egyptian Fayum was found the sarcophagus of one

Menahim, chief of the Order of the Essenes, who were established near

Lake Moeris. Menahim's period of office dated from the year 18 B.C. to

the year of his death in the reign of Caligula, and amid the dust of his

bones was found the Golden Chalice of Initiation. I cannot hope to make

clear to you without a very lengthy explanation how the fact dawned upon

my mind that Jehoshoua of Nazareth, son of Joseph, became an initiate,

but the significance of these dates must be evident. When you see the

Chalice you will understand."

"Had it been found in Renan's time what a different _Vie de Christ_ we

should have had."

"Possibly. Renan's _Vie de Christ_ is an exquisite evasion, a jewelled

confession of failure. But there are equally wonderful things at

Thessaly's house, Don. You must come there with me."

"I shall do so without fail. It appears to me, Paul, that you have

materially altered your original plan. You have abandoned the idea of

casting your book in the form of a romance?"

"I have--yes. The purely romantic appeal may be dispensed with, I think,

in this case. _Zarathustra_ has entered the blood of the German people

like a virus from a hypodermic needle. I do not hesitate to accept its

lesson. Where I desire to cite instances of illustrative human lives

they will be strictly biographical but anonymous."

"You hope to succeed where Maeterlinck failed."

"Maeterlinck thinks as a poet and only fails when he writes as a

philosopher. Don, I wish I could have you beside me in my hours of

doubt. Thessaly is inspiring, but his influence is sheerly intellectual.

You have the trick of harmonising all that was discordant within myself.

I see my work as a moving pageant and every figure is in its appointed

place. I realise that all the knowledge of the world means nothing

beside one short human existence. Upon the Ogam tablets, the Assyrian

cylinders, the Egyptian monuments is written a wisdom perhaps greater

than ours, but it is cold, like the stone that bears it; within

ourselves it lives--all that knowledge, that universe of truth. What do

the Egyptologists know of the message of Egypt? I have stood upon the

summit of the Great Pyramid and have watched its shadow steal out and

out touching the distant lands with its sceptre, claiming Egypt for its

own; I have listened in the profound darkness at its heart to the voice

of the silence and have thought myself an initiate buried, awaiting the

unfolding of the mystic Rose of Isis. And science would have us believe

that that wondrous temple is a tomb! A tomb! when truly it is a

birthplace!"

His dark eyes glowed almost fiercely. To Don alone did he thus reveal

himself, mantled in a golden rhetoric.

"Mitrahina, too, the village on the mounds which cloak with their

memorable ashes the splendour that was Memphis; who has not experienced

the mournful allurement of those palm-groves amid which lie the fallen

colossi of Rameses? But how many have responded to it? They beckon me,

Don, bidding me to the gates of royal Memphis, to the palace of the

Pharaoh. A faint breeze steals over the desert, and they shudder and

sigh because palace and temple are dust and the King of the Upper and

Lower Land is but a half-remembered name strange upon the lips of men.

Ah! who that has heard it can forget the call, soft and mournful, of the

palm-groves of Mitrahina?

"I would make such places sacred and no vulgar foot should ever profane

them. Once, as I passed the entrance to the tomb of Seti in the Valley

of the Kings, I met a fat German coming out. He was munching sandwiches,

and I had to turn aside; I believe I clenched my fists. A picture of the

shameful Clodius at the feast of Bona Dea arose before me. My very soul

revolted against this profanation of the ancient royal dead. To left and

right upon the slopes above and perhaps beneath the very path along

which the gross Teuton was retiring lay those who ruled the world ere

Rome bestrode the seven hills, whose body-slaves were princes when the

proud states and empires of to-day slumbered unborn in the womb of Time.

Seti I! what a name of power! His face, Don, is unforgettable and his

image seems to haunt those subterranean halls in which at last he had

thought to find rest. To-day his tomb is a public resort, his alabaster

sarcophagus an exhibit at the Sloane Museum, and his body, stripped of

its regal raiment, is lying exposed to curious eyes in a glass case in

Cairo!

"We honour the departed of our own times, and tread lightly in God's

acre; why, because they passed from the world before Western

civilisation had raised its head above primeval jungles, should we fail

in our respect for Egypt's mightier dead? I tell you, Don, there is not

one man in a million who understands; who, having the eyes to see, the

ears to hear, has the soul to comprehend. And this understanding is a

lonely, sorrowful gift. I looked out from an observation-post on the

Somme over a landscape like the blasted heath in _Macbeth_. No living

thing moved, but the earth was pregnant with agony and the roar of the

guns from hidden pits was like that of the grindstones of hell. There,

upon the grave of an epoc, I listened to that deathly music and it

beckoned to me like the palm fronds of Mitrahina and spoke the same

message as the voice of the pyramid silence. Don! all that has ever

been, is, and within us dwells the first and the last."

VII

A silence fell between them which endured for a long time, such an

understanding silence as is only possible in rare friendships. Paul

began to fill his pipe, and Don almost regretfully broke the spell. "My

real mission," he said, "is to release you from a bargain into which you

entered blindfolded, without realising that you had to deal with an

utterly unprincipled partner."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"I owe a debt to the late Michael Duveen, Paul, which you generously

offered to assist me in liquidating----"

Paul reached over and grasped Don's arm. "Stop there!" he cried, "and

hear me. You are going to say that my enthusiasm has cooled----"

"I am going to say nothing of the kind."

"Ah, but you think it is so. Yet you know me so well, Don, that you

should understand me better. I handed the whole affair over to Nevin,

and to you that seems like ennui, I know. But it does not mean that; it

simply means that as a hopeless man of business I appoint another to do

what I know myself incapable of doing. Once I am committed to the

production of a book, Don, I cease to exist outside its pages. I live

and move and have my being in it. But please don't misunderstand.

Anything within my power to do for Flamby I will do gladly. I only

learned to-day of her second bereavement. Don, we must protect her from

the fate which so often befalls girls in such circumstances."

"My dear Paul, in accusing me of misjudging _you_, you are misjudging

_me_. If I don't understand you nobody does. My offer to release you

from the bargain is not to be understood as a reproach; it is a

confession. I am a man utterly devoid of common sense, one to whom

reason is a stranger and moderation an enemy. I am a funny joke. I

should be obliged if you would sell me to _Punch_."

"You puzzle me."

"I puzzle myself. Don Courtier is a conundrum with which I struggle

night and morning. In brief, Paul, I have been shopping with Flamby."

"With Flamby? Then she is in London?"

"She arrived yesterday morning, a most pathetic little picture in black.

I wish you could have seen her, Paul; then you might understand and

condone."

The vertical wrinkle between Paul's brows grew darker. His mind was a

playground of conflicting thoughts. When he spoke he did so almost

automatically. "She has never had a chance, Don. God knows I am eager to

help her."

"But I cannot permit it. To put the matter in a nutshell, I have already

spent roughly a hundred and twenty pounds in this worthy cause!"

Paul laughed outright. "My dear fellow, what are a hundred and twenty

pounds in the scale against your life? You are worth more to me than

sixty pounds!"

"This is only the beginning. Having beguiled her into an extravagant

mode of expenditure, from motives of self-protection I have been forced

to plunge deeper into the mire of deception. I have informed her that

she is to refer all tradespeople to Nevin. Quite innocently she may let

us in for any amount of money!"

Paul put his hands upon Don's shoulders, laughing more loudly than ever.

"I don't know to what extent your service has depleted your exchequer,

and how far you can afford to pursue the Quixotic, but for my own part

all I have is at your disposal--and at Flamby's."

"I shall see that no such demand is made upon you. But you must come and

visit her, Paul. She has few friends."

"Poor little girl. I will come when you like, Don. To-night I am going

to Thessaly's, and I wish you could join the party. He would welcome

you, I know."

"Impossible, unfortunately. I am dining with a man who was attached to

us for a time."

"Don't fill up your entire programme, Don, and leave no room for me.

Give me at least one whole day."

"To-morrow, then."

"Splendid. Thessaly will be joining us in the evening, too, and I am

anxious for you to renew your acquaintance. We had projected a ramble

around London's Bohemian haunts. I must keep in touch with the ideas of

contemporary writers, painters and composers, for these it is who make

opinion. Then I propose to plumb the depths of our modern dissipations,

Don. The physician's diagnosis is based upon symptoms of sickness."

"Certainly. A nation is known not by its virtues, but by its vices. In

the haversack of the fallen Frenchman it is true that we may find a silk

stocking, or a dainty high-heeled shoe, but in that of the German we

find a liver sausage. Most illuminating, I think. To-morrow, then. Shall

I call here for you? Yvonne might like to lunch with us. The wife of a

genius must often be very lonely."

VIII

Before the bookstall in the entrance to the Cafe Royal, Paul stood on

the following night, with Jules Thessaly and Don.

"I shall never cease to regret Kirchner," said Thessaly. "He popularised

thin legs, and so many women have them. Ha, Mario! here you are again on

the front page of a perfectly respectable weekly journal, just alighting

from the train. You look like an intelligent baboon, and your wife will

doubtless instruct Nevin directly her attention is drawn to this

picture. It creates an impression that she was not sober at the time.

What a public benefactor was he who introduced popular illustrated

journalism. He brought all the physical deformities of the great within

reach of the most modest purse."

"It is very curious," said Don, "but you do not appear in the

photograph, Mr. Thessaly. You appear in none that I have seen."

"Modesty is a cloak, Captain Courtier, which can even defy the camera.

Let us inhale the gratifying odour, suggestive of truffles frying in

oil, which is the hall-mark of your true cafe, and is as ambergris in

the nostrils of the gourmand. Do you inhale it?"

"It is unavoidable," replied Paul. "The triumph of Continental cookery

rests upon a basis of oil."

"We will bathe in the unctuous fumes. Enter, my friends."

Passing the swing-door they entered the cafe, which was full as usual,

so that at first it seemed as though they would find no accommodation.

"Twenty-five per cent of elbows are nudging fifty per cent of ribs,"

said Thessaly, "and ninety per cent of eyes are staring at Paul Mario.

Personally, my extreme modesty would revolt. I once endeavoured to

visualise Fame and the resultant picture was that of a huge room filled

with pretty women, all of whom watched me with the fixed gaze of nascent

love. It was exquisite but embarrassing. I think there is a table near

the corner, on the right, a spot sanctified by the frequent presence of

Jacob Epstein. Let us intrude."

They made their way to the table indicated by Thessaly, and the curious

sudden silence which notability imposes upon the ordinary marked their

progress. Paul's handsome olive face became the focus of a hundred

glances. Several people who were seated with their backs toward the

entrance, half rose to look covertly at him as he walked in. They seated

themselves at the marble-topped table, Don and Paul upon the plush

lounge and Thessaly upon a chair facing them. "I have a mirror before

me," said Thessaly, "and can stare without fear of rebuke. Yonder is a

group of Johnsons."

"To whom do you refer?" asked Don.

"To those young men wearing Soho whiskers and coloured collars. I call

them Johnsons because they regard Augustus John as their spiritual

father."

"And what is your opinion of his school?" inquired Don.

"He has no school. His work is aspirative, if you will grant me the

word; the striving of a soul which knew the art of an earlier

civilisation to seek expression in this. Such a man may have imitators,

but he can never have disciples."

"He is a master of paint."

"Quite possibly. Henry James was a master of ink, but only by prayer and

fasting can we hope to grasp his message. Both afford examples of very

strange and experienced spirits trammelled by the limitations of

imperfect humanity. Their dreams cannot be expressed in terms within the

present human compass. Debussy's extraordinary music may be explained

in the same way. Those who seek to follow such a lead follow a

Jack-o'-lantern. The more I see of the work of the Johnsons the more

fully I recognise it to embody all that we do not ask of art."

"Those views do not apply to the Johnsons' spiritual father?" suggested

Paul, laughingly.

"Not in the least. If we confounded the errors of the follower with the

message of the Master must not the Messianic tradition have died with

Judas?"

Paul gave an order to the waiter and Don began to load his pipe.

Thessaly watched him, smiling whilst he packed the Latakia mixture into

the bowl with meticulous care, rejecting fragments of stalk as

Paphnutius rejected Thais; more in sorrow than in anger.

"Half the absinthe drinker's joy is derived from filtering the necessary

drops of water through a lump of sugar," he said as Don reclosed his

pouch; "and in the same way, to the lover of my lady Nicotine the

filling of the pipe is a ritual, the lighting a burnt offering and the

smoking a mere habit."

"Quite agree," replied Don, fumbling for matches in the pocket of his

trench-coat, "as the Aunt would say. Our own pipe never tastes so sweet

as the other fellow's smells. There is Chauvin over there and I want to

speak to him. Perhaps he fails to recognise me in uniform. Ah! he has

seen me." He waved his hand to a fresh-coloured, middle-aged man seated

with a lady dressed in green, whose cerise hair lent her an interesting

likeness to a human geranium. Chauvin rose, having obtained the lady's

permission, bowed to her, and coming across to the table, shook Don

warmly by the hand.

"Paul," said Don, "This is Claude Chauvin. You have one of his pictures

in your dining-room. Paul Mario--Mr. Jules Thessaly. Chauvin, I know you

require another assistant in your studio. You cannot possibly turn out

so much black and white stuff for the sporting journals and all those

etchings as well as your big pictures."

"It is hopeless to expect to find anyone to help me," replied Chauvin.

"Nobody understands animals nowadays. I would pay a good assistant any

amount as well as putting him in the way of doing well for himself later

on."

"I am bringing a girl around to you in the morning who knows nearly as

much about animals as you know yourself."

"A girl."

"A girl--yes; a female Briton Riviere."

Chauvin's rather tired-looking eyes lighted up with professional

interest and he bent lower over the table upon which he was resting his

hands. "Really! Who is she?"

"Flamby Duveen. I would never trust her to anybody's care but yours,

Chauvin. She is the daughter of a man who saved my life and she is a

born artist as well. She starts at Guilder's on Monday. Her style wants

broadening of course. But look at this."

Don dived into the capacious pocket of his trench-coat and brought forth

a large envelope marked "On His Majesty's Service. _Strictly

Confidential._" From the envelope he took a water-colour drawing

representing a pair of long-legged ungainly colts standing snuggled up

to their mother under a wild briar hedge. He handed the drawing to

Chauvin, and Chauvin, adjusting a pair of huge horn-rimmed spectacles

upon his nose, examined it critically. All three watched him in silence.

Presently he removed the spectacles and laid the drawing down on the

table. He held out his hand to Don.

"Bring her along early," he said. "Good night." He returned to the human

geranium.

Don replaced the drawing in the official envelope, smiling happily. "Old

Chauvin is not exactly chatty," he remarked; "but he knows."

"I should say that he was a man of very extraordinary talent," said

Thessaly, "even if I were unacquainted with his work. His choice of a

companion alone marks him as no ordinary mortal."

Don laughed outright, fitting the envelope into his pocket again. "The

lady is a Parisienne," he replied, "and very entertaining company."

"Parisiennes make delightful companions for any man," declared Thessaly,

"and good wives for one who is fond of adventure. She is studying you

with keen interest, Mario."

"She probably regards me as an embodiment of mediaeval turpitude. People

persist in confusing novelists with their creations."

"Quite so. Yet because de Quincey was an opium-fiend, Poe a drunkard and

Oscar Wilde a pervert, it does not follow that every clever writer is

unfit for decent society. Even if he were, his popularity would not

suffer. Few things help a man's public reputation so much as his private

vices. Don't you think you could cultivate _hashish_, Mario? Sherlock

Holmes' weakness for cocaine has endeared him to the hearts of two

generations."

"I shall endeavour to dispense with it, Thessaly. Excepting a liking for

honey which almost amounts to a passion, my private life is exemplary."

"Honey? Most peculiar. Don't let Bassett know or he will paragraph the

fact. Honey to my way of thinking is a much overrated commodity which

survives merely because of its biblical reputation and its poetic

life-history. It is only one's imagination which lends to it the

fragrance of flowers. Personally I prefer treacle. Is Chauvin's

attachment to the French lady of a Platonic nature, Captain Courtier?"

"I cannot say. He is quite capable of marrying her."

"Probably he knows his own mind," Paul murmured absently.

"Quite probably; but does he know hers?" asked Thessaly. "I always think

this so important in London although it may not matter in Paris. Some

infatuations are like rare orchids. A certain youth of Cnidus fell in

love with a statue of Aphrodite, and my secretary, Caspar, has fallen in

love with Gaby Deslys. Apollonius of Tyana cured the Cnidian youth, but

what hope is there for Caspar? My nightly prayer is that he may find the

courage to shave his side-whiskers and renounce the passionate life--a

second Plato burning his poems."

* * * * *

Paul became absorbed in contemplation of the unique turmoil about him.

The excitement created by his entrance had somewhat subsided and the

various groups in the cafe had resumed their respective characteristics.

The place was seething with potential things; the pressure of force

might be felt. At a centre table a party of musicians talked excitedly,

one of them, a pale young man with feline eyes, shouting hoarsely and

continuously. Well-known painters were there, illustrating the fact that

many a successful artist patronises a cheap tailor. There was a large

blonde woman who smoked incessantly as she walked from table to table.

She seemed to have an extensive circle of acquaintances. And there was a

small dark girl with eyes feverishly bright who watched her; and

whenever the glances of the twain met, the big woman glared and the

small one sneered and showed her white teeth. A little fat man with a

large fat notebook sat near the door apparently engaged in compiling a

history of some kind and paying no attention whatever to a tall thin man

who persistently interrupted him by ordering refreshments. The little

fat man absently emptied glass after glass; his powers of absorption

were remarkable.

There were models with pale faces and short fabulous hair surrounding a

celebrated figure-painter who was said to have seven wives named after

the days of the week, and there were soldiers who looked like poets and

artists who looked like soldiers. A sculptor who had discovered the

secret of making ugliness out of beauty and selling it, was deep in

conversation with an author of shocking mysteries whose fame rested

largely upon his creation of the word "beetlesque" and the appearance of

a certain blue-faced ourang-outang in every story which he published.

Paul's immediate neighbours on the right-hand side were two earnest

young brushmen, one wearing military uniform, and the other a rational

check suit designed with much firmness. They shared a common pencil and

drank black coffee, demonstrating their ideas in line upon the marble

table-top. They evidently thought with Mr. Nevinson, that man invented

circles but the Lord created cubes. Beyond them was a lady of title who

aspired to the mantle of George Sand. In the absence of an Alfred de

Musset she had fled from her husband with a handsome actor of romantic

roles whom later she had left for an ugly violinist with a beautiful

technique. She was sipping pomegranate juice in the company of her

publisher and glancing under her lashes at a ferocious-looking ballad

writer who had just seated himself behind the next table from whence he

directed a malevolent glare upon no one in particular.

"His gentle work deserves a kinder master," said Thessaly, observing

Paul watching the melody-maker. "I have noticed, Mario, that although

there are few pressmen present, there are a number of publicists. Our

progress is merely in terminology after all. The writers who matter may

readily be recognised by their complacent air; the others, who have not

yet succeeded in mattering, by their hungry look. They have missed a

course in the banquet of life. They have failed to grasp the fact that

our artificial civilisation has made a mystery of marriage, which, veil

by veil, it is the duty of the successful novelist to disclose. If I

were a novelist I should seek my characters in the Divorce Court; if I

were a painter I should study those superstitions which have grown up

around human nudity so that the very word 'naked' has become invested

with a covert significance and must very shortly be obsolete. I

contemplate opening a new Pythagorean Institute for instruction of the

artistic young. Above the portal I shall cause to be inscribed the

following profound thought: 'Art does not pay; portrait and figure

painting do.'"

"Some portrait painters are artists," said Don.

"I agree: Velasquez for instance; and consider the treatment of the

velvet draperies in Collier's _Pomps and Vanities_ so widely popularised

by its reproduction in the Telephone Directory." He turned to Paul. "I

have noted no fewer than six novelists, Mario, engaged in outlining to

admirers projected masterpieces dealing with the war from a

psychological aspect. Think of the disappointments. Excepting the

creators of omniscient detectives and exotic criminals (who form a class

apart, self-contained, opulent and immune from the stress of life) every

writer dies with his greatest work unwritten. We are beginning to bore

one another. Let us proceed to Murray's and contemplate bare backs."

IX

One evening early in the following week Flamby and Mrs. Chumley stood

upon a platform of Victoria Station looking after a train from which

protruded a forest of waving hands. Somewhere amongst them was the hand

of Don, but because of that uncomfortable mistiness which troubled her

sight at times, Flamby was quite unable to distinguish anything clearly.

"Damn the German pigs," she said under her breath.

"Did I hear you swearing, dear?" asked Mrs. Chumley tearfully. "So many

girls seem to be able to swear nowadays. No doubt they find it a great

relief."

"I am so sorry," said Flamby breathlessly. "I had really made up my mind

never to swear again and never to say things in Latin or quote

Shakespeare; but it's very hard for me."

"It must be, dear. Quite agree. I once tried to make up my mind never to

give money to blind beggars again. It was in Cairo, and I found that so

many of them were not really blind at all. Do you know, dear, it was not

a bit of good. I found myself doing it when I wasn't thinking. I tried

going out without money and then all the blind men followed me about the

streets. It was most awkward. The poor things couldn't understand why I

had changed, of course."

"You had not changed, Mrs. Chumley. You never could change," said

Flamby, squeezing the old lady's arm as they made their way out of the

station. "You will always be generous, but I hope I shall not always

swear on the slightest provocation."

"I hope you won't, dear, if you think it would be as well."

* * * * *

Number twenty-three at The Hostel now was converted into a miniature

suite de luxe. Flamby's instinctive good taste had enabled her to

arrange her new possessions and her old to the best possible advantage.

The cost of those purely useful articles which had not been purchased

under the guidance of Don, as compared with such delightful things as

cushions and gowns, surprised her very much indeed, but the ingenious

Don had secured a quantity of cutlery, linen and other household

necessities from an acquaintance "in the wholesale trade," thus saving

Flamby more than half the usual cost. Once committed to an emprise,

Don's resource was limitless.

Flamby switched on the centre light of her little domain, fitted with a

charming shade of Japanese silk, and removing her coat (purchased

locally at a price which she had considered preposterous) she stood

gazing vacantly into the little square mirror above the mantelpiece

behind the china clock. It reflected the figure of a slim girl wearing a

blue serge skirt, a blue jersey coat and a grey velour hat--a very

pretty girl indeed, her colour heightened by the humid night air.

How swiftly her life had moved in that one short week. She stared at her

reflection with a sudden interest, seeking for signs of age. Eight days

ago she had possessed no friend in all the world; now, friends seemed to

have sprung up around her miraculously, and all at the bidding of Don.

From such lonely despondence as she had never known he had lifted her

into a new and brighter world. She had seen the studio of the great

Claude Chauvin; she was actually going to work there on three days of

every week. On the other three she was to attend the art school. The

crowning wonder of it all lay in the fact that Chauvin proposed to pay

her a salary. Her father had taught her to expect nothing but rebuffs,

although he had assured her that some day she would make a reputation as

an animal painter. She recognised that Don was the magician whose

transmuting wand had surrounded her with the gold of good fellowship. He

had forgotten nothing.

* * * * *

One day they had lunched at Regali's, that esoteric Italian restaurant

wherein disciples of all the Arts congregate to pay tribute to good

cooking and modest bills.

Don, who seemed to know everybody, presented the great Severus Regali

himself, a vast man ponderously moustached and endowed with a mighty

voice and the fierce bearing of a Bellino; a figure in _bravura_ with

the heart of a child. He bowed low before Flamby, one huge hirsute hand

pressed to his bosom.

"Ragout Regali is on to-day," he said; no more--but those words

constituted an initiation, admitting Flamby to the Epicurean circle.

Of Severus Regali and his famous ragout a story was told, and this was

the story as related by Don: No other chef in Europe (Regali had

formerly been chef to a Personage) could make a like ragout, and Regali

jealously retained the secret of the preparation, which he only served

to privileged guests. To him came M. Sapin, the great artist responsible

for the menus of a certain peer far-famed as the foremost living

disciple of Lucullus. A banquet extraordinary was shortly to take place,

and M. Sapin, the mastermind, came to beg of Regali the recipe for his

ragout. Wrapped in a fur-lined coat, the immortal Sapin descended from

his car (for his salary was that of a Cabinet Minister). Hollow-cheeked,

sallow, and having death in his eyes, he begged this favour of his

modest rival.

"It shall never be prepared by my hand again, Regali," he said. "My

physician gives me but one month of life."

"What!" cried Regali. "It is then a dying request?"

"It is indeed," was the mournful reply. "For this great affair I have

sought inspiration from all the classic authorities. I have considered

the dormice served with honey and poppy-seed and the grape-fed beccafico

dressed with _garum piperatum_, which, according to Petronius, were

served at Trimalchio's banquet. But neither of these rare dishes can

compare with Ragout Regali." Regali bowed. "Therefore, I beg of you,

grant me permission to prepare that supreme triumph of our beautiful

art, and in honour of the guest of the evening, to present it for the

first and, alas! the last time as 'Ragout Prince Leopold!'"

Regali consented, and that night after closing-time a strange scene was

enacted. Outside the restaurant stood the luxurious car of M. Sapin,

and downstairs in the kitchen, behind double-locked doors, the two chefs

made Ragout Regali, M. Sapin noting the method of preparation with those

pathetic dying eyes. But at the great banquet following the appearance

of "Ragout Prince Leopold," M. Sapin was summoned to the dining-room and

toasted by the epicures there gathered. This was his final triumph. He

died a few weeks later. But of such dream stuff was the wonder-dish to

whose mystery Regali had admitted Flamby with the words "Ragout Regali

is on to-day."

Another morning they went to Guilder's, the art school of which Don had

said, "They teach you everything except how to sell your pictures," and

Flamby made the acquaintance of Hammett, famous as a painter of dogs,

velvet and lace, under whom she was to work. The school surprised her.

It was so extremely untidy, and the big windows were so very dirty.

Busts and plaster casts, canvas-stretchers, easels, stools and stacks of

sketches littered the first, or "antique" room, and they were all

mantled in dust. There was no one in the "life" room at the time of

Flamby's visit, except an old Italian, who was a model, but who looked

like an organ-grinder. The suspended lamps, with their huge ugly shades,

had an ominous appearance by daylight, and Flamby found herself

considering the unfinished drawings and paintings which were visible

about the large bleak room, and trying to conjure up thought-forms of

the students who had executed them. Later she learned that there were a

number of smaller painting-rooms right and left, above and below, but

the dirtiest room of all was that in which lumps of clay lay casually

about on tables and rests and on the floor, where embryonic things

perched upon tripods, like antediluvian birds and saurians, and where

the daughters of Praxiteles and sons of Phidias pursued their claggy but

fascinating studies under a sculptor who possessed the inestimable gift

of teaching more than he knew himself. It was all very unromantic.

Strange how ugliness is the mother of beauty, and the sacred

fairy-winged scarab of Art comes forth from dirt.

* * * * *

One day Paul came to The Hostel. Flamby was engaged in hanging pictures

when she heard his voice in the courtyard below. She was standing on a

chair, but her heart began to beat so ridiculously that she was

compelled to sit down. She swore with a fluency and resource worthy of

her father, then in feverish haste attempted to strip off her overall

and wash her hands and adjust her unruly hair at one and the same time.

She ceased her frantic efforts as suddenly as she had begun them, drying

her hands and tousling her hair fiercely. What did she care? Let him

find her looking like a freak; it did not matter. "You are a little

ass," she told herself bitterly; "a silly little donkey! Have you _no_

brains? He doesn't care how you look. You should not care what he thinks

about you. Why don't you get in a panic when Don comes alone? You were

as red as a tomato half a minute ago; now you are as white as a ghost.

You poor contemptible little idiot!"

She snatched up the hammer which she had dropped and resumed the task of

attaching a picture fastener to the wall; but as she passed the mirror

above the fireplace she raised her disengaged hand and pulled a curl

into place. She banged a little brass nail so hard that it bounced out

of the plaster and fell upon the floor. Paul and Don were at the door

and the bell was ringing. Flamby achieved composure, and hammer in hand

she went to admit her visitors.

One swift glance she ventured, and in Paul's eyes she read that which

none could have deduced from his manner. The shameful phantom which had

pursued her so long had not been illusory; the photographs taken by Sir

Jacques had survived him. Paul had seen them. Momentarily she almost

hated him, and she found a savage and painful satisfaction in the

discovery that there was something in his nature less than godlike. It

should be easy to forget a man capable of believing that of her which

Paul believed. She longed to hide herself from his sight. But almost

with his first word of charming greeting came the old joy of hearing him

speak, the old foolish sense of inferiority, of helpless gladness.

Flamby even ceased to resist it, but she noted that Don was more silent

than usual; and once in his grey eyes she detected a look almost of

sadness. In the very charm of Paul's unchanged manner there lay a sting,

for if he had cared he could not have believed that which Flamby was

convinced he did believe and have dismissed the matter thus. But, of

course, he did not care.

"Why should he care?" she asked aloud, when again she found herself

alone. "He is just sorry that I am not a good girl. Dad saved the life

of his dearest friend, and therefore he considers it his duty to be kind

to me. But that is all."

In vain Flamby sought to reason with her unreasonable heart. What did

she desire?--that Paul should love her? A hot flush crept all over her

body. That his wife should die? Oh! what a coldly merciless thing was

logic! Flamby at this point discovered that she had been weeping for

quite a long time. She was very sorry for herself indeed; and

recognising this in turn she began to laugh, perhaps rather

hysterically. She was laughing when Mrs. Chumley came to look for her,

nor could she stop.

"Whatever are you laughing about, dear? Has Don been telling you one of

his ridiculous stories?"

"No. I just thought of a silly trifling thing, and began to laugh and

couldn't leave off."

"Quite understand, dear. I've been like that. I once began laughing in

the Tube; so unfortunate. And a man sitting opposite became really

annoyed. He had a very odd nose, you see, and he thought I was laughing

at it. I could see he thought so, which made me laugh all the more. I

had to get out at the next station, dear. Most ridiculous, because I

wasn't laughing at the poor man's nose at all, I was laughing at his

funny umbrella."

X

Six months stole almost unobserved into a dim land of memories. The war,

which ate up all things, did not spare the almanack; and what should

appear to later generations as the most stirring period in the world's

history, appeared to many of those who lived through it in London as a

dreary blank in their lives, a hiatus, an interval of waiting--a time to

be speedily forgotten when its dull aches were no more and absent dear

ones again worked side by side for simple ends, and the sweeter triumphs

of peace. Some there were whose sorrows drove them like Sarak in quest

of the Waters of Oblivion, but, to all, those days were poppy days,

unreal and meaningless; transitionary, as a bridge between unlike

states.

Flamby made progress at Guilder's, growing more and more familiar with

the technique of her art, but, under the careful guidance of Hammett,

never losing that characteristic nonchalance of style which was the

outstanding charm of her work. So many professors seem to regard their

pupils as misshapen creatures, who must be reduced to a uniform pattern,

but Hammett was not as one of these. He encouraged originality whilst he

suppressed eccentricity, and although, recognising the budding genius in

the girl's work, he lavished particular care upon her artistic

development, he never tried to make love to her, which proved that he

was not only a good painter, but also a sound philosopher. He took her

to lunch once or twice to Regali's, which created a coterie of female

enemies, but Flamby regarded all women in a more charitable manner since

her meeting with Mrs. Chumley, and some of her enemies afterwards became

her friends, for she bore them no malice, but sought them out and did

her utmost to understand them. Her father had taught her to despise the

pettiness of women, but in Mrs. Chumley's sweet sympathy she had found a

new model of conduct. Her later philosophy was a quaint one.

"It isn't fair, Mrs. Chumley," she said one day, sitting on the settee

in her little room, knees drawn up to chin and her arms embracing

them--"it isn't fair to hate a girl for being spiteful. You might as

well hate a cat for killing mice."

"Quite agree, dear. I am glad you think so."

"Women are different from men. They haven't got the same big interests

in life, and they are not meant to have. I am sorry for women who have

to live alone and fight for themselves. But I can't be sorry for those

who _want_ to fight. Loneliness must be very terrible, and there is

really no such thing as a girl friend after school days, is there?

Except for very ugly girls or very daft ones."

"I am sure you would be a staunch friend to anyone, dear."

"Yes; but they don't know it, you see. Naturally they judge me by

themselves," said Flamby wistfully. "I used to hate being a woman before

I met you, Mrs. Chumley, but I am not quite so sorry now."

"I am glad, dear. So nice of you to say so."

"If there were no men in the world I think women might be nicer,"

continued Flamby the philosopher--"not at first, of course, but when

they had got over it. Nearly all the mean things girls do to one another

are done because of men, and yet all the splendid things they do are

done for men as well. Aren't we funny? Three of the girls from the

school went to be nurses recently, one because her boy had been killed,

another because she was in love with a doctor, and the third because she

had heard that a great many girls became engaged to Colonials in France.

Not one of them went because she wanted to be a nurse. Now, if _you_

went, Mrs. Chumley, you would go because you were sorry for all the poor

wounded, I know. It would have been just the same when you were

eighteen, and that's why I think you are so wonderful."

Mrs. Chumley became the victim of silent merriment, from which she

recovered but slowly. "You are a really extraordinary child, dear," she

said. "Yet you seem to have quite a number of girl friends come to see

you as well as boys."

"Yes. You see I make allowances for them and then they are quite good

friends."

"Who was that fair man who took you to the theatre last night, and

brought you home in a lovely car?"

"Orlando James. He has the next studio to Mr. Chauvin. I hate him."

Mrs. Chumley's blue eyes became even more circular than usual. "But you

went to the theatre with him?"

"Yes; that was why I went. He buys me nice presents, too. I wouldn't

take them if I liked him."

* * * * *

Presently, retiring to her own abode, Flamby picked up a copy of a daily

paper and stared for a long time at two closely-printed columns headed,

"Mr. Paul Mario's Challenge to the Churches." The article was a

commentary by a prominent literary man upon Paul's second paper, _Le

Monde_, which had appeared that week and had occasioned even wider

comment than the first, _Le Bateleur_. Long excerpts had been printed by

practically every journal of note in Great Britain. It had been

published in full in New York, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Christiania and

Copenhagen, and had been quoted at great length by the entire Colonial

press. It was extraordinary; revolutionary, but convincing. It appealed

to every man and woman who had loved, lost and doubted; it was written

with conviction and displayed knowledge beyond the compass of ordinary

minds. Touching as it did upon mysteries hitherto veiled from public

ken, it set the civilized world agog, hoping and questioning, studying

the secrets of the Tarot and seeking to divine the hidden significance

of the word of power, _Yod-he-vau-he_.

Flamby, disciple of the Greek sages, could face the truth unflinchingly,

and now she recognised that to endeavour to battle against the memory of

Paul Mario was a waste of energy. But because her pride was lofty and

implacable she avoided meeting him, yet could not avoid following all

that he said and wrote, nor could her pride withhold her from seeking

glimpses of him in places which she knew him to frequent. _Le Monde_

frightened her. It had the authority of conviction based upon knowledge,

and it slew hope in her breast. If nothing was hidden from this

wonderful man, why did he omit to explain the mystery of unrequited

love?

On more than one occasion Flamby had found herself in that part of

Chelsea where Paul's house was situated, and from a discreet distance

she had looked at his lighted windows, and then had gone home to

consider her own folly from a critical point of view. Flamby, the human

Eve, mercilessly taxed by Flamby the philosopher, pleaded guilty to a

charge of personal vanity. Yes, she had dared to think herself

pretty--until she had seen Yvonne Mario. Flamby, the daughter of Michael

Duveen, had defined Yvonne's appearance as "a slap in the face." She no

longer expected any man who had seen Yvonne Mario to display the

slightest interest in little insignificant Flamby Duveen; for Yvonne

possessed the type of beauty which women count irresistible, but which

oddly enough rarely enchains the love of men, which inflames the

imagination without kindling the heart. Thus was the fairness of the

daughter of Icarius, which might not withhold Ulysses from the arms of

Calypso, and of this patrician beauty was Fulvia, whom Antony forgot

when the taunting smiles of Cleopatra set his soul on fire.

That Paul's esteem was diminished Flamby had known from the very hour

that he had quitted Lower Charleswood without word of farewell. His

first visit to The Hostel had confirmed her opinion, although

confirmation was not needed. He had visited her twice since then; once

at Chauvin's studio and once at Guilder's. She had met him on a third

occasion by chance. His manner had been charming as ever but marked by a

certain gravity, and as Flamby had thought, by restraint. Sense of a

duty to Don alone had impelled him to see her. He had never mentioned

his wife.

* * * * *

Flamby first saw Yvonne in the cloisteresque passage into which

Chauvin's studio opened, for the studio was one of a set built around

three sides of a small open courtyard in the centre of which was a

marble faun. Orlando James, the fashionable portrait painter, occupied

the studio next to Chauvin. Flamby had been rather anxious to meet James

because Chauvin had warned her to avoid him, and one afternoon as she

was leaving for home, she came out into the passage at the same moment

that a man and a woman passed the studio door on their way to the gate.

The woman walked on without glancing aside, but the man covertly looked

back, bestowing a bold glance of his large brown eyes upon Flamby. It

was Orlando James. She recognised him immediately, tall, fair,

arrogantly handsome and wearing his soft hat _a la Mousquetaire_. But,

at the moment, Flamby had no eyes for the debonair Orlando. Stepping

back into the shadow of the door, she gazed and gazed, fascinatedly, at

the tall, graceful figure of his companion whose slim, daintily shod

feet seemed to disdain the common pavement, whose hair of burnished gold

gleamed so wonderfully in the wintry sunlight. Flamby's heart would have

told her even if she were not familiar with the many published

photographs that this elegant woman was Yvonne Mario. Opening the gate,

Orlando James held it whilst Yvonne passed out; then ere following her

he looked back again smiling destructively at Flamby.

He was painting Yvonne's portrait, as Flamby had pointed out to Chauvin

when Chauvin had uttered veiled warnings against his neighbour.

"I know, my dear kid," Chauvin had replied, peering over his horn-rimmed

spectacles; "but Mrs. Paul Mario can walk in where angels fear to tread.

She is Mrs. Paul Mario, my dear kid, and if Mr. Paul Mario approves it

is nobody else's business. But your Uncle Chauvin does not approve and

your Uncle Chauvin is responsible to your Uncle Don."

"Don't call him that!" Flamby had cried, with one of her swift changes

of mood. "It sounds damned silly!"

Thereupon Chauvin had laughed until he had had to polish his spectacles,

for Chauvin was a cheery soul and the embodiment of all that Muerger

meant when he spoke of a Bohemian. "Oh! oh!" he had chuckled--"you

little devil! I must tell Hammett." And he had been as good as his word;

but that same day he had bought Flamby a huge box of chocolates which

was a direct and highly immoral encouragement of profanity.

Nevertheless Flamby managed to make the acquaintance of Orlando James,

but she did not tell Chauvin. She detested James, but it had been very

gratifying to be noticed by a man actually in the company of the

dazzling Yvonne Mario. Flamby had profound faith in her ability to take

care of herself and not without sound reason, for she was experienced

and wise beyond her years, and James's pride in his new conquest amused

her vastly because she knew it to be no conquest at all. Only with age

do women learn that the foolish world judges beauty harshly and that the

judgment of the foolish world may not be wholly neglected. Thus, for

human life is a paradox, this knowledge comes when it is no longer of

any use, since every woman is not a Ninon de Lenclos.

Of such-like matters were Flamby's thoughts as she sat squeezed up into

the smallest possible compass upon her settee, arms embracing knees;

and, as was so often the case, they led her back to Paul Mario. It was

wonderful how all paths seemed to lead to Paul Mario. She sighed,

reaching down for the newspaper which had slipped to the floor. As her

fingers touched it, the door-bell rang.

Flamby jumped up impetuously, glancing at the celebrated china clock,

which recorded the hour of ten p.m. She assumed that Mrs. Chumley had

called for what she was wont to describe as "a goodnight chat." Flamby

opened the door, and the light shone out upon Paul Mario.

XI

There are surprises which transcend the surprising, and as the finer

tones of music defeat our ears and pass by us unnoticed so do these

super-dramatic happenings find us unmoved. Flamby was aware of a vague

numbness; she felt like an automaton, but she was quite composed.

"Good evening, Mr. Mario," she said. "How nice of you to call."

The trite precision of her greeting sounded unfamiliar--the speech of a

stranger.

"May I come in, or will the lateness of my visit excite comment among

your neighbours?"

"Of course you may come in."

Paul walked into the cosy little sitting-room and Flamby having closed

the door contrived to kick the newspaper under the bureau whilst placing

an armchair for Paul. Paul smiled and made a nest of cushions in a

corner of the settee. "Sit there, Flamby," he said, "and let me talk to

you."

Flamby sat down facing him, and her nerves beginning to recover from the

shock imposed upon them, she found that her heart was really beating,

and beating rapidly. Paul was in evening dress, and as the night was

showery, wore a loose Burberry. A hard-working Stetson hat, splashed

with rain, he had dropped upon the floor beside his chair. His face

looked rather gaunt in the artificial light, which cast deep shadows

below his eyes, and he was watching her in a way that led her to hope,

yet fear, that he might have come to speak about the Charleswood

photographs. He was endowed with that natural distinction whose

possessor can never be ill at ease, yet he was palpably bent upon some

project which he scarcely knew how to approach.

"Will you have a cigarette?" asked Flamby, in a faint voice. "You may

smoke your pipe if you would rather."

"May I really?" said Paul buoyantly. "It is a very foul pipe, and will

perfume your curtains frightfully."

"I like it. Lots of my visitors smoke pipes."

"You have a number of visitors, Flamby?"

"Heaps. I never had so many friends in my life."

Paul began to charge his briar from a tattered pouch. "Have you ever

thought, Flamby, that I neglected you?" he asked slowly.

"Neglected me? Of course not. You have been to see me twice, and I felt

all the time that I was keeping you from your work. Besides--why should

I expect you to bother about me?"

"You have every reason to expect it, Flamby. Your father was--a tenant

of my uncle, and as I am my uncle's heir, his debts are mine. Your

father saved me from the greatest loss in the world. Lastly"--he lighted

his pipe--"I want you to count me amongst your friends."

He held the extinguished match in his fingers, looking around for an

ash-tray. Flamby jumped up, took the match and threw it in the hearth,

then returned slowly to her place. Her hands were rather unsteady, and

she tucked them away behind her, squeezing up closely against the

cushions. "We _are_ friends," she said. "You have always been my

friend."

"I don't want you to feel alone in the world, as though nobody cared for

you. When Don is home I have no fear, but when he is away there is

really no one to study your interests, and, after all, Flamby, you are

only a girl."

"There is Mrs. Chumley and Mr. Hammett and Claude Chauvin."

"Three quite delightful people, Flamby, I admit. But Hammett and Chauvin

cannot always be with you, and Mrs. Chumley's sweet and unselfish life

affords nothing but an illustration of unworldliness. Yet, if these were

your only friends, I should be more contented."

Flamby tapped her foot upon the carpet and stared down at it unseeingly.

"Are there some of my friends you don't think quite nice?" she asked.

Her humility must have surprised many a one who had thought he knew her

well.

Paul bent forward, resting one hand upon the head of the settee. "I know

very little about your friendships, Flamby. That is why I reproach

myself. But a girl who lives alone should exercise the greatest

discretion in such matters. You must see that this is so. Friends who

would be possible if you were under the care of a mother become

impossible when you are deprived of that care. It is not enough to know

yourself blameless, Flamby. Worldly folks are grossly suspicious,

especially of a pretty girl, and believe me, life is easier and sweeter

without misunderstanding."

"Someone has been telling you tales about me," said Flamby, an ominous

scarlet enflaming her cheeks.

Paul laughed, bending further forward and seeking to draw Flamby's hands

out from their silken hiding-place. She resisted a little, averting her

flushed face, but finally yielded, although she did not look at Paul.

"Dear little Flamby," he said, and the tenderness in his voice seemed

now to turn her cold. "You are not angry with me?" He held her hands

between his own, looking at her earnestly. She glanced up under her

lashes. "If I had not cared I should have said nothing."

"Everybody goes on at me," said Flamby tremulously. "I haven't done any

harm."

"Who has been 'going on' at you, little Flamby?"

"_You_ have, and Chauvin, and everybody."

"But what have they said? What have _I_ said?"

"That I am no good--an absolute rotter!"

"Flamby! Who has said such a thing? Not Chauvin, I'll swear, and not I.

You are wilfully misjudging your real friends, little girl. Because you

are clever--and you are clever, Flamby--you have faith in your judgment

of men yet lack faith in your judgment of yourself. Now, tell me

frankly, have you any friends of whom Don would disapprove?"

"No. Don trusts me."

"But he does not trust the world, Flamby, any more than I do, and the

world can slay the innocent as readily as the guilty."

"_I_ know!" cried Flamby, looking up quickly. "It was Mr. Thessaly who

told you."

"Who told me what?"

"That he had seen me at supper with Orlando James. I didn't see him, but

James said he was there."

She met Paul's gaze for a moment and tried to withdraw her hands, but he

held them fast, and presently Flamby looked down again at the carpet.

"Whoever told me," said Paul, "it is the truth. Do you write often to

Don?"

"Yes--sometimes."

"Then write and ask him if he thinks you should be seen about with

Orlando James and I shall be content if you will promise to abide by his

reply. Will you do that, Flamby? Please don't be angry with me because I

try to help you. I have lived longer than you and I have learned that if

we scorn the world's opinion the world will have its revenge. Will you

promise?"

"Yes," said Flamby, all humility again.

Paul stood up, taking his hat from the floor and beginning to button his

Burberry. "I am coming to see you at the school one day soon, but if

ever there is anything you want to tell me or if ever I can be of the

slightest use to you, telephone to me, Flamby. Don't regard me as a

bogey-man." Flamby had stood up, too, and now Paul held her by the

shoulders looking at her charming downcast face. "We are friends, are we

not, little Flamby?"

Flamby glanced up swiftly. "Yes," she said. "Thank you for thinking

about me."

XII

The rain-swept deserted streets made a curious appeal to Paul that

night--an appeal to something in his mood that was feverish and unquiet,

that first had stirred in response to an apparently chance remark of

Thessaly's and that had sent him out to seek Flamby in despite of the

weather and the late hour. He did not strive to analyse it, but rather

sought to quench it, unknown, and his joy in the steady downpour was a

reflection of this sub-conscious state. Self-distrust, vague and

indefinite, touched him unaccountably. He considered the intellectual

uproar (for it was nothing less) which he had occasioned by the

publication of his two papers--comprising as they did selections from

the first part of his book. The attitude of the Church alone indicated

how shrewdly he had struck. He had bred no mere nine days' wonder but

had sowed a seed which, steadily propagating, already had assumed tall

sapling form and had unfolded nascent branches. The bookstalls were

beginning to display both anonymous pamphlets and brochures by

well-known divines; not all of them directly attacking Mario nor openly

defending dogma, but all of them, covertly or overtly, being aimed at

him and his works. He had been inundated with correspondence from the

two hemispheres; he had been persecuted by callers of many

nationalities; a strange grey-haired woman with the inspired eyes of a

Sita who had addressed him as _Master_ and acclaimed him one long

expected, and a party of little brown men, turbaned and urbane, from

India, who spoke of the _Vishnu-Purana_, hailing him as a brother, and

whose presence had conjured up pictures of the forests of Hindustan. A

dignified Chinaman, too, armed with letters of introduction, had

presented him with a wonderful book painted upon ivory of the _Trigrams

of Fo-Hi_. But most singular visitor of all was a sort of monk, having a

black, matted beard and carrying a staff, who had gained access to the

study, Paul never learned by what means, and who had thundered out an

incomprehensible warning against "unveiling the shrine," had denounced

what he had termed "the poison of Fabre d'Olivet" and had departed

mysteriously as he had come.

There had been something really terrifying in the personality of this

last visitor, power of some kind, and Paul, whose third paper, _La

Force_, was in the press, seemed often to hear those strange words

ringing in his ears, and he hesitated even now to widen the chasm which

already he had opened and which yawned threateningly between the old

faith and the new wisdom which yet was a wisdom more ancient than the

world. He was but a common man, born of woman; no Krishna conceived of a

Virgin Devaki, nor even a Pythagoras initiate of Memphis and heir of

Zoroaster; and this night he distrusted his genius. What if he should

beckon men, like a vaporous will-o'-the-wisp, out into a morass of error

wherein their souls should perish? His power he might doubt no longer; a

thousand denunciations, a million acclamations, had borne witness to it.

And he had barely begun to speak. Truly the world awaited him and

already he bent beneath the burden of a world's desire.

* * * * *

Few pedestrians were abroad and no cabs were to be seen. Every motor-bus

appeared to be full inside, with many passengers standing, and even a

heroic minority hidden beneath gleaming umbrellas on top. Paul had found

the interiors of these vehicles to possess an odour of imperfectly

washed humanity, and he avoided the roof, unless a front seat were

available, because of the existence of that type of roof-traveller who

converts himself into a human fountain by expectorating playfully at

selected intervals. Theatre audiences were on their several ways home,

and as Paul passed by the entrance to a Tube station he found a

considerable crowd seeking to force its way in, a motley crowd

representative of every stratum of society from Whitechapel to Mayfair.

Women wearing opera cloaks and shod in fragile dress-shoes stood

shivering upon the gleaming pavement beside Jewesses from the East-End.

Fur-collared coats were pressed against wet working raiments, white

gloved hands rested upon greasy shoulders. Officers jostled privates,

sailors vied with soldiers in the scrum before the entrance to the

microbic land of tunnels. War is a potent demagogue.

Isolated standard lamps whose blackened tops gave them an odd appearance

of wearing skull caps, broke the gloom of the rain mist at wide

intervals. All shops were shut, apparently. One or two cafes preserved a

ghostly life within their depths, but their sombre illuminations were

suggestive of the Rat Mort. Musicians from theatre orchestras hurried in

the direction of the friendly Tube, instrument cases in hand, and one or

two hardy members of the Overseas forces defied the elements and lounged

about on corners as though this were a summer's evening in Melbourne.

Policemen sheltered in dark porches. Paul walked on, his hands thrust

into his coat pockets and the brim of his hat pulled down. He

experienced no discomfort and was quite contented with the prospect of

walking the remainder of the way home; he determined, however, to light

his pipe and in order to do so he stepped into the recess formed by a

shop door, found his pouch and having loaded his briar was about to

strike a match when he saw a taxi-cab apparently disengaged and

approaching slowly. He stepped out from his shelter, calling to the man,

and collided heavily with a girl wearing a conspicuous white raincoat

and carrying an umbrella.

She slipped and staggered, but Paul caught her in time to save her from

a fall upon the muddy pavement. "I am sincerely sorry," he said with

real solicitude. "I know I must have hurt you."

"Not in the least," she replied in a low tone which might have passed

for that of culture with a less inspired observer than Paul. A faint

light from the head lamp of the cab which had drawn up beside the

pavement, touched her face. She was young and would have been pretty if

the bloom of her cheeks and the redness of her lips had not been due to

careful make-up; for her features were good and, as Paul recognised,

experiencing a sensation of chill at his heart, not unlike those of his

wife. If he could have imagined a debauched Yvonne, she would have

looked like this waif of the night who now stood bending beneath the

shelter of her wet umbrella upon which the rain pattered, ruefully

rubbing a slim silken-clad ankle.

"I can only offer one reparation," Paul persisted. "You must allow me to

drive you home."

The cabman coughed dryly, reaching around to open the door. "It's a

rotten night, sir," he said, "and I'm short of petrol. Make it a double

fare."

"Really," declared the girl with that exaggerated drawling accent, "I

can manage quite well."

"Please don't argue," said Paul, smiling and assisting her into the cab.

"Tell me where you want to go."

She gave an address near Torrington Square and Paul got in beside her.

"Now," he said as the cab moved off, "I want to talk to you. You must

not be angry with me but just listen! In the first place I know I

collided with you roughly and I am sorry, but you deliberately got in my

way and I did not hurt your ankle at all!"

"What do you mean?" she cried, the accent more overdone than ever. "I

thought you were a gentleman!"

"Perhaps you were wrong. It is one of the most difficult things in the

world to recognise a gentleman. But we can all recognise the truth and I

want you to admit that I have told you the truth."

"Did you get me in here to start the Bible-banging business?" inquired

the girl, her factitious refinement deserting her. "Because if you did

I'm getting out."

"You are going to do nothing of the kind," said Paul, patting her

white-gloved hand. "You are going to tell me all about yourself and I am

going to show you your mistakes and see if some of them cannot be put

right."

"You're nothing to do with the Salvation Army, are you?" she asked

sarcastically. But already she was half enslaved by the voice and manner

of Paul. "Do you think I don't know my mistakes? Do you think preaching

can do me any good? Are you one of those fools who think all women like

me only live the way we do because we can't see where it will end? I

know! I know! And I don't care! See that? The sooner the better!" Her

sudden violence was that of rebellion against something akin to fear

which this strange picturesque-looking man threatened to inspire in

her--and it formed no part of her poor philosophy to fear men.

Paul took her hand and held it firmly. "Little chance acquaintance," he

said, "was there never anyone in the world whom you loved?--never anyone

who was good to you?" She turned aside from him, making no reply. "If

ever there was such a one tell me."

The cab had already reached the Square, and now the man pulled up before

a large apartment-house, and the girl withdrew her hand and rose. "It's

no good," she said. "It's no good. I think you mean to be kind, but

you're wasting your time. Good night."

"I have not finished," replied Paul, opening the door for her. "I am

coming to see where you live before I say good night."

He followed her out, directing the man to wait and smiling grimly at the

thought of his own counsel to Flamby anent giving the world cause for

suspicion.

* * * * *

The room in which Paul found himself was on the first floor, over

looking the square, and was well but conventionally furnished. A fire

blazed in the grate, and the draped mantelpiece was decorated with a

number of photographs of junior officers, many of them autographed. His

companion, who said her name was Kitty Chester, had discarded her

raincoat and hat, and now stood before the fire arrayed in a smart plaid

skirt and a white silk blouse, cut very low. She had neat ankles and a

slim figure, but her hands betrayed the fact that she had done manual

work at some time in her career. She was much more haggard than he had

been able to discern her to be in the dim light of the cab lamp. Taking

a cigarette from a box upon the table she lighted it and leaned back

against the mantelpiece.

"Well," she said, "another blank day;" and obviously she was trying to

throw off the spell which Paul had almost succeeded in casting upon her

in the cab. "Barred the Empire, barred the Alhambra, and now the old Pav

is a thing of the past, too. I never thought I should find myself

blowing through the rain all dressed up and nowhere to go."

Paul watched her silently for a moment. In Kitty Chester he recognised

the answer to his doubts, and because that answer was yet incomplete,

his genius responded and was revivified. As of old the initiate was

tested in order that he might learn the strength of his wisdom, so now a

test was offered to the wielder of the sword of truth. Paul did not

immediately seek to re-establish control of this wayward spirit, but

talked awhile lightly and sympathetically of her life and its trials.

Presently: "I suppose you are sometimes hard up?" he said.

"Sometimes!"

"But I can see that you would resent an offer of help."

"I should. Cut it out."

"I have no intention of pressing the point. But have you no ambition to

lead any different life?"

"My life's my own. I'll do what I like with it. I'd have ended it long

ago, but I hadn't got the pluck. Now you know."

"Yes," replied Paul--"now I know. Come and sit down here beside me."

"I won't."

"You will. Come and sit down here."

Kitty Chester met the fixed gaze of his eyes and was lost. With the

ghost of a swagger in her gait she crossed to the red plush sofa upon

which Paul was seated and lounged upon the end of it, one foot swinging

in the air. She had a trick of rubbing the second finger of her left

hand as if twisting a ring, and Paul watched her as she repeated the

gesture. He rested his hand upon hers.

"Did you love your husband?" he asked.

Kitty Chester stood up slowly. Her right hand, which held the lighted

cigarette, went automatically to her breast. She wore a thin gold chain

about her neck. She was staring at Paul haggardly.

"You did love him," he continued. "Is he dead?"

Paul's solicitude, so obviously real, so wonderfully disinterested and

so wholly free from cant, already had kindled something in the girl's

heart which she had believed to be lifeless, and for ever cold. Now, his

swift intuition and the grave sympathy in his beautiful voice imposed

too great a test upon the weakened self-control of poor Kitty. Without

even a warning quiver of the lips she burst into passionate sobs.

Dropping weakly down upon the sofa she cried until her whole body shook

convulsively. Paul watched her in silence for some time, and then put

his arm about her bowed shoulders.

"Tell me," he said. "I understand." And punctuated by that bitter

weeping the story was told. Kitty had been in the service of a county

family and had married a young tradesman of excellent prospects. Two

short years of married life and then the War. Her husband was ordered

to France. One year of that ceaseless waiting, hoping, fearing, which

war imposes upon women, and then an official telegram. Kitty returned to

service--and her baby died.

"What had I done," she cried wildly. "What had I done to deserve it? I'd

gone as straight as a girl can go. There was nobody else in the world

for me but him. Then my baby was taken, and the parson's talk about God!

What did anything matter after that! Oh, the loneliness. The loneliness!

Men don't know what that loneliness is like--the loneliness of a woman.

They have their friends, but nobody wants to be friends with a lonely

woman. There are only two ways for her. I tried to kill myself, and I

was too big a coward, so I took the easy way and thought I might

forget."

"You thought you might forget. And did you think your husband would ever

forget?"

"Oh, my God! don't say that!"

"You see, the name of God still means something to you," said Paul

gently. "Many a soldier's wife has become a believer, and you are not

the first who has shuddered to believe." He saw his course clearly, and

did not hesitate to pursue it. "The parsons, as you say, talk about God

without knowing of What or of Whom they speak, but I am not a parson,

and I know of What I speak. Look at me. I have something to ask you."

She turned her eyes, red with weeping, and was fascinated by Paul's

concentrated gaze.

"Do you ever dream of your husband?" he asked.

"Oh! you'll drive me mad!" she whispered, trembling violently. "For the

first six months after ... I was afraid to close my eyes. I am

frightened. I am frightened."

"You are frightened because he is here, Kitty; but he is here to guard

you and not to harm you. He is here because to-night you have done with

that life of forgetfulness which is worse than the memories of those

you loved. He will always come when you call him, until the very hour

that you are ready to join him again. But if you do wrong to the memory

of a man who was true to you, even I cannot promise that he will ever

hold you in his arms again."

"But can you promise?--Oh! you seem to _know_! You seem ... Who are you?

Tell me who you are----"

She stood up and retreated from Paul, the pallor of her face discernible

through the tear-streaked make-up. He smiled in his charming fashion,

holding out his hands.

"I am one who has studied the secrets of nature," he replied. "And I

promise you that you shall live again as a woman, and be loved by those

whom you think you have lost. Look at your locket before you sleep

to-night and dream, but do not be afraid. Promise, now, that you will

always be faithful in the future. You shall give me the names of your

old friends and I shall see if all this great mistake cannot be

forgotten."

XIII

Turning up the lights in his study, Paul seated himself in the great

carved chair before his writing-table, and looked for a long time at a

set of corrected proofs which lay there. Then, leaning back in the chair

he stared about the room at the new and strange ornaments which he had

collected in accordance with his system of working amid sympathetic

colour. His meeting with Kitty Chester he accepted as a message of

encouragement designed to restore his faith in himself and his mission.

That he had accomplished her redemption he did not dare to believe, but

at least he had rendered it possible. He readily recognised the

symbolical significance of their meeting, and it tinged his reflections

and quickened his genius, so that a new light was shed thereby upon

some of the darker places of the religious past.

Close to his hand, upon an ebony pedestal, stood a squat stone figure

having the head of a man with the face of a bull. It was an idol of

incalculable age, from Jules Thessaly's collection, a relic of

prehistoric Greece and the ancient worship of the threefold Hecate. Set

in some remote Thracian valley, it had once looked down upon orgies such

as few modern minds can imagine, had seen naked Bacchantes surrounded by

tamed jungle beasts and having their arms enwreathed with living

serpents, flinging themselves prostrate before its altar, and then amid

delirious dances calling upon the Bull-faced Bacchus of whom we read in

one of the Orphic hymns....

Dimly visible in a recess of the black-oak bureau was Kali, goddess of

Desire, and near her, in a narrow cupboard, the light impinged upon a

white, smooth piece of stone which was attached to a wooden frame. It

was the emblem of Venus Urania from the oldest temple in Cyprus. These

priceless relics were all lent by Thessaly, as were an imperfect

statuette in wood, fossilised with age and probably of Moabite origin,

representing Ashtaroth, daughter of Sin, and a wonderfully preserved

ivory figure, half woman and half fish, of Derceto of Ascalon. The

sacred courtesans of the past and the Kitty Chesters of the present

(mused Paul) all were expressions of that mystic principle, IEVE, upon

which the universe turns as a compass upon its needle, and which,

reproduced in our gross bodies, has led to the creation of the Groves of

Paphos. That sublime Desire which should lead us to the great Unity and

final fulfilment, would seem through all the ages to have driven men

ever further from it. Would a day never dawn when all that uncontrolled

Force should be contained and directed harmoniously, when the pure Isis

of the Egyptian mysteries should cast down the tainted Isis whose

lascivious rites were celebrated in Pompeii? Scarcely perceptible was

the progress of mankind. In every woman was born a spark of Bacchic

fire, which leapt up sweetly at the summons of love or crimson,

shameful, at the beck of lust. There were certain conditions peculiarly

favourable to its evil development; loneliness, according to Kitty

Chester, a loneliness beyond man's understanding....

Paul aroused himself from a reverie and remembered that he had been

thinking of Flamby with a strange and lingering tenderness. The clock on

the mantelpiece recorded the hour of two a.m., and he turned out the

lights in the study and made his way upstairs. He had told Eustace not

to wait up for him, and the house was in darkness. Before Yvonne's room

Paul stopped, and gently opened the door. A faint sound of regular

breathing, and the scent of jasmine came to him. He closed the door as

quietly as he had opened it, and proceeded to the next, which was that

of his own room.

When he retired he threw open the heavy curtains draped before the

windows, and saw that the weather had cleared. White clouds were racing

past the face of the moon. He fell asleep almost immediately, and the

moon pursuing her mystic journey, presently shone fully in upon the

sleeper. Unwittingly Paul was performing one of the rites of the old

Adonis worshippers in sleeping with the moonlight upon his face, and

thus sleeping he was visited by a strange dream....

Drunk with the wine of life, he ran through a grove of scented pines,

flanked by thickets of giant azaleas and taunting one onward and upward

to where faint silver outlines traced upon the azure sky lured to

distant peaks. Etherealised shapes of haunting beauty surrounded him,

and sometimes they seemed to merge into the verdure and sometimes it was

a cloud of blossom that gave up an airy form as a lily gives of its

sweetness, now bearing a white nymph, now an Apollo-limbed youth, sun

kissed and godlike. Gay hued, four footed creatures mingled with the

flying shapes, and all pressed onward; things sleek and eager hastening

through the grove, swiftly passing, hoof and pad; leaping girls and

laughing youths; amid sentient flowers and trees whose life was joy.

Earth's magic sap pulsed through them all and being was an orgy of

worship--worship of a bountiful Mother, of Earth in her golden youth....

He passed thence to the banks of Egypt's Nile, and heard the

lamentations of priests and wailing of women as a black ox, flower

bedecked and wearing a collar encrusted with gems, was drowned in the

turgid stream. Time and space ceased to exist for him. Through the murk

of cavernous passages he paced, pausing before a pit in which reposed a

sarcophagus of huge dimensions; and when the dim company and he had paid

tribute to that which lay there, all ascended to a temple, lofty and

awesome, its dizzy roof upheld by aisles of monstrous granite. To an

accompaniment of sorrowful chanting, the doors of the altar were opened,

and within upon the shrine rested a square-hewn statue. Jewelled lamps

glowed and censers smoked before the image of the bull, Apis.

The sistrums called him to a shrine of Isis, where _kyphi_ was burning,

and priestesses, fair royal virgins, made lotus offerings to the mother

of light; but magic of old Nileland might not withhold him from the

Rites of Ceres when the _Hymn to Demeter_ arose within those wonder

halls of Ictinus. He saw the blood of a white kid flow upon the altar of

Diana at Ephesus and with his own hands laid poppy and dittany at the

pearly feet of the Huntress. The _Lament for Adonis_ wooed him to the

Temple of the Moon, the _Hymn to Ra_ won him back to Egypt's god of

gods. He lighted _Tsan Ihang_, sweet perfume of Tibet, before Gautama

Buddha in Canton's Temple of Five Hundred Ginns and kissed the sacred

covering of the Kaaba at Mecca.

* * * * *

Consciousness intruding upon sub-consciousness, the mind calling upon

the spirit, he found himself questing a likeness, a memory, a furtive

thought; and partly it took shape, so that it seemed to him that Apis,

Isis, Orpheus and the Buddha had a common resemblance to some person

living and human, known to him; whose voice he had heard, and heard

again leading the Orphic hymn, chanting the Buddhist prayers and

bewailing the passing of Adonis. A man it was his memory sought, and

alike in granite statue and golden idol he had detected him; in the

silver note of the sistrum, in the deeps of the _Hymn to Ra_....

All blended into one insistent entreaty, voices, music, perfumes,

calling upon him to return, but he forced his way through a passage,

stifling, low and laden with the breath of remote mortality like those

in the depths of Egypt's pyramids. He came forth into a vast cathedral

and stood before the high altar. As the acolyte swung the thurible and

incense floated upward to the Cross, he, too, arose seraphic and

alighted upon the very top of the dome. Below him stretched a maze of

tortuous streets, thronged with men and women of a thousand ages and of

all the races of mankind. Minaret, pagoda, dome, propylon, arch, portico

jutted up from the labyrinth like tares amid a cornfield. Then a mist

crept darkly down and drew its mantle over them all. A golden crescent

projected above the haze, but it was swallowed up; a slender spire for

long remained but finally was lost. He looked down at the basilica upon

which he stood. It had vanished. He raised his eyes, and the mist was

gone, but an empty world lay where a teeming world had been; a desert

wherein no living thing stirred. A voice, a familiar voice, spoke, and

the words were familiar, too. They melted into the sweet melancholy of

the _Lament for Adonis_, and he awoke, dazzled, half blinded by the

brilliancy of the moonlight.

PART THIRD

THE KEY

I

Paul's book, _The Gates_, was published in the spring. Answering, as it

did, if not completely, the question upon the solution of which the

course of so many human lives depended, it was received as great works

were received in the Arcadian days of Victorian literature. It silenced

Paul's contemporaries as thunder silences a human orchestra. Only two

critics retained sufficient composure to be flippant. No living man

commanded so vast an audience as Paul Mario, and now his voice spoke in

a new tone. To some it came as a balm, to some it brought disquiet; in

each and everyone it wrought a change of outlook. Following a period of

strife wherein all save brute force seemed to have perished, it

vindicated the claims of him who said that the pen was mightier than the

sword. Copies found their way to Berlin but were confiscated by the

police. A Vienna firm printed an edition and their premises were raided

by the authorities. To the meanest intelligence it was apparent that one

had arisen who had something new to say--or something so old that the

world had forgotten it. By means of sacrificing half of his usual

royalty Paul had contrived that _The Gates_ should be published at a

price which placed it within reach of popular purchase. What profits

still accrued to him, and these were considerable, he devoted to

institutes for the wounded and to the maintenance of Hatton Towers as an

officers' convalescent home.

Because he did not seek to depict a modern battlefield, knowing that

Shakespeare himself must have waxed trite upon such a theme, the

hell-pit of Flanders and the agony of France were draped behind his

drama like a curtain. No man had come so near to the truth in naked

words. His silence was the silence of genius. The tears of the world

flowed through his work, yet no weeping woman was depicted. The word of

Christ and the message of Mohammed alike were respected and upheld, but

priest and _imam_ conspired to denounce him. Rebirth in the flesh he

offered as a substitute for heaven and hell. Love and reunion were

synonymous. Not for ages unimaginable could man hope to gain that final

state which is variously known as Heaven, Paradise and Nirvana; only by

the doing of such evil as rarely lies within human compass could he be

judged worthy of that extinction which is Hell. No soul could sink thus

low whilst another mourned it; and was there a man so vile that no woman

loved him? Whilst there was love there could be no Hell, for in Hell

there was no reunion. Pestilence and war on earth corresponded with

undivinable upheavals on another planet. "Ere a man's body has grown

cold on earth he has stirred again in the womb of his mother."

Only by means of certain perversions of natural law, of which suicide

was one, could man evade rebirth, and even thus only for a time. Sorrow

was not a punishment but merely a consequence. Punishment was man-made

and had no place in the wider scheme, could have no place in a universe

where all things were self-inflicted. Germany symbolised the culmination

of materialism, "the triumph of the Bull." To Germany had been attracted

all those entities, converging through the ages, whose progress had been

retarded by abandonment to materialism. "Caligula and Nero defile the

earth to-day, and others even mightier in evil. A Messalina and a Poppae

do not survive individually, for such as these are not human in the

strictest sense, in that they lack what is called a soul which is a

property common to humanity. The parable of the woman of Corinth who

seduced Menippus, a disciple of Apollonius, is misunderstood. We have

come to regard all mortal bodies as the tenements of immortal souls.

This is true of men but is not always true of women. Such women are not

strictly mortal: they are feminine animals and their place in the scheme

will be discussed later. To speak of their sins is to misuse the word.

They are sinless, as the serpent and the upas tree are sinless...."

Paul had discovered that his vast scheme might not be compassed in a

single book. _The Gates_ was the first drama of a trilogy. In it he

outlined the universal truth of which the churches had lost sight or

which they had chosen to obscure. He offered a glimpse of the shrine but

laid down no doctrine nor did he seek to impose a new philosophy upon

the world. In his second book he proposed to furnish proofs of the

claims advanced in the first, and in his third to draw deductions from

the foregoing. In this he had made Euclid his model. Upon the necessity

for a hierarchy and a mystic ritual he insisted. He maintained that

orthodox Christianity had lost its hold upon Europe, touched upon causes

and indicated how the world upheaval was directly due to the failing

power of the churches. He proposed to remodel religion upon a system

earlier than but not antagonistic to that of Christ. His claim that the

systems of Hermes, Krishna, Confucius, Moses, Orpheus and Christ were

based upon a common primeval truth he supported by an arresting array of

historical facts. All of them had taught that man is re-incarnated, and

because Western thought had been diverted from this truth and the

fallacies of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory substituted for simple Rebirth,

Western thought had become chaotic. The figure of the Pope and the

maintenance of a celibate priesthood had prolonged the life of the

Church of Rome because, in Paul's opinion, these were survivals of that

mysticism upon which the remote hierarchies were builded. "No religion

in the world's history has held such absolute sway over a people as that

of Ancient Egypt; no figure living in the memory of man has such majesty

of awe as that of the royal high-priest of Amen Ra...."

* * * * *

On the day that _The Gates_ was published, Yvonne came down late to

breakfast, a gossamer study all filmy lace, with the morning sun in her

hair. The windows were open, and a hint of spring lent zest to every

joy, the loamy fragrance of nascent plant life stealing into the room

from the little garden. Tulips decorated the sideboard, for Yvonne loved

tulips, and a big bowl of pink roses stood upon the centre of the

breakfast table. Paul, glancing up from the pages of the _Daily

Telegraph_, became aware of something vaguely familiar yet unexpected in

his wife's face. She seemed listless, even slightly pale, and he

experienced a sudden pang of an indefinable nature. Looking back over

the past two years, he wondered if they had been as significant, as

fully crowded with reality, for Yvonne as they had been for him. In

Don's manner, when speaking of Yvonne, he had more than once detected a

sort of gentle reproof and had wondered why Don, who understood most

things, failed to perceive that Yvonne's happiness lay in her husband's

work. But, this morning, Paul was thinking more particularly about a

remark of Jules Thessaly's. Thessaly had urged him, before commencing

his second volume to spend a month in Devon. "You need it, Mario, and

your wife needs it more than you do."

Paul did not immediately broach the subject which now became uppermost

in his mind, but following some desultory conversation, he said, "I

should think Devon would be delightful just now. Suppose we run down for

a week or two."

"I should be glad," replied Yvonne. "I should have suggested it earlier,

only I knew that you could not finish _The Gates_ away from your

library." She spoke in a curiously listless way.

"Could you be ready to go on Thursday, Yvonne?"

"Yes, quite easily."

"I can work upon my notes for the autumn book in Devon better than in

London."

"But," began Yvonne, and stopped, staring unseeingly at the roses in the

bowl upon the table.

"But what, Yvonne?"

"I was about to propose a complete rest, Paul, but I know it would be

useless if the working mood is upon you."

"You realise what it means to me, Yvonne. I should no more be justified

in laying down my pen whilst there was more work to do than a soldier

would be justified in laying down his sword in the heat of battle. You

do not feel that this task which I have taken up has made a gulf between

us?"

"It has done so in a sense," replied Yvonne, crumbling a fragment of

bread between her fingers. "But I have never been so foolish as to

become jealous of your work."

"I might have been in the army and stationed on the other side of the

world," said Paul laughing.

"I am not complaining about your work, Paul."

"Yet you are not entirely happy."

"What makes you think so?"

"I don't know. I sometimes feel that you are not."

"I am quite happy," said Yvonne in the listless voice, and presently she

went up to her room, Paul looking after her in a troubled way. He was

uneasily searching his memory for a clue to the significance of that

expression, vaguely familiar but unexpected, which he had noticed in

Yvonne's face. He lighted his pipe and went into the study.

Paul already was at work upon the second phase of his huge task. He was

seeking to prove that the arts had taken the place of the inspired

prophets and sibyls of old, that they were not reflections of the soul

of a nation but were expressions of the creative Will--the _Od_ of Baron

Reichenbach--and were in fact not effects but causes. Not only did he

claim this for the avowed philosophers, but also, in some degree, for

every writer, composer, painter or sculptor. In Russian literature he

perceived a foreshadowing of the doom of Tzardom and imminent

catastrophe. In the literature of France and England he sought to divine

the future. The fervent imperialism of Kipling stirred his emotions, but

left him spiritually cold. Patriotism was the mother of self-sacrifice,

but also of murder, and Paul distrusted all forces which made for

intolerance. The delicate word-painting of Pierre Loti, with its

typically French genius for exalting the trivial, Paul studied

carefully. He found it to resemble the art of those patient, impassive

Japanese craftsmen who draw and colour some exquisite trifling design, a

bird, a palm tree, and then cut the picture in half in order to fit it

into a panel of some quaint little lacquered cabinet as full of

unexpected cupboards and drawers as the Cretan Labyrinth was full of

turnings. He studied the books of the living as Egypt's priests were

wont to study _The Book of the Dead_, pondering upon Arnold Bennett, who

could produce atmosphere without the use of colour, and H. G. Wells who

thought aloud. In the hectic genius of D'Annunzio he sought in vain the

spirit of Italy. He perceived in those glowing pages the hand of a man

possessed, and should have been prepared to find his MSS. written in

penmanship other than his own, like those of Madame Blavatsky's _Isis

Unveiled_.

"It all means something, Don," he said one day. "We have been granted an

insight to the psychology of the German people, which has enabled us to

trace the thread running through their literature, art and music. Oscar

Wilde, who wrote, with a style dipped in ambergris, was truly a

manifestation of the German spirit which began to invade us subtly at

about that time. His scented prose could not conceal this spirit from

the perception of Richard Strauss. Strauss recognised it and welcomed it

with the music of _nebels_, _kinnors_ and _tabors_, as the misguided

children of Israel welcomed the golden calf. Nietzche's 'Thou goest

among women?--Take thy whip' we see now to be no mere personal

expression but the voice of the soul of Germany, a black thread

interwoven in their creative art. There is a similar thread, but perhaps

of silver, interwoven in our own and in the French art. Where does it

begin and whither does it lead?"

* * * * *

Yet those days throughout which Paul laboured unceasingly for the

greatest cause of humanity were lotus days for many. London was raided

and rationed; London swore softly, demanded a change of government,

turned up its coat collar and stumped doggedly along much as usual. Men

fought and women prayed, whilst Paul worked night and day to bring some

ray of hope to the hearts of those in whom faith was dead. The black

thread crept like an ebon stain into the woof of the carpet. The image

of the Bull was set up in many a grove hitherto undefiled, and Paul

worked the more feverishly because it was one of the inscrutable cosmic

laws that the black should sometimes triumph over the white.

Paul's intimacy with Jules Thessaly had grown closer than he realised.

Thessaly was become indispensable to him. Paul, had he essayed the task,

must have found it all but impossible to disentangle his own ideas, or

those due to direct inspiration, from the ideas of Thessaly or those

based upon inquiries traceable to the astonishing data furnished by his

collection. Item by item he had revealed its treasures to the man who

alone had power to wield them as levers to move the world. Remote but

splendid creeds, mere hazy memories of mankind, were reconstructed upon

these foundations. The Izamal temples of Yucatan were looted of their

secrets--the secrets of a great Red Race, mighty in knowledge and power,

which had sought to look upon the face of God before the Great Pyramid

was fashioned, whose fleets had ruled the vanished seas known to us as

the Sahara and North Africa, whose golden capital had looked proudly out

upon an empire mightier than Rome--an empire which the Atlantic Ocean

had swallowed up. The story of this cataclysm which had engulfed

Atlantis, brought to new lands by a few survivors, had bequeathed to men

the legend of the Deluge. The riddle of The Sphinx, most ancient

religious symbol in the known world, was resolved; for Paul saw it to

represent man emerging from the animal and already aspiring to the

spiritual state.

War, pestilence and vast geographical upheavals alike were

manifestations of spiritual conflict physically reflected. Some of the

German philosophers had perceived this dimly, but as one born in

blindness fails to comprehend light, their vision was no more than

hereditary memory of another pit of doom which had engulfed them. Those

who spoke of casting down the spirit of Prussian militarism used

metaphor veiling a truth profound as that which underlies the Holy

Trinity, and which is symbolised by the Sphinx. As vultures swooped to

carrion, as harlots flocked to Babylon, so had the unredeemed souls of

the universe descended upon Germany....

Thus his concept of evil was universal, and to those who sought to fix

"responsibility" for the war upon this one or that he raised a

protesting hand. No man made the Deluge.

By subtle means, insidious as the breath of nard, corruption of primeval

sin was spread from race to race. By like means it must be combated,

Truth must be disguised if it should penetrate to enemy darkness. A

naked truth is rarely acceptable, or, as Don expressed it, "Truth does

not strip well." Paul discussed this aspect of the matter with Don and

Thessaly one day. "We are all children," he said. "If it were not for

such picturesque people as Henry VIII and Charles II we should forget

our history for lack of landmarks. Carefully selected words are the

writer's landmarks, and in remembering them one remembers the passage

which they decorated. I can conjure up at will the entire philosophy of

Buddha as epitomised in the _Light of Asia_ by contemplation of such a

landmark; Arnold's expression for a sheep, 'woolly mother.' There are

other words and phrases which the art of their users in the same way has

magically endowed: 'Totem' is one of these. It is for me a Pharos

instantly opening up the fairway to a great man's philosophy.

'Damascus,' too, has such properties, and the phrase 'cherry blossom in

Japan' bears me upon a magical carpet to a certain street in Yokohama

and there unveils to me all the secrets of Japanese mysticism."

"I quite see your point," Don replied. "In the same way I have never

ceased to regret that I was not born in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. The

possession of such a euphonious birthplace would have coloured all my

life."

"But like the Scotsman you would have revered your home from a

distance," said Thessaly. "I agree with you that it would have been an

ideal birthplace if you had left it at so tender an age that you failed

to recall its physical peculiarities. It is the same with women. In

order that one should retain nothing but fairy memories of a

woman--memories of some poetic name, of the perfume of roses, of beauty

glimpsed through gossamer--it is important that one should not have

lived with her. Herein lies the lasting glamour of the woman we have

never possessed."

II

The world had been discussing Paul Mario's New Gospel as enunciated in

_The Gates_ for three weeks or more. On a bright morning when sunbeams

filtered through the dust which partially curtained the windows of

Guilder's, and painted golden squares and rectangles upon the floor,

Flamby stood where the light touched her elfin hair into torch-like

flame, removing a very smart studio smock preparatory to departing to

Regali's for lunch. There was no one else in the small painting-room,

except a wondrous-hued parrakeet upon a perch, from which he

contemplated his portrait in oils, head knowingly tilted to one side,

with solemn disapproval for Flamby had painted his bill too red and he

knew it, apparently.

"Bad," he remarked. "Damn bad."

He belonged to Crozier, the artist famed for "sun-soaked flesh," and

Crozier's pupils were all too familiar with this formula. It was so

often upon Crozier's lips that Lorenzo the Magnificent (the parrakeet)

had acquired it perfectly.

"Quite right, Lorenzo," said Flamby, throwing her smock on to a stool.

"It's blasted bad."

"Damn bad," corrected Lorenzo. "No guts."

"I don't agree with you there, Lorenzo. It's your nose that I hate."

"No sun!" screamed Lorenzo, excitedly. "The bloodsome thing never saw

the sun!"

"Oh, please behave, Lorenzo, or I shall not share my sugar ration with

you any more."

"Sugar?" inquired Lorenzo, head on one side again.

Flamby held up a lump of sugar upon her small pink palm, and a silence

of contentment immediately descended upon Lorenzo, only broken by the

sound of munching. Flamby was just going out to wash the paint from her

hands, for she always contrived to get nearly as much upon her fingers

as upon the canvas, when a cheery voice cried: "Ha! caught you. Thought

I might be too late."

She turned, and there in the doorway stood Don. Less than three months

had elapsed since his last leave and Flamby was intensely surprised to

see him. She came forward with outstretched hands. "Oh, Don," she cried.

"How lovely! However did you manage it?"

An exquisite blush stained her cheeks, and her eyes lighted up happily.

Glad surprises made her blush, and she was very sincerely glad as well

as surprised to see Don. She had not even heard him approach. She had

been wondering what Devonshire was like, for Paul was in Devonshire. Now

as Don took both her hands and smiled in the old joyous way she thought

that he looked ill, almost cadaverous, in spite of the tan which clung

to his skin.

"Craft, Flamby, guile and the subtlety of the serpent. The best men get

the worst leave."

"I don't believe it," said Flamby, watching him in sudden anxiety. "You

have been ill. Oh, don't think you can pretend to _me_; I can see you

have."

"Bad," remarked Lorenzo in cordial agreement. He had finished the sugar.

"Damn bad."

"What!" cried Don--"have you got old Crozier's Lorenzo down here? Hullo!

let us see how you have 'percepted' him." He crossed to the easel,

surveying Flamby's painting critically. "Does Hammett still talk about

'percepting the subject' and 'emerging the high-lights' and 'profunding

the shadows'?"

"He does. You're mean not to tell me."

"What do you want me to tell you, Flamby?--that the drawing is

magnificent and the painting brilliant except for the treatment of the

bill, which is _too_ brilliant." He turned and met her reproachful gaze.

"Perhaps I _am_ mean, Flamby, to frighten you by not replying to your

question, but really I am quite fit. I have had a touch of trench-fever

or something, not enough to result in being sent home to hospital, and

have now got a few days' sick-leave to pull round after a course of weak

gruel."

"That's very unusual, isn't it?"

"What, Flamby?"

"To get home leave after treatment at a base hospital? I mean they might

as well have sent you home in the first place."

Don stared at her long and seriously. "Flamby," he said, "you have been

flirting with junior subalterns. No one above the rank of a

second-lieutenant ever knew so much about King's Regulations."

"Own up, then."

Don continued the serious stare. "Flamby," he said, "your father would

have been proud of you. You are a very clever girl. If art fails there

is always the Bar. I am not advising you to take to drink; I refer to

the law. Listen, Flamby, I was wrong to try to deceive you as well as

the others. Besides, it is not necessary. You are unusual. I stopped a

stray piece of shrapnel a fortnight after I went back and was sent to a

hospital in Burton-on-Trent. The M.O.'s have a positive genius for

sending men to spots remote from their homes and kindreds--appalling

sentence. In this case it was a blessing in disguise. By some muddle or

another my name was omitted from the casualty list, or rather it was

printed as 'Norton,' and never corrected publicly. I accepted the

kindness of the gods. Imagine my relief. I had pictured sisters and

cousins and the dear old Aunt dragging themselves to

Burton-on-Trent--and I am the only beer drinker in the family. I know

you won't betray my gruesome secret, Flamby."

Flamby's eyes were so misty that she averted her face. "Oh, Don," she

said unsteadily, "and I wrote to you only three days ago and thought you

were safe."

Don unbuttoned the left breast-pocket of his tunic and flourished a

letter triumphantly. "Young Conroy has been forwarding all my mail," he

explained, "and I have addressed my letters from nowhere in particular

and sent them to him to be posted! Now, what about the guile and

subtlety of the serpent! Let us take counsel with the great Severus

Regali. I am allowed a little clear soup and an omelette, now."

* * * * *

Don and Flamby arrived late at Regali's and were compelled to wait for a

time in the little inner room. There were many familiar faces around the

tables. Chauvin was there with Madame Rilette, the human geranium, and

Hammett; Wildrake, editor of the _Quartre d'Arts_ revue and the Baronne

G., Paris's smartest and most up-to-date lady novelist. The Baronne had

been married four times. Her latest hobby was libel actions. Archibald

Forester, renowned as an explorer of the psychic borderland, and wearing

green tabs and a crown upon his shoulder-strap, discussed matters Alpine

with an Italian artillery officer. On the whole the atmosphere was

distinctly Savage that day. Flamby accepted a cigarette from Don and sat

for awhile, pensive. With a jade-green velvet tam-o'-shanter to set off

the coppery high-lights of her hair she was a picture worthy of the

admiration which was discernible in Don's eyes. Presently she said, "I

found you out a long time ago."

"Found me out?"

"Yes, found you out. I don't know to this day how much I really receive

from the War Office, because Mr. Nevin won't tell me. He just muddles me

up with a lot of figures----"

"You have seen him, then?"

"Of course I have seen him. But one thing I do know. I owe you over a

hundred pounds, and I am going to pay it!"

"But, Flamby," said Don, a startled expression appearing upon his face,

"you don't owe it to me at all. You are wrong."

Flamby studied him carefully for awhile. "I am going to send it to Mr.

Nevin--I have told him so--and he can settle the matter." She laid her

hand on Don's sleeve. "Don't think me silly, or an ungrateful little

beast," she said, "but I can't talk about it any more; it makes me want

to cry. Did you know that Chauvin got me a commission from the War

Office propaganda people to do pictures of horses and mules and things?"

"Yes," replied Don, guiltily. But to his great relief Flamby did not

accuse him of being concerned in the matter.

"I felt a rotten little slacker," explained Flamby; "I wrote and told

you so. Did you get the letter?"

"Of course. Surely I replied?"

"I don't remember if you did, but I told Chauvin and he recommended my

work to them and they said I could do twelve drawings. They accepted the

first three I did, but rejected the fourth, which both Hammett and

Chauvin thought the best."

"Probably it was. That was why they rejected it. But about this

money----"

"Please," pleaded Flamby.

Don looked into her eyes and was silenced. He suppressed a sigh. "Have

you seen Paul lately?" he asked.

"No. He is away. His book frightens me."

"Frightens you," said Don, staring curiously. "In what way?"

"I don't know that I can explain. I feel afraid for _him_."

"For Paul?"

"Yes."

"Because he has seen the truth?"

Flamby hesitated. "It must be awful for a doctor who has specialised in

some dreadful disease to find----"

"That he suffers from it? This is a common thing with specialists." Don

spoke almost heedlessly, but had no sooner spoken than he became aware

of the peculiar significance of his words. He sat staring silently at

Flamby. Before he had time for further speech Regali attended in person

to announce that places were vacant at one of the tables. This table Don

and Flamby shared with a lady wearing her hair dressed in imitation of a

yellow dahlia, and with a prominent colourist who was devoting his life

to dissipating the popular delusion about trees being green. He was

gradually educating the world to comprehend that trees were not green

but blue. He had a very long nose and ate French mustard with his

macaroni. The conversation became cubical and coloured.