"I maintain," said the colourist, who was fiercely cynical, as might

have been anticipated of one who consumed such large quantities of

mustard, "that humanity is akin to the worm. The myth of Psyche and the

idea that we possess souls arose simply out of the contemplation of

colour by some primitive sensitive. Very delicately coloured young girls

were responsible for the legend, but humanity in the bulk is colourless

and therefore soulless. Large public gatherings fill me with intense

personal disgust. From Nelson's point of view, a popular demonstration

in Trafalgar Square must unpleasantly resemble a box of bait."

"Clearly you have never loved," said Don. "One day some misguided woman

may marry you. You will awaken to the discovery that she is different

from common humanity."

"Nearly every man considers his own wife to be different from other

women--until the third or fourth, day of the honeymoon."

He was incorrigible; French mustard had embittered his life. "Some men

are even more gross than women," he declared thoughtfully. "Cubically

they are stronger, but their colouring is less delicate."

His yellow-haired companion watched him with limpid faithful brown eyes,

hanging upon his words as upon the pronouncements of a Cumaean oracle.

Having concluded his luncheon with a piece of cheese liberally coated in

mustard he rose, shaking his head sadly.

"Don't shake your head like that," Don implored him. "I can hear your

brains rattling."

But smileless, the cynic departed, and Flamby looked after him without

regret. "If he painted as much as he talked," she said, "he would have

to hire a railway station to show his pictures."

"Yes, or the offices of the Food Controller. His conversation is

intensely interesting, but it doesn't mean anything. I have always

suspected him of keeping coal in his bath."

Orlando James came in, standing just by the doorway, one hand resting

upon his hip whilst he gnawed the nails of the other with his fine white

teeth. He wore the colours of a regiment with which he had served for a

time, and a silver badge on the right lapel of his tweed jacket.

Presently, perceiving Flamby, he advanced to the table at which she was

seated with Don. He had all the arrogance of acknowledged superiority.

"Hullo, kid," he said, dropping into the chair vacated by the cynical

one. "How do, Courtier. You look a bit cheap--been gassed?"

"No," replied Don; "merely a stiff neck due to sleeping with my head

above the parapet."

James stared dully, continuing to bite his nails. "When are you going

back?"

"As soon as my batman wires me that the weather has improved."

"Have you finished lunch? Let's split a bottle of wine before you go."

"No bottle of wine for me," said Flamby, "unless you want the police in.

One glass of wine and you'd be ashamed to know me." She was

uncomfortably conscious of a certain tension which the presence of James

had created. "Isn't it time we started?" she asked, turning to Don.

"Mrs. Chumley will be expecting us."

"Ah!" cried Don gratefully, glancing at his watch. "Of course she will.

Where is the waiter?"

* * * * *

"You don't like James, do you?" said Flamby, as the car approached The

Hostel.

"No. Vanity in a man is ridiculous, and I always endeavour to avoid

ridiculous people. James is a clever painter, but a very stupid fellow.

Seeing him to-day reminds me of something I had meant to ask you,

Flamby. Just before I last came on leave you wrote at Paul's request to

enquire if I considered it wise that you should go about with James and

we discussed the point whilst I was home. You remember, no doubt?"

Flamby nodded. Her expression was very pensive. "Then I wrote and asked

if you minded my seeing him occasionally for a special purpose, and you

wrote back that you had every confidence in my discretion, which pleased

me very much. Now I suppose you want to know what the special purpose

was?"

"Not unless you wish to tell me, Flamby."

"I do wish to tell you," said Flamby slowly. "That was why I suggested

coming here, because I knew all the time of course that Mrs. Chumley was

away."

They entered The Hostel, deserted as it usually was at that hour of the

day, passing into the courtyard, which already was gay with the flowers

of early spring. The window-boxes, too, and vases within open casements

splashed patches of colour upon the old-world canvas, the yellow and

purple of crocus and daffodil, modest star-blue of forget-me-nots and

the varied tints of sweet hyacinth. Flamby's tiny house, which Mrs.

Chumley called "the squirrel's nest," was fragrant with roses, for

Flamby's taste in flowers was extravagant, and she regularly exhausted

the stocks of the local florist. A huge basket of white roses stood upon

a side-table, a card attached. Flamby glanced at the card. "James

again," she said. "He's some use in the world after all." She composedly

filled a jug with water and placed the flowers in it until she should

have time to arrange them.

"Is Chauvin expecting you this afternoon?" asked Don.

"No, not to-day. I love Chauvin, but I don't think I shall be able to

stay on with him if I am to finish the other eight designs for the War

Office people in time. Please light your pipe. Would you like a drink?

I've got all sorts of things to drink."

"No, thank you, Flamby. We can go out to tea presently."

"No, let's have tea here. I have some gorgeous cakes I got at Fullers'

this morning."

"Right. Better still. I will help."

Flamby tossed her tam-o'-shanter on to a chair, slapped the pockets of

Don's tunic in quest of his cigarette-case, found it, took out and

lighted a cigarette, and then curled herself up in a corner of the

settee, hugging her knees. "Paul thinks I'm fast," she said.

Don, who was lighting his pipe, stared at her so long that the match

burned his fingers and dropped into his cap, which lay beside him on the

floor.

Flamby's visitors speedily acquired the homely trick of hanging up their

hats on the floor. "Flamby!" he said reproachfully, "I know you are

joking, but I don't like you to say such a thing even in jest."

"_Dulce est desipere_," replied Flamby, "but I am not jesting. Oh, that

beastly Latin! Do you remember when I quoted Portia to you? It makes me

go all goosey to think of some of the awful things I have said to

people."

"You have said one thing, Flamby, which I must request you to explain,"

said Don gravely. "Paul is utterly incapable of harbouring an evil

thought about anyone, and equally incapable of misjudging character."

"Ah, I knew you would say that, Don, and it is just that which worries

me so."

"I don't understand."

Flamby snuggled her knees up tighter against her round chin and stared

wistfully straight before her. A ray from the afternoon sun intruded

through the window and touched her wonderful hair into magic flame.

"Paul has altered the lives of a lot of people, hasn't he?" she asked.

"He has. I cannot doubt that he will become the centre of a world-wide

movement. I received a letter only two days ago from a man who was with

us at Oxford, and who entered the Church, assuring me that he had only

awaited such a lead to resign his office and seek independently to

spread the true doctrine. He is only one of many. I know several Army

chaplains who have been troubled with serious doubts for years. They

will rally to Paul as the Crusaders rallied to Peter the Hermit."

"I read his book," said Flamby, still staring unseeingly before her,

"and something inside myself told me that every word of it was true. I

know that I have lived before, everybody knows it, but everybody isn't

able to realise it. Dad told me that re-incarnation was the secret of

life once when I asked him who his father was. He said, 'Never mind

about that. Damn your ancestors!...' Oh! I didn't mean to say it! But,

really he said that. 'It is your _spiritual_ ancestry that counts,' he

told me. 'There are plenty of noble blackguards, and it wasn't his

parents who made a poet of Keats.' Dad convinced me in a wonderful way.

He pointed out that a child born of a fine cultured family and one whose

father was a thief and his mother something worse didn't start level at

all. One was handicapped before he had the sense to think for himself;

'before he weighed in,' was how dad put it. 'If there is a just God,' he

said--'and every man finds out sooner or later that there is, to his joy

or to his sorrow--there are no unfair handicaps. It wouldn't be racing.

Why should an innocent baby be born with the diseases and deformities of

it's parents? Why should some be born blind?' What he called 'the

hell-fire and brimstone' theory used to make him sick. He considered

that most missionaries ought to be publicly executed, and said that in

the Far East where he had lived you could see their work 'like the trail

of a tin tabernacle across a blasted heath.' That sounds like swearing,

but it's Shakespeare."

"I don't see," said Don, as Flamby became silent, "what this has to so

with Paul's misjudgment of you, or your misjudgment of Paul. It simply

means that you agree with him. You are such an extraordinarily clever

girl, and have had so extraordinary a training, that I cannot pass

lightly by anything you say seriously. What has led you to believe that

Paul thinks ill of you, and why does it worry you that I think him

incapable of such a thing?"

Flamby absently flicked cigarette ash upon the carpet. "According to

_The Gates_," she said, speaking very slowly and evidently seeking for

words wherewith to express her meaning, "everybody's sorrows and joys

and understanding or lack of understanding are exactly in proportion to

the use they have made of their opportunities, not just in one life but

in other lives before."

Don nodded without speaking.

"A man who had come as near to perfection as is possible in this world

would have found his perfect mate, what Paul calls his 'Isis-self.'"

"Embodied, in Paul's case, in Yvonne."

"He would be in no doubt about it, and no more would she. If she was

below him he would raise her, if she was above him he might marry, but

he would not mistake another woman for the right one. And things that

convinced other men would not convince a true initiate. So I am worried

about Paul, because if he is not a true initiate, where did he learn the

things that are in _The Gates_?"

Don's face was very grave. "You have been studying strange books,

Flamby. What have you been reading?"

"Heaps of things." Flamby blushed. "I managed to get a Reader's ticket

for the British Museum. I am interested, you see. But there are things

in Paul's book and other things promised in the next which--oh!--I'm

afraid I can't explain----"

"You cannot account for such knowledge in an ordinary mortal, and

evidently something has occurred which has led you to regard Paul as

less than a god. Tell me about it, Flamby."

III

Don stood up, and walking across the room looked out of the window into

the quadrangle. The story of the Charleswood photographs, which Flamby

had related with many a pause and hesitance, had seemed to cast upon the

room a shadow--the shadow of a wicked hypocrite. Both were silent for

several minutes.

"And you are sure that Paul has seen these photographs?" said Don.

"You must have noticed the change in him yourself."

"I had noticed it, Flamby. I am afraid you are right. I will go down to

Devonshire to-night and----"

"You will not!"

Don turned, and Flamby, her face evenly dusky and her eyes very bright,

was standing up watching him. "Please don't be angry," she said

approaching him, "because I spoke like that. But I could never forgive

you if you told him. If he can think such a thing of me I don't care.

What have I ever said or done that he should _dare_ to think such a

thing!"

Don took both her hands and found that she was trembling. She looked

aside, biting her lower lip. In vain she sought to control her emotions,

knowing that they had finally betrayed her secret to this man in whose

steadfast eyes she had long ago read a sorrowful understanding. At that

moment she came near to hating Paul, and this, too, Don perceived with

the clairvoyance of love. But because he was a very noble gentleman

indeed, and at least as worthy of honour as the immortal Bussy

d'Amboise, he sought not to advantage himself but to plead the cause of

his friend and to lighten the sorrow of Flamby. "Have you tried hard not

to care so much?"

Flamby nodded desperately, her eyes wells of tears.

"And it was useless?"

"Oh!" she cried, "I am mad! I hate myself! I hate myself!" She withdrew

her hands and leapt on to the settee wildly, pressing her face against

the cushions.

Don inhaled a deep breath and stood watching her. He thrust his hands

into the pockets of his tunic. "Have you considered, Flamby, what a

hopeless thing it is."

"Of course, of course! I should loathe and despise any other girl who

was such a wicked little fool. Dad would have killed me, and I should

have deserved it!"

"Don't blame Paul too much, Flamby."

"I don't. I am glad that he can be so mean," she sobbed. "It helps me

not to like him any more!"

"Paul is no ordinary man, Flamby, but neither is he a magician. How

could you expect him to know?"

"He never even asked me."

Don, watching her, suddenly recognised that he could trust himself to

pursue this conversation no further. "Tell me why you wanted to see

Orlando James again," he said.

Flamby looked up quickly, and Don's hands clenched themselves in his

pockets when he saw her tear-stained face. "I am afraid," she replied,

"to tell you--now."

"Why are you afraid now, Flamby?"

"Because you will think----"

"I shall think nothing unworthy of you, Flamby."

"I went," said Flamby, twisting a little lace handkerchief in her hands,

"because I was afraid--for Paul."

"For Paul!"

"You are beginning to wonder already."

"I am beginning to wonder but not to doubt. In what way were you

afraid?"

"He is so sure."

"Sure that he has found the truth?"

"Not that, but sure that he is right in making it known."

Don hesitated. He, too, had had his moments of doubt, but he perceived

that Flamby's doubts were based upon some matter of which at present he

knew nothing. "Paul believes quite sincerely that he has been chosen for

this task," he said. "He believes his present circumstances, or _Karma_,

to be due to a number of earlier incarnations devoted to the pursuit of

knowledge."

"Do you think if that was true he would make so many mistakes about

people?" asked Flamby, and her voice had not yet recovered entire

steadiness.

"I have told you that he is not a magician, Flamby, but you have still

to tell me why you wanted to see Orlando James."

"I don't believe I can tell you, after all." Flamby had twisted the

little handkerchief into a rope and was tugging at it desperately.

"Why?"

"Well--I might be wrong, and then I should never forgive myself. It is

something you ought to know, but I can see now that I cannot tell you."

Don very deliberately took up his pipe from the table. "Here's an

ash-tray," said Flamby in a faint voice. "Shall we go out to tea and see

if we can cheer ourselves up a bit?"

"I think we might," replied Don, smiling in almost the old way. "Some

place where there is a band."

* * * * *

As a direct result of this conversation, Paul received a letter two days

later from Don. It touched whimsically upon many matters, and finally,

"I have decided to add Orlando James to my list of undesirable

acquaintances," wrote Don. "Don't let this harsh decision influence your

own conduct in any way, but if at any time you chance to go walking with

him and meet myself, pardon me if I fail to acknowledge either of you."

Paul read this paragraph many times. He received the letter one morning

whilst Yvonne was out, she having gone into the neighbouring village,

and when she came back he spoke of it to her. "Have you seen anything

of Orlando James recently?" he asked.

Yvonne turned and began to arrange some fresh flowers in a bowl upon the

cottage window-ledge. "No," she replied. "I have seen him rarely since

the portrait was finished. Why?"

"I was merely wondering. He seems to be establishing a queer sort of

reputation. Thessaly has thrown out hints more than once and Don quite

frankly dislikes him."

"What kind of reputation, Paul?"

"Oh, the wrong kind for a portrait painter," replied Paul lightly. "I

shall send him a cheque for the picture."

"But he has refused to accept any payment whatever."

"It was very flattering on his part to declare that its exhibition was

worth so much to him, and to decline a fee, but nevertheless I shall

send him a cheque to-night. Did you remember to go to the Post Office?"

"Yes." Yvonne turned slowly. "Here are the stamps."

"I can see," said Paul, "that either I must return to London or have

Edwards come down here and put up somewhere in the neighbourhood. I have

more work than I can handle unassisted."

"Let us go back to town, then, if you think it is hindering you to stay

here."

"There is no occasion for you to return, Yvonne."

"Yes, but--I don't want to stay, Paul, if you are going. Really, I would

rather not." There was something pathetic, almost fearful, in the

insistency of her manner, and Paul had a glimpse again of that

intangible yet tauntingly familiar phantom in his wife's bearing. A

revelation seemed to be imminent, but it eluded him, and the more

eagerly he sought to grasp it the further did it recede. "You don't

_want_ to leave me behind, do you?" said Yvonne.

"Want to leave you behind!" cried Paul, standing up and crossing to

where she stood by the window. "Yvonne!" He held her close in his arms,

but there was no fire in the violet eyes, only a tired, pathetic

expression.

IV

The pageant proceeded merrily; these were merry days. And because it was

rumoured that men who fought hard also drank hard, the brethren of the

blue ribbon at last perceived their opportunity and seized upon it with

all the vigour and tenacity which belong to those reared upon a cocoa

diet. Denying the divinity of the grape, they concealed their treason

against Bacchus beneath a cloak of national necessity, and denied others

that which they did not want themselves. They remained personally immune

because no one thought of imposing a tax upon temperance-meetings,

hot-water bottles and air-raid shelters. "Avoid a man who neither drinks

nor smokes," was one of Don's adages. "He has other amusements."

Paul continued his pursuit of the elusive thread interwoven in modern

literature, and made several notable discoveries. "Contemplation of the

mountainous toils of Balzac and Dumas fills me with a kind of physical

terror," he said to Don on one occasion. "It is an odd reflection that

they would have achieved immortality just the same if they had contented

themselves respectively with the creation of Madame Marnefle and the

girl with the golden eyes, D'Artagnan and Chicot. The memory of Dumas is

enshrined in his good men, that of Balzac in his bad women. One

represents the active Male principle, the Sun, the other the passive

Feminine, or the Moon. I have decided that Dumas was the immediate

reincarnation of a musketeer, and Balzac of a public prosecutor."

"Pursuing this interesting form of criticism," said Don, "at once so

trenchant and so unobjectionable, to what earlier phase should you

ascribe the wit of G. K. Chesterton for example?"

"To the personal influence of Dr. Johnson and his contemporaries. H. G.

Wells would seem to have had no earthly experiences since he was a

priest of Bel, or if he had they were comparatively colourless. Rudyard

Kipling knew and loved the spacious times of Elizabeth. How clearly we

can trace the Roman exquisite in Walter Pater and the _bravo_ in George

Moore. Stevenson was a buccaneer in whom repentance came too late, and

who suffered the extreme penalty probably under Charles II. The author

of _The Golden Bough_ was conceivably a Chaldean librarian, and from the

writings of Anatole France steps forth shadowy a literary _religieux_ of

the sixteenth century; but it is when we come to consider such cases as

those of Spencer and Darwin that we meet with insurmountable obstacles.

The _patientiotype_ process of Victor Hugo defies this system of

analysis also, as does the glorious humanity of Mark Twain, and although

Pinero proclaims himself a wit of the Regency, Bernard Shaw's spiritual

pedigree is obscure. Nevertheless, all are weavers of the holy carpet,

and our lives are drawn into the loom. All began weaving in the

childhood of the world and each has taken up the thread again at his

appointed hour."

Paul spent a great part of his time in Jules Thessaly's company.

Thessaly had closed his town house, and was living in chambers adjoining

Victoria Street. His windows commanded a view of an entrance to

Westminster Cathedral, "from whence upward to my profane dwelling," he

declared, "arises an odour of sanctity." From Thessaly's flat they set

out upon many a strange excursion, one night visiting a private

gaming-house whose patrons figured in the pages of Debrett, and, perhaps

on the following evening, Thessaly's car would take them to a point in

the West India Dock Road, from whence, roughly attired, they would

plunge into the Asiatic underworld which lies hidden beneath the names

of Three Colt Street and Pennyfields. They visited a foul den in

Limehouse where a crook-backed Chinaman sat rocking to and fro before a

dilapidated wooden joss in the light of a tin paraffin lamp, listened to

the rats squealing under the dirty floor and watched men smoke opium.

They patronised "revue" East and West, that concession to the demand of

youth long exiled from feminine society which had superseded the

legitimate drama. "There are three ingredients essential to the success

of such an entertainment," Thessaly pronounced: "fat legs, thin legs,

and legs." They witnessed a knuckle-fight in Whitechapel between a

sailorman and a Jewish pugilist. The referee was a member of a famous

sporting club, and the purse was put up by a young peer on leave from

the bloody shambles before Ypres. "Our trans-Tiber evenings," Paul

termed these adventures.

He had seized upon a clue to the ills of the world and he pursued it

feverishly. "If men realised, as they realise that physical illness

follows physical excess, that for every moment of pain unnecessarily

inflicted upon any living creature--a horse, a dog, a cage-bird--they

must suffer themselves a worse pang, would not the world be a better

place?" he asked. "That fighting peer is accounted a fine fellow by his

companions, and in an earlier life, when the unshaped destinies of men

were being rough-hewn with sword and axe, he _was_ a fine fellow. But

that earlier influence now is checking his development. If he could

realise that he will probably be reborn a weakling doomed to suffer the

buffets of the physically strong, he would doubtless reconsider his

philosophy. He has lost track of himself. Our childish love of animals,

which corresponds to a psychic pre-natal phase, is a memory which

becomes obscured as the fleshly veil grows denser--which the many

neglect, but which the wise man cherishes."

"Heredity plays its part, too," said Thessaly.

"Quite so. It is difficult, sometimes almost impossible, to distinguish

between the influences of heredity and those of pre-existence."

"More especially since few of us know our own fathers, and none of us

our grandfathers. If our family tree record a line of abstemious

forbears, and we mysteriously develop a partiality for neat rum and

loose company, we hesitate whether to reproach ourselves for the vices

of a previous existence or to disparage the morality of our

grandmother."

Strange stories won currency at this time, too. Arising as he had done

out of a cataclysm, Paul Mario by many was accepted as the harbinger of

a second Coming. His claims were based upon no mere reiteration of

ancient theories, but upon a comprehensible system which required no

prayer-won faith from its followers, but which logically explained life,

death, and those parts of the Word of Jesus Christ which orthodoxy

persisted in regarding as "divine mysteries." Paul's concept of God and

the Creation was substantially identical with that of Jacob Boehme and

the Hermetic Philosophers. He showed the Universe to be the outcome of a

Thought. Unexpressed Will desired to find expression, to become

manifest. Such was the birth of Desire. Since in the beginning this Will

was an Eye which beheld nothing because nothing outside Itself existed,

It fashioned a Mirror and therein saw all things in Itself. This Mirror

was the Eternal Mother, the Will the Eternal Father. The Eternal Father,

beholding Himself and His wonders mirrored in the Eternal Mother, willed

that being passive they should become active. Thought became

materialised, force and space begot Motion and the Universe was. As

illustrating the seven qualities through which the Divine energy

operated, Paul quoted the following lines:--

"There are seven degrees in the holy sphere

That girdles the outer skies;

There are seven hues in the atmosphere

Of the Spirit Paradise;

And the seven lamps burn bright and clear

In the mind, the heart, and the eyes

Of the angel-spirits from every world

That ever and ever arise.

There are seven ages the angels know

In the courts of the Spirit Heaven:

And seven joys through the spirit flow

From the morn of the heart till even;

Seven curtains of light wave to and fro

Where the seven great trumpets the angels blow,

And the throne of God hath a seven-fold glow,

And the angel hosts are seven.

And a spiral winds from the worlds to the suns,

And every star that shines

In the path of degrees for ever runs,

And the spiral octave climbs;

And a seven-fold heaven round every one

In the spiral order twines.

There are seven links from God to man,

There are seven links and a threefold span;

And seven spheres in the great degree

Of one created immensity.

There are seven octaves of spirit love

In the heart, the mind, and the heavens above:

And seven degrees in the frailest thing,

Though it hath but a day for its blossoming."

It seemed as though all mysticism had culminated in Paul Mario, and so

immense was his influence that the English Church was forced into

action. Such heterodox views had been expressed from the pulpit since

_The Gates_ had cast its challenge at the feet of orthodoxy that the

bishops unanimously pronounced its teachings to be heretical, and

forbade their adoption under divers pains and penalties. A certain

brilliant and fashionable preacher resigned his living, and financed by

a society established for the purpose, prepared to build a great church

upon a site adjoining the Strand, to be called the New Temple. A

definite schism thereupon was created, and so insistent became the

demand for more light, for a personal message, that Paul was urged by a

committee, including some of the foremost thinkers of the day, to

deliver a series of addresses at the Albert Hall. He had lighted a

veritable bonfire, and its flames were spreading to the four points of

the compass. Even Islam, that fanatic rock against which reform dashes

itself in vain, was stirred at last, and the Sherif of Mecca issued a

_firman_ to the mosques within his province authorising an intensive

campaign against the _Koran Inglisi_--for Paul had embraced the tenets

of the Moslem faith within his new Catholic creed.

At one of his clubs, which he visited rarely, he met one evening a

bishop famed as a religious educationalist, a large red cleric having

bristling eyebrows resembling shrimps and the calculating glance of a

judge of good port. This astute man of the world attacked him along

peculiar lines. "There must always be a hierarchy, Mr. Mario," he said.

"Buddha--if such a personage ever existed--endeavoured to dispense with

a priesthood and a ritual, but his followers have been unable to do so.

You aver that the Kingdom of God is within ourselves, but if every man

were able to find the Kingdom of God within himself he would have no

occasion to pay others to find it for him. What would become of the poor

churchman?"

"I have not proposed the abolition of the old priesthood," Paul replied.

"I have proposed the establishment of a new. Only by appreciation of the

fact that Man is the supreme Mystery can man solve the Riddle of the

Universe, and what is there of mystery about your tennis-playing curate?

The gossiper whom we have seen nibbling buttered scones at five o'clock

tea mounts the pulpit and addresses us upon the subject of the Holy

Trinity. On this subject naturally he has nothing to tell us, and

naturally we are bored. Rather than abolish ritual I would embellish it,

calling to my aid all the resources of art and music. I would invest my

ritual with awe and majesty, and my priests should be a class apart."

"Such an appeal is not for every man, Mr. Mario. Your New Temple would

be designed to inculcate the truth upon minds which have already

received it; a thankless task. We seek the good of the greatest number,

and you must bring your gods to earth if you would raise your

worshippers to heaven. After all, simplicity rather than knowledge is

the keynote of happiness."

"You would trick your penitents into paradise?"

"Perhaps I am obtuse, but it seems to me that this is _your_ design, not

mine."

"What does the Church offer," said Paul, "that the human mind can grasp?

What hope do you extend to the sorrowing widow of a man who has died

unrepentant and full of sin? Eternal loss. Is this to be her reward for

years of faithful love? If, upon her death-bed, the woman of atrocious

life can be bullied into uttering words of penitence she is 'saved.' If

she die as she lived, if a shot, a knife, a street accident cut her off

in the midst of her sinning, she is 'lost.' A moment of panic wins

salvation for the one; a life-time of self-denial counts for nothing in

the case of another. If I go out into the street and strike down a

bawd--a thing lower than the lowest animal and more noxious--I hang. If

I don the King's uniform and accept the orders of an officer, I may slay

good men and bad, come who may, and die assured of heaven. It is war.

Why is it war? Simply because it is slaughter as opposed to slaying. Our

cause, you will say, is just. So is my cause against the pander."

"You are, then, a novel sort of conscientious objector?"

"Not at all. If at the price of my life I could exterminate every living

thing that is Prussian I should do it. But I know _why_ I should do it,

and why I should be justified. If one troubled with doubts upon such a

score were to ask your cloth to resolve them, he would be told that he

fought for King and Country, or something equally beside the point.

Patriotism, my lord, becomes impossible when we realise that in turn we

have inhabited many countries. You were once perhaps an Austrian, and

may yet be a Turk."

"The theory of re-incarnation, Mr. Mario, helps to people our lunatic

asylums. I was assured recently by a well-known brain specialist that

the claimants to the soul of Cleopatra would out-number the Hippodrome

'Beauty Chorus.'"

"You speak of the 'theory' of re-incarnation, yet it was taught by

Christ."

"There we arrive at a definite point of divergence, Mr. Mario," said his

lordship. "Let us agree to differ, for I perceive that no other form of

agreement is possible between us."

* * * * *

"There is something frightfully unsatisfactory about bishops," declared

Thessaly, when Paul spoke of this conversation to him. "Many vicars and

deans are quite romantic people, but immediately they are presented with

a mitre they become uninteresting and often begin to write to the

_Times_. Besides, no one but Forbes Robertson could hope to look

impressive in a mitre. It is most unsuitable headgear for an elderly

gentleman."

V

Don remained in London for several months, performing light duties at

the War Office. No one but Paul ever knew how far he had penetrated into

the grim valley, how almost miraculous had been his recovery. And not

even Paul knew that if Flamby's heart had been free Don might never

have returned to France. In despite of his shattered health he refused

the staff appointment which was offered to him and volunteered for

active service, unfit though he was to undertake it.

"We don't seem to be able to realise, Paul," he said, "that the

possession of an artificial leg and a Victoria Cross does not constitute

a staff officer. My only perceptible qualification for the post offered

is my crocky condition. The brains of the Army should surely be made up

not of long pedigrees and gallant cripples, but of genius fit to cope

with that of the German High Command. A cowardly criminal with a

capacity for intrigue would probably be a greater acquisition than that

of the most gallant officer who ever covered a strategic 'withdrawal.'"

Poor Flamby smiled and jested until the very moment of Don's departure

and cried all day afterwards. Then she sat down at the little oak bureau

and wrote a long letter declaring that she had quite definitely and

irrevocably decided to forget Paul, and that she should have something

"very particular" to confide to Don when he returned. Whilst searching

for a stamp she chanced upon a photograph of Paul cut from a weekly

journal. Very slowly she tore the letter up into tiny pieces and dropped

them in a Japanese paper-basket. She went to bed and read _The Gates_

until she fell asleep, leaving the light burning.

The fear of which she had spoken to Don oppressed her more and more.

That Paul had grasped the Absolute Key she could not doubt, but it

seemed to Flamby that he had given life to something which had lain

dormant, occult, for untold ages, that he had created a thing which

already had outgrown his control. In art, literature and music disciples

proclaimed themselves. One of France's foremost composers produced a

symphony, _Dawn_, directly inspired by the gospel of Paul Mario; in

_The Gates_ painters found fresh subjects for their brushes, and the

literature of the world became a mirror reflecting Paul's doctrine. Here

was no brilliant spark to dazzle for a moment and die, but a beacon

burning ever brighter on which humanity, race by race, fixed a steadfast

gaze. Theosophy acclaimed him the new Buddha, and in Judaism a sect

arose who saw, in Paul, Isaiah reborn.

But Flamby was afraid. Paul's theory that the arts had taken the place

of the sibyls, that man was only an instrument of higher powers which

shaped the Universe, dismayed her; for upon seeking to analyse the

emotions which _The Gates_ aroused she thought that she could discern

the origin of this fear in an unfamiliar note which now and again

intruded, a voice unlike the voice of Paul Mario. He was sometimes

dominated by an alien influence, perhaps was so dominated throughout

save that the control did not throughout reveal its presence. His own

work proved his theory to be true. It was a concept of life beyond human

ken revealed through the genius of a master mind. Such revelations in

the past had only been granted to mystics who had sought them in a life

of self-abnegation far from the world. It was no mere reshuffling of the

Tarot of the Initiates, but in many respects was a new gospel, and

because that which is unknown is thought to be wonderful, in questing

the source of Paul's inspiration Flamby constantly found her thoughts to

be focussed upon Jules Thessaly.

At this time she had won recognition from the artistic coterie, or

mutual admiration society, which stands for English art, although her

marked independence of intellect had held her to some extent aloof from

their ever-changing "cults." But she had met those painters,

illustrators, sculptors, critics, dealers and art editors who

"mattered." Practically all of them seemed to know Thessaly; many

regarded him as the most influential living patron of art; yet Flamby

had never met Thessaly, had never even seen him. She had heard that he

possessed a striking personality, she knew that he often lunched at

Regali's and sometimes visited the Cafe Royal. People had said to her,

"There goes Jules Thessaly"--and she had turned just too late, always

too late. Orlando James had arranged for her to meet him at luncheon one

day, and Thessaly had been summoned to Paris on urgent business. At

first Flamby had thought little of the matter, but latterly she had

thought much. To Don she had refrained from speaking of this, for it

seemed to savour of that feminine jealousy which regards with suspicious

disfavour any living creature, man, woman or dog, near to a beloved

object. But she was convinced that Thessaly deliberately avoided her and

she suspected that he influenced Paul unfavourably, although of this

latter fact she had practically no evidence.

Similar doubts respecting the motive which might be attributed to her

had prevented Flamby from telling Don why she wished to keep in touch

with Orlando James. Paul's philosophy was a broad one, and imposed few

trammels upon social intercourse between the sexes. He regarded

early-Victorian prudery with frank horror, and counted the narrowness of

middle-class suburban life as directly traceable to this tainted spring.

Don had once declared a suburban Sunday to be "hell's delight. _Rock of

Ages_," he said, "(arrangement for piano) has more to answer for than

the entire ritual of the Black Mass." Paul applauded breadth of outlook;

nevertheless Flamby doubted if Paul would have approved certain

clandestine visits to James's studio. It was Flamby's discovery of the

identity of the tall lady, closely veiled, whom she had seen one night

descending from a cab and hurrying under the arch into the little

courtyard of the faun, which first had awakened that indefinite fear

whereof she had spoken to Don. On several successive evenings she had

invented reasons for remaining late at Chauvin's, and at last had been

rewarded by seeing the veiled visitor admitted to James's studio. The

light shining out upon her face had revealed the features of Yvonne

Mario. Flamby had spied and had counted her espionage justified. Any

other woman in like circumstances would have spied also, justified or

otherwise. For women in some respects are wiser than men, and he who

counts woman supine has viewed his world awry; but the true deeps of a

woman's soul may only be stirred by passion. Honour and those other

temporal shadows at whose beck men lay down life leave women unstirred.

What man of honour would tear open a letter addressed to another, though

he suspected it to contain his death-warrant? What woman, in like case,

would hesitate to steam it?

VI

High Mass in Westminster Cathedral was about to conclude. The air was

heavy with incense, and the organ notes seemed to float upon it

buoyantly, rebounding from marble wall and Byzantine pillar to remain

indefinitely suspended ere sinking into silence. The voice of the

officiating priest fascinated Paul Mario strangely. He found himself

following the rhythm but not the meaning of the words. That solitary

human voice was the complement of a theme whereof the incense and the

monotonous music made up the other parts. Comprehension of words and

syllables was unnecessary. Detached, no portion of the ritual had

meaning; its portent lay in the whole. The atmosphere which it created

was not that of the Mount, but was purely mediaeval, nor had the Roman

fashion of the vast interior power to hold one's imagination enchained

to the Cross of Calvary. The white robes of the altar servants,

broidered vestments of the priests and pallid torches of a hundred

candles belonged to the Rome of Caesar Borgia and not to the Rome of

Caesar Nero. Into that singular building, impressive in its

incompleteness, crept no echo of the catacombs, and the sighing of the

reed notes was voluptuous as a lover's whisper, and as far removed from

the murmurs of the Christian martyrs. Here were pomp and majesty with

all their emotional appeal. Mystery alone was lacking. The robes of

Cardinal Pescara lent a final touch of colour to the mediaeval opulence

of the scene.

It was to hear the cardinal speak that Paul had come. The occasion was

an impressive one, and the great church was sombre with mourning. Men of

a famous Irish regiment occupied row after row of seats, and from the

galleries above must have looked like a carpet of sand spread across the

floor. The sermon had proved to be worthy of the master of rhetoric who

had delivered it. The silvern voice of the Cardinal, from the

pronouncement of his opening words to the close of his peroration when

he stood with outstretched arms and eyes uplifted pitifully in

illustration of the Agony of Golgotha, charmed his hearers as of old the

lyre of Apollo had power to charm. His genius invested the consolation

of the church with a new significance, exalting the majesty of

bereavement to a higher sovereignty. His English was faultless,

beautified by a soft Italian intonation, and his sense of the dramatic

and of the value of sudden silences reminded Paul of Sir Henry Irving,

whom he had seen once during his first term at Oxford and had never

forgotten. Dramatically it was a flawless performance; intellectually it

was masterful. That crucified pitiful figure stood majestic above a

weeping multitude dominating them by the sheer genius of oratory. Chord

after chord of his human instrument he had touched unerringly, now

stirring the blood with exquisite phrases, now steeping the mind in

magnetic silence. Paul recognised, and was awe-stricken, that this

white-haired ascetic man wielded a power almost as great as his own.

When finally he passed out from the Cathedral, the impression of the

Mass had lost much of its hold upon him, but the haunting cadences of

that suave Italian voice followed him eerily. Near the open doors a

priest, wearing cassock and biretta, stood narrowly scrutinising each

face, and as Paul was about to pass he extended his hand, detaining him.

"Mr. Paul Mario?" he said.

"I am Paul Mario, yes."

"His Eminence, Cardinal Pescara, begs the favour of a few moments'

conversation."

* * * * *

Opening a private door the priest led Paul along a bare, tiled corridor.

Paul followed his guide in silence, his brain busy with conjectures

respecting how and by whom his presence in the Cathedral had been

detected. His appearance was familiar to most people, he was aware, but

he had entered unostentatiously among a group of black-clad women, and

had thought himself unrecognised. In the mode of making his acquaintance

adopted by the Cardinal he perceived the working of that subtle Italian

intellect. The unexpected summons whilst yet his mind was under the

influence of ceremonial, the direct appeal to the dramatic which never

fails with one of artistic temperament; it was well conceived to enslave

the imagination of the man who had written _Francesca of the Lilies_. He

was conscious of nervousness, of an indefinable apprehension, and ere

he had come to the end of the bare corridor, the poet, deserting the

man, had posted halberdiers outside the door which the priest had

unlocked and had set a guard over that which they were approaching. His

guide became a cowled familiar of the Holy Office, and beyond the second

door in an apartment black-draped and sepulchral and lighted by ghostly

candles, inquisitors awaited him who, sweetly solicitous for his

spiritual well-being, would watch men crush his limbs in iron boots,

suspend him by his thumbs from a beam and tear out his tongue with

white-hot pincers. Then if spark of life remained in his mutilated body,

they would direct, amid murmured _Aves_, that his eyes be burned from

their sockets in order that he might look upon heresy no more. His guide

rapped upon the door, opened it and permitted Paul to enter the room,

closing the door behind him. He found himself in a small square

apartment panelled in dark wood. A long narrow oak table was set against

the wall facing the entrance, and upon it were writing materials, a

scarlet biretta and a large silver crucifix. On the point of rising from

a high-backed chair before this table was a man wearing the red robe of

a Cardinal. He turned to greet his visitor and Paul looked into the eyes

of Giovanni Pescara. There was a clash definite as that of blade upon

blade, then the Cardinal inclined his head with gentle dignity and

extended a delicate white hand. A padded armchair stood beside the end

of the table.

"I am sincerely indebted to you, Mr. Mario, for granting me this

unconventional interview. My invitation must have seemed brusque to the

point of the uncouth, but chancing to learn of your presence I took

advantage of an opportunity unlikely to repeat itself. I return to Rome

to-night."

"Your Eminence's invitation was a command," replied Paul, and knew the

words to be dictated by some former Mario, or by an earlier self in

whose eyes a prince of the Church had ranked only second to the King. "I

am honoured in obeying it."

Giovanni Pescara, in spite of his frail physique, was a man of imposing

presence, the aristocrat proclaiming himself in every gesture, in the

poise of his noble head, with its crown of wavy silver hair, in the

movements of his fine hands. He had the prominent nose and delicate

slightly distended nostrils of his family, but all the subtlety of the

man was veiled by his widely opened mild hazel eyes. Seen thus closely,

his face, which because of a pure white complexion from a distance

looked statuesquely smooth, proved to be covered with a network of tiny

lines. It was a wonderful face, and his smile lent it absolute beauty.

"I should have counted my brief visit incomplete, Mr. Mario, if I had

not met you. Therefore I pray you hold me excused. In Italy, where your

fame is at least as great as it is in England, we are proud to know you

one of ourselves. Many generations have come and gone since Paolo Mario

settled in the English county of Kent, but the olive of Italy proclaims

itself in his descendant. No son of the North could have given to the

world the beautiful Tarone called _Francesca of the Lilies_. The fire of

the South is in her blood and her voice is the voice of our golden

nights. I have read the story in English, and it is magnificent, but

Italian is its perfect raiment."

"It is delightful of you to say so," said Paul, subtly flattered by the

knowledge of his ancestry exhibited by the Cardinal, but at the same

time keenly on the alert. Giovanni Pescara did not study men at the

prompting of mere curiosity.

"It is delightful to have been afforded an opportunity to say so. Your

love of Tuscany, which is natural, has sometimes led me to hope that

one day you would consent to spend your winters or a part of them

amongst us, Mr. Mario. No door in Italy would be closed to you."

"You honour me very highly, and indeed I know something of your Italian

hospitality, but there are so many points upon which I find myself at

variance with the Church that I should hesitate to accept it under false

pretences."

Cardinal Pescara gazed at him mildly. "You find yourself at variance

with the Church, Mr. Mario? Frankly, your words surprise me. In which of

your works have you expressed these dissensions?"

"Notably in _The Gates_."

"In that event I have misunderstood your purpose in writing that fine

and unusual book. I do not recall that his Holiness has banned it."

Paul met the questioning glance of the hazel eyes and knew himself

foiled. "I must confess that I have not expressly inquired into that

matter," he said; "but it was only because I had taken inclusion in the

Index for granted."

"But why should you do so, Mr. Mario? Have you advocated the destruction

of the Papal power?"

"Emphatically no. An organisation such as that of Rome and resting upon

such authority is not lightly destroyed."

"Have you denied the mission of the heir of St. Peter to preach the Word

of the Messiah?"

"I have not."

"Have you denied the divinity of Christ or the existence of Almighty

God?"

"Certainly not."

"Then why should you expect Rome to place its ban upon your book?"

"I have not questioned the authority of Rome, your Eminence, but I have

questioned Rome's employment of that authority."

"As you are entitled to do being not a priest but a layman. We have many

Orders within the Church, and upon minor doctrinal points they differ

one from another, but their brotherhood is universal and his Holiness

looks with equal favour upon them all. Amongst Catholic laymen we have

kindly critics, but Rome is ever ready to reply to criticism and never

disregards it. If you are conscious of imperfections in the

administration of the Church, the Church would welcome your aid in

removing them."

The facile skill with which the Cardinal had disarmed him excited Paul's

admiration even whilst he found himself disadvantaged by it. "My

conception of the life of the spirit differs widely from that of

Catholicism," he said, speaking slowly and deliberately. "We stand upon

opposite platforms, and our purposes are divided. I regard not one man

in a million, however admirable his life, as fit for that perfect state

called Heaven and not one in a hundred millions, however evil, as

deserving of that utter damnation called Hell. I say that there are

intermediate states innumerable. Is Rome open to consider such a claim?"

"To consider it, Mr. Mario? Rome has always taught it. Have we not a

Purgatory?"

"For the justified, but what of the sinner?"

"Have we no prayers for the dead? You maintain that no man is fit for

Heaven; so does Rome--that no soul is lost whilst one prayer is offered

for its redemption. We agree with you. In _The Gates_ you have done no

more than to analyse the symbolism of Roman ritual, defining Purgatory

as a series of earthly experiences and Heaven as their termination. Have

you considered, Mr. Mario, that whatever a man's belief may be, he can

do no more than to be true to himself?"

"And is Rome true to Rome, your Eminence? Before the horrors of war the

spirit stands aghast, but are the horrors perpetrated by Prussia

reconcilable with the teachings of St. Peter? For lesser crimes,

thousands burned at the stake during the Pontificate of Innocent VIII;

yet Rome to-day hears German prelates calling upon God to exalt the

murderer, the ravisher, and is silent. If Rome is untrue to Rome the

rock upon which the Church of St. Peter stands may yet be shattered."

Cardinal Pescara twisted the ring upon his finger, regarding Paul with a

glance of almost pathetic entreaty. "You hurt me, Mr. Mario," he said.

"I do not recall that you have levelled this charge against the Catholic

Church in your book. But it seems to me to be rather a criticism of

internal administration than of doctrine, after all. If no man be worthy

of hell, why should his Holiness abandon sinful Germany? It is for him

to decide, since all laws are locked within the bosom of the Pope."

"I would unlock those laws, your Eminence, and set them up before the

world in place of empty dogmas. I would have open sanctuaries and open

minds. Humanity has outgrown its childhood and demands more reasonable

fare than that which sufficed for its needs in the nursery."

"That you honestly suppose this to be so I cannot question; but what you

term 'open-mindedness'--implying a state of receptivity--is in fact an

utter rejection of all established spiritual truths. The open-minded and

the atheistical draw dangerously closer day by day. The only thing of

which they are sure is that they are sure of nothing and their _credo_

is 'I do not believe.' Broadly speaking, Mr. Mario, our differences may

be said to revolve around one point. Of the construction which you place

upon the Word of the Messiah I shall say nothing, but it is your

projected second book in which, if I understand your purpose, you

propose to lay bare the 'arcana of the initiates' (the words are your

own) which, if it ever be published, will indisputably occasion action

by the Holy See. Let me endeavour to bring home to you the fact that I

believe you are about to make a dreadful and irrevocable mistake."

The hazel eyes momentarily lost their softness and the Cardinal's

expression grew gravely imperious. Paul felt again the shock of this

man's powerful will and braced himself for combat.

"I shall always listen to your Eminence with respect."

"Respect, Mr. Mario, is due to any man who is sincere in his efforts to

promote the well-being of his fellows, even though his efforts be

mistaken. In the symbolism of the Church and even in the form of the

Papal crown you have recognised the outward form of an inner truth. You

have applauded the ritual of the Mass and the traditions of the Catholic

priesthood because they approach so nearly to that mystic ideal which

gave potency to the great hierarchies of the past, notably to that of

Ancient Egypt. I shall venture to ask you a question. Outside the sacred

colleges of the Egyptian priesthood what was known in those days of the

truth underlying the symbols, Isis, Osiris and Amen-Ra?"

"Nothing."

"Then why did you admire a system diametrically opposed to that which

you would set up?"

"Because it was ideally suited to the age of the Pharaohs. The world has

advanced since those days but religion has tried to stand still."

"The world has advanced, and in _The Gates_ we hear the tap of the

cripple's crutch upon the pavements of our enlightened cities. The world

has advanced, Mr. Mario, and is filled with sad-eyed mothers and with

widows who have scarcely known wifehood. Where is your evidence that

this generation is ready for the 'blinding light of truth'? You believe

that you have been given a mission. I do not question your good faith.

You believe that throughout a series of earlier physical experiences you

have been preparing for this mission. Granting for a moment that this is

so, what proof can you offer of your having attained to that state of

perfection which you, yourself, lay down as a _sine qua non_ of

mastership? If it should be revealed to you that you have actually lived

before, but as a man enthusiastic, ardent and blinded by those passions

which are a wall between humanity and the angels, should you not take

pause? You have granted the authority of Rome. Wherein does your own

reside? Are you sure that for you the veil is wholly lifted? Are you

sure that you have no false friends? Are you sure that you comprehend

the meaning of your own tenet--'Perfect Love and Fulfilment'? If you

have any doubts upon these points, Mr. Mario, hold your hand. It can

profit the world nothing to restir the witches' cauldron. Love must

always be the mainspring of life and honour its loftiest ideal. Teach

men how to live and leave it to Death to reveal the hereafter. Not for

the good of mankind do I tremble--God has the world in his charge--but

for yourself. We all are granted glimpses of our imperfections, perhaps

in the form of twinges of conscience, or dreams, or as you would say in

the form of hazy memories inherited from earlier imperfect lives. If

these gentle lessons fail, swift blows rain upon us. But we are never

permitted to fall into error unchecked. Read well the tablet of your

soul and read between the lines. Measure your strength and test your

purity ere you dare to attempt to shatter at a blow the structure of the

ages. When Lucifer fell from the Divine order, it was lust of knowledge

that prompted him to set his own will in opposition to the Almighty. I

speak in figures which you will understand. Lucifer became the great

Self-Centre as opposed to the greater God-Centre. He is more active

amongst us to-day than he has been for many ages. He has numerous

servants and handmaidens. Are you sure, Mr. Mario, that you can

recognise them when they pass you by? Remember that the Devil is a

philosopher. If we may learn anything from the ancient creeds surely it

is that the secret of governing humanity is never to tell humanity the

truth."

VII

Some days later Flamby was taking tea by appointment in Orlando James's

studio. Don had written from France urging her to divulge the nature of

her misgivings respecting Paul and their connection with James, and

Flamby, greatly daring, had determined to obtain confirmation of the

doubts which troubled her. She wore the Liberty dress of grey velvet,

and as she bent over an Arab coffee-table and her pretty hands busied

themselves amid the old silver of the tea-service, Flamby made a

delectable study which Orlando James who watched her found to be

exceedingly tantalising. He flicked cigarette ash on to the floor and

admired the creamy curve of Flamby's neck as she lowered her head in the

act of pouring out tea.

"What a pretty neck you have, kid," he said in his drawling

self-confident way.

"Yes," replied Flamby, dropping pieces of sugar into the cups, "it isn't

so bad as necks go. But I should have liked it to be white instead of

yellow."

"It isn't yellow: it's a delicious sort of old-ivory velvet which I am

just itching to paint."

"Then why don't you?" inquired Flamby, composedly settling herself in a

nest of cushions on the floor.

"Because you will never pose for me."

"You have never asked me."

"Why I asked you only a few days ago to pose for my next big picture."

Flamby sipped hot tea and looked up at James scornfully. "Do you think

I'm daft!" she said. "I am a painter not a model. If you want to paint

my portrait I don't mind, but if you've got an idea in your head that I

am ever likely to pose for the figure you can get it out as quick as

lightning."

James lounged in a long rest-chair, watching her languidly. "You're a

funny girl," he said. "I thought I was paying you a compliment, but

perhaps it's a sore point. Where's the flaw, kid?"

"The flaw?"

"Yes, what is it--knotty knees? It certainly isn't thick ankles."

Flamby had much ado to preserve composure; momentarily her thoughts

became murderous. This was truly a 'sore point,' but mentally comparing

Orlando James with Sir Jacques she was compelled to admit that the bold

roue was preferable to the masked satyr. She placed her tea cup on a

corner of the Arab table and smoothed her skirt placidly.

"Spotty skin," she replied. "Haven't you seen my picture in the

newspapers advertising somebody's ointment?"

James stared in the dull manner which characterised his reception of a

joke. "Is that funny, Flamby?" he said, "because I don't believe it is

true."

"Don't you? Well, it doesn't matter. Do you want any more tea?"

He passed his cup, watching her constantly and wondering why since he

had progressed thus far in her favour not all his well-tried devices

could advance him a single pace further. He had learned during a long

and varied experience that the chief difficulty in these little affairs

was that of breaking down the barrier which ordinarily precludes

discussion of such intimately personal matters. Once this was

accomplished he had found his art to be a weapon against which woman's

vanity was impotent. Unfortunately for his chance of success, Sir

Jacques had also been a graduate of this school of artistic libertinage.

"There is something selfish about a girl who keeps her beauty all to

herself when it might delight future generations," he said, taking the

newly filled cup from Flamby. "Besides, it really is a compliment, kid,

to ask you to pose for a big thing like _The Dreaming Keats_. It's going

to be my masterpiece."

"Our next picture is always going to be our masterpiece," murmured

Flamby wisely, taking an Egyptian cigarette from the Japanese cabinet on

the table.

"But I think I can claim to know what I'm talking about, Flamby. It

means that I regard you as one of the prettiest girls in London."

"Your vanity is most soothing," said Flamby, curling herself up

comfortably amid the poppy-hued cushions and trying to blow rings of

smoke.

"Where does the vanity come in?"

"In your delightful presumption. Do you honestly believe, Orlando, that

any woman in London would turn amateur model if you asked her?"

"I don't say that _any_ woman would do so, but almost any pretty woman

would."

"I don't believe it."

"You know who my model was for _Eunice_, don't you?"

"I have heard that Lady Daphne Freyle posed for it and the hair is like

hers certainly, but the face of the figure is turned away. Oh!--how

funny."

"What is funny?"

"It has just occurred to me that a number of your pictures are like

that: the figure is either veiled or half looking away."

"That is necessary when one's models are so well-known."

Flamby hugged her knees tightly and gazed at the speaker as if

fascinated. She was endeavouring to readjust her perspective. Vanity in

women assumed many strange shapes. There were those who bartered honour

for the right to live and in order that they might escape starvation.

These were pitiful. There were some who bought jewels at the price of

shame, and others who sold body and soul for an hour in the limelight.

These were unworthy of pity. But what of those who offered themselves,

like _ghawazi_ in a Keneh bazaar, in return for the odious distinction

of knowing their charms to be "immortalised" by the brush of Orlando

James? These were beyond Flamby's powers of comprehension.

"But Lady Daphne is an exception. I am only surprised that she did not

want a pose which rendered her immediately recognisable."

"She did," drawled James, "but _I_ didn't."

"Was she really an ideal model or did you induce her to pose just to

please your colossal vanity?"

"My dear Flamby, it is next to impossible to find a flawless model among

the professionals. Hammett or anybody will tell you the same. They lack

that ideal delicacy, what Crozier calls 'the texture of nobility,' which

one finds in a woman of good family. Half the success of my big subjects

has been due to my models. This will be recognised when the history of

modern art comes to be written. I am held up at the moment, and that is

the reason why I am anxious to start on _Keats_."

"What is holding you up?"

"My model for _The Circassian_ has jibbed. Otherwise it would be

finished."

"There are disadvantages attaching to your method after all?"

"Yes. I shall avoid married models in future. Husbands are so

inartistic."

"You don't want me to believe that some misguided married woman has

been posing for _The Circassian_?"

"Why misguided? It will be a wonderful picture."

"It is that Eastern thing is it not?--the marble pool and a half veiled

figure lying beside it with one hand in the water?"

"Yes, but I've had to shelve it. Did I show you that last sketch for the

Keats picture?"

"You did, Orlando; but dismiss the idea that I am going to play Phryne

to your Apelles. It won't come off. It may work successfully with daft

society women who have got bored with pretending to be nurses and

ambulance drivers but you really cannot expect Flamby Duveen to begin

competing with the professional models. I could quote something from

Ovid that would be quite to the point but you wouldn't understand and I

should have to laugh all by myself."

"You are a tantalising little devil," said James, his dull brain seeking

vainly a clue to the cause of Flamby's obduracy.

Flamby, meanwhile maturing her plan, made the next move. "Is the Keats

picture to be more important than _The Circassian_?" she asked naively.

"Of course," James replied, believing that at last a clue was his. "I

have told you that it will be my masterpiece." He had offered an

identical assurance to many a hesitant amateur.

"Is your model for _The Circassian_ really very pretty?"

"She is; but of a more ordinary type than you, kid. You are simply a

nymph in human shape. You will send the critics crazy."

He watched her with scarcely veiled eagerness, and Flamby, placing the

end of her cigarette in a silver ash-tray, seemed to be thinking.

"Is she--well-known?"

James recognised familiar symptoms and his hopes leapt high. "If I show

you the canvas and you recognise the model will you promise not to tell

anybody? I am painting it by a new process. I got the idea from Wiertz.

The violet gauze of the veil is only indicated yet."

Flamby nodded, watching him wide-eyed. Her expression was inscrutable.

He crossed the big studio and wheeled an easel out from the recess in

which it had been concealed. The canvas was draped and having set it in

a good light he turned, taking a step forward. "No telling," he said.

"No," replied Flamby, rising from her extemporised _diwan_.

James towered over her slight figure vastly. "Give me a kiss and I will

believe you," he said.

Flamby felt a tingling sensation and knew that a flush was rising from

her neck to her brow, but with success in view she was loth to abandon

her scheme. "Show me first," she said.

"Oh, no. Be a sport, kid. You might do me no end of harm if you blabbed.

Give me a kiss and I shall know we are pals." He placed his hand on

Flamby's shoulder and she tried not to shrink. The rich colour fled from

her cheeks and her oval face assumed that even, dusky hue which was a

danger signal, but which Orlando James failed to recognise for one.

"I don't want to kiss you; I want to see the picture."

"And I don't want you to see the picture until you have kissed me,"

replied James, smiling confidently and clasping his arm around Flamby's

shoulders. "Only one tiny kiss and I shall know I can trust you."

He drew her close, and Flamby experienced a thrill of terror because of

the strength of his arm and her own helplessness. But she averted her

face and thrust one hand against James's breast, fighting hard to

retain composure. He bent over her and thereupon Flamby knew that the

truce must end. Her heart began to throb wildly.

"I won't kiss you!" she cried. "Let me go!"

Orlando James looked into her face, now flushed again and found the lure

of Flamby's lips to be one beyond his powers of rejection. "Don't get

wild, kiddie," he said softly. "You need not be cruel."

"Let me go," repeated Flamby in a low voice.

He held her closer and his face almost touched hers. Whereupon the storm

burst. "Are you going to let me go?" said Flamby breathlessly; and even

as she spoke James sought to touch her lips. Flamby raised her open hand

and struck him hard upon the cheek. "_Now_ will you let me go!"

Orlando James laughed loudly. "You lovely little devil," he cried. "I

shall kiss you a hundred times for that."

Backward swung Flamby's foot and James received a shrewd kick upon his

shin. But the little suede shoes which Flamby wore were incapable of

inflicting such punishment as those heavy boots which once had wrought

the discomfiture of Fawkes. James threw both arms around her and lifted

her bodily, as one lifts a child, smiling into her face. She battled

against him, hand and foot, but could strike with slight force because

of her helpless position. He crushed her to him and kissed her on the

lips. As he did so she remembered the form of her French shoes and

raising her right foot she battered madly at his knee with the high

wooden heel. One of the blows got home, and uttering a smothered curse

James dropped her, but did not release her.

"You low dirty swine!" she cried at him.

He held her by her arms and now she suddenly twisted violently, writhed

and wrenched herself free, leaving a velvet sleeve in James's grasp and

leaping back from him, one creamy shoulder bared by the tattered gown

and her wonderful hair loosened and foaming about her head to lend her

the aspect of a beautiful Bisharin girl, wild as the desert gazelle.

James saw that she wore an antique gold locket upon a thin chain about

her neck. He clutched at her, but she bounded back again, her eyes

blazing dangerously and snatched up the Japanese cabinet. With all her

strength she hurled it at his head.

"Take that," she screamed, flushing scarlet--"blast you!"

He ducked, inhaling sibilantly, but a corner of the little cabinet

struck his forehead, and he stumbled, caught his foot against a cushion

and fell across the table amid a litter of china and silver ware. He

clutched at the draped picture, and canvas and easel fell crashing to

the floor, revealing the nearly completed _Circassian_. Flamby sprang

across the studio, wrenched open the door and ran out banging it behind

her. As it closed she fell back against it, panting--and saw Paul Mario

approaching from the direction of Chauvin's.

VIII

In the glance which Paul gave Flamby there was something odic and

strange. He experienced a consciousness of giving and a consciousness of

loss. Flamby was aware of intense shame and mad joy. She threw her arm

over her bare shoulder to hide it and shrank back against the door not

daring to raise her eyes again. She was trembling violently. Beneath her

downcast lashes she could see the door of Chauvin's studio, and suddenly

she determined to fly there for shelter, as had been her original

intention. She started--but Paul held her fast. Flamby hid her face

against his coat.

"Flamby--who has done this?" Paul's voice was very low and very steady.

Flamby swallowed emotionally, but already her quick wit was at work

again and she realised that Paul must be prevented from entering James's

studio, must be spared a sight of the picture which lay upon the floor.

"We were--just ragging," she said tremulously, "and it got too rough. So

I--ran out My dress is torn, you see." She did not look up. Paul's

Harris tweed coat had a faint odour of peat and tobacco. She realised

that she was clutching him for support.

He was carrying a light Burberry on his arm, and he held it open for

her. "Slip this on, Flamby," he said, in the same low, steady voice,

"and sit there on the ledge for a moment." He helped her to put on the

coat, which enveloped her grotesquely, led her to the low parapet which

surrounded the figure of the dancing faun and stepped toward the door of

James's studio.

Flamby leapt up and clutched his arm with both hands. "No, no!" she

cried. "You must not go in there! Oh, please listen to me! I don't want

you to go in."

Paul half turned, looking down at her. "Don't excite yourself, Flamby. I

shall not be a moment."

But she clutched him persistently until, looking swiftly up at him, she

saw the pallor of his olive skin and the expression in his eyes. She

allowed him to unlock her fingers from his arm and she dropped down

weakly on to the narrow stone ledge as he crossed to the studio door. It

was very still in the courtyard. Some sparrows were chirping up on a

roof, but the sounds of the highroad were muted and dim. Paul grasped

the brass handle and sought to turn it. As he did so Flamby realised

that James had bolted the door. Paul stood for a moment looking at the

massive oak and then turned away, rejoining Flamby. "Come along to

Chauvin's," he said. "I will get a cab for you."

The only occupant of Chauvin's studio was a romantic-looking man wearing

a very dirty smock, a man who looked like an illustration for _La Vie de

Boheme_, so that a stranger must have mistaken him for a celebrated

artist although he actually combined the duties of a concierge with

those of a charwoman. He displayed no surprise when Flamby came in,

wild-haired, arrayed in Paul's Burberry.

"See if you can get a taxi, Martin," said Flamby, dropping into a huge

Jacobean arm-chair over which a purple cloak was draped. A King Charles

spaniel who had been asleep on a cushion awoke immediately and jumped on

to her knees. Flamby caressed the little animal, looking down at his

snub-nosed face intently. Paul walked up and down the studio. He began

speaking in a low voice.

"I had hoped, Flamby, that you had done as I once asked you to do and

dropped--Orlando James."

"I did," said Flamby quickly and continuing to caress the spaniel. "I

wrote to Don the very night you told me to."

"And I am sure that Don agreed with me."

"He did, yes. But--Don knows I still pretend to be friends with--James."

Paul stood still, facing her, but she did not look up. "Don knows this?"

Flamby nodded her head. She did not seem to care that her hair was in

disorder. "He knows that I hate James, though," she added.

"I don't understand at all. Whatever can have induced you to trust

yourself in that ruffian's studio?"

"I've been before. It was my fault. I made him think he was doing fine."

"Doing fine?"

"He is so infernally conceited. I wanted to let him down. But he got

desperate. He is not a man; he's a pig. But I threw a cabinet at him."

"Did you hit him?" asked Paul grimly.

"Yes; but I wish it had been a brick."

"So do I," replied Paul. "I shall not ask you for particulars, Flamby,

but I shall take certain steps which will make London too hot to hold

Mr. Orlando James." His restrained passion was electric and it acted

upon Flamby in a curious way and seemed to set her heart singing.

When Martin returned to report that a cab waited, Paul walked out under

the arch to the street and having placed Flamby in the cab, he held her

hand for a moment and their glances met. "Dear little wild-haired

Flamby," he said, and his voice had the same note of tenderness which

she had heard in it once before and of which she had dreamed ever since.

"Take care of yourself, little girl. You belong to the clean hills and

the sweet green woods which I almost wish you had never left."

* * * * *

For long after the cab had passed around the corner Paul stood by the

archway staring in that direction, but presently he aroused himself and

returned to the courtyard. He tried the handle of James's door but

learned that the bolt remained fastened, whereupon he determined to

proceed to Thessaly's flat.

A definite change had taken place in the relations existing between

himself and Flamby. For all her wildness and her reckless behaviour,

that day she had appealed to him as something fragrantly innocent and

bewilderingly sweet. The memory of the Charleswood photographs had

assumed a different form, too, and he suddenly perceived possibilities

of an explanation which should exculpate the girl from a graver sin than

that of bravado. He had seen something in her eyes which had rendered

such an explanation necessary, had found there something stainless as

the heart of a wild rose. Devil-may-care was in her blood and he doubted

if she knew the meaning of fear, but for evil he now sought in vain and

wondered greatly because he had so misjudged her. He experienced a

passionate desire to protect her, to enfold her in careful guardianship.

He knew that he had not wanted to leave her at the gate of the studios,

but he had only recognised this to be the case at the very moment of

parting. He had never entertained an interest quite identical in anyone

and he sought to assure himself that it was thus that a father thought

of his child. He wondered if it had been her hair or her lips which had

maddened Orlando James; he wondered why she had been in the studio; and

a cold hatred of James took up a permanent place in his heart.

In the narrow thoroughfare connecting Victoria Street with that in which

Thessaly's flat was situated were a number of curious shops devoted to

the sale of church ornaments, altar candlesticks, lecterns, silk

banners, cassocks and birettas, statuettes of the Virgin, crucifixes and

rosaries. Paul stood before the window of one, reading the titles of the

books which were also displayed there, _Garden of the Soul, The Little

Flowers_ of St. Francis of Assisi. A phrase arose before him; he did not

seem to hear it but to see it dancing in smoky characters which

partially obscured a large ivory crucifix: "To shatter at a blow the

structure of the ages." He recalled that Cardinal Pescara had used those

words. His mood was unrestful and his brain was haunted by unaccountable

memories, so that when he found himself in the shadow of the lofty

campanile of Westminster Cathedral his spirit became translated to an

obscure lane in Cairo. Faint organ notes reached his ears.

Thessaly received him in a little room having a balcony which overhung

the street. Delicate ivory plaques decorated the walls and the fanciful

curtains of Indian muslin hung like smoke of incense in the still air.

There were some extraordinary pastels by Degas forming a kind of frieze.

The evening was warm and the campanile upstood against a sky blue as a

sapphire dome. The Cairo illusion persisted.

"Do you know, Thessaly," said Paul, "to-night I cannot help thinking of

a scene I once witnessed in El Wasr. I formed one of a party of three

and we were wandering aimlessly through those indescribable lanes. Pipes

wailed in the darkness to an accompaniment of throbbing--throbbing of

the eternal _darabukeh_ which is like the pulsing of evil life through

the arteries of the secret city. Harsh woman-voices cried out in the

night and bizarre figures flitted like bats from the lighted dance halls

into the shadows of nameless houses. We came to a long, narrow street

entirely devoted to those dungeon-like chambers with barred windows

whose occupants represent all the classified races of the East and all

the unclassified sins of the Marquis de Sade. Another street crossed it

at right angles and at the cross roads was a mosque. The minaret stood

up blackly against the midnight sky and as we turned the corner we

perceived what appeared to be another of the 'cages' immediately facing

the door of the mosque. Out of the turmoil of the one street we came

into this other and leaving discord and evil behind us entered into

silence and peace. We looked in at the barred window. Woman voices

reached us faintly from the street we had left and the muted pulse of

the _darabukeh_ pursued us. Upon a raised dais having candles set at his

head and feet reposed a venerable _sheikh_, dead. His white beard flowed

over his breast. He reclined in majestic sleep where the pipes were

wailing the call of El Wasr, and the shadow of the minaret lay upon life

and upon death. Is it not strange that this scene should recur to me

to-night?"

"Strange and uncomplimentary," replied Thessaly. "Whilst I have no

objection to your finding an analogy between my perfectly respectable

neighbours and the women of the Wasr, the role of a defunct and saintly

Arab does not appeal to me." Some reflection of the setting sun touched

him where he stood and bathed him as in fire. The small tight curls of

hair and beard became each a tongue of flame and his eyes glittered like

molten gold. "Pardon my apparent rudeness, but I don't think you are

listening."

"I am not," murmured Paul. "Your words reach me from a great distance.

My spirit is uneasy to-night, and whilst myself I remain in your ivory

room and hear you speak another self stands in a vast temple of black

gleaming granite before the shrine of a golden bull."

"You are possibly thinking of Apis. From Cairo you have proceeded to

Sakkara. Or are the gaudy hue of my hair and the yeoman proportions of

my shape responsible for the idea?"

"I cannot say, nor was I actually thinking of the Serapeum."

"You are not yourself. You have been studying the war news or else you

have passed a piebald horse without spitting twice and crossing your

fingers."

Paul laughed, but not in the frank boyish way that was so good to hear.

"I am not myself, Thessaly, or if I am I do not recognise myself."

"You have committed some indiscretion such as presenting your

siren-haired protegee, Flamby Duveen, to your wife."

"I have not," said Paul sharply.

"I am glad. He who presents one pretty woman to another makes two

lifelong enemies."

"I did not know that you had met Flamby."

"She has been described to me and she sounds dangerous. I distrust

curly-haired girls. They are full of electricity, and electricity is a

force of which we know so little. Does the idea of a cocktail appeal to

you? I have a man who has invented a new cocktail which he calls 'Fra

Diavolo.' Viewed through the eyes of Fra Diavolo you will find the world

a more cheery globe."

"Thanks, no. But I will smoke." From his coat pocket Paul took out a

briar pipe and the well-worn pouch. "In a month, Thessaly, _The Key_

will be in the printer's hands. I found myself thinking of Pandora this

morning. There are few really virtuous women and truth is a draught

almost as heady I should imagine as Fra Diavolo."

"My dear Mario, you must admit that virtue is the least picturesque of

the vices. When aggressive it becomes a positive disfigurement. The 'on

guard' position, though useful in bayonet-fighting, leaves the aesthete

cold. You would not have us treat our women as the Moslems do?"

"Women can rarely distinguish the boundary between freedom and license.

Honestly I should like to revise the position of woman in Europe and

America before I entrusted _The Key_ to her keeping. Unmarried, she has

quite enough freedom, married she has too much."

"Therefore she conceals her age and dyes her hair."

"Showing that she is not invulnerable to flattery."

"No woman is, and flattery may be likened to the artillery preparation

which precedes a serious advance. But, my dear Mario, to deprive a woman

of admiration is to deprive a fish of water. In London when a woman

ceases to interest other men she ceases to interest her husband, unless

he is not as other men. In Stambul on the contrary the odalisque who

bathes in rival glances finally bathes in the Bosphorus with her

charming head in a sack. Fortunately we are at war with Turkey."

"Have you considered, Thessaly, what appalling sins must have been

committed by the present generation of women in some past phase of

existence?"

"There are instances in which the sins belong to the present phase. But

I agree with you that the women are suffering more than the men.

Therefore their past errors must have been greater. They are being

taught the value of love, Mario. In their next incarnation they will

remember. They will be reborn beneath a new star--_your_ star. Something

perturbs you. You are harassed by doubts and hunted by misgivings. I

have secured permission to toil up hundreds of stairs in order that I

may emulate the priests of Bel and look out upon the roofs of Babylon.

This spectacle will cheer you. Join me, my friend, and I will show you

the heart of the world."

IX

"Look," said Jules Thessaly, "below you stretches the Capital of the

greatest empire man has ever known."

They stood in the topmost gallery of the campanile looking down upon a

miniature London. The viridescent ribbon of the Thames bound bridge to

bridge running thematically through a symphony of grey and green and

gold. A consciousness of power leapt high within Paul. Only the sun was

above him, the sun and the suave immensity of space. How insignificant

an episode was a human life, how futile and inept; a tiny note in a

monstrous score. Below in the teeming streets moved a million such

points, each one but a single note in this vast orchestration, a bird

note, faint, inaudible 'mid the music of the spheres. Yet each to each

was the centre of the Universe; all symbolised the triumph to the false

Self-centre as opposed to the true God-centre. Men lived for the day

because they doubted the morrow. Palaces and hovels, churches and

theatres, all were products of this feverish striving of the ants to

plumb the well of truth and scale the mountain of wisdom; to drain at a

draught the gourd of life which the gods had filled in the world's

morning. Thessaly began to speak again, standing at Paul's elbow, and

his deep rich voice carried power and authority.

"Look at London and you look at an epitome of humanity. The best that

man can do, and the worst, lie there beneath you. In that squat, grey,

irregular mound which from earth level we recognise to be the Houses of

Parliament, men are making laws. The laws which they are making are the

laws of necessity--the necessity of slaying Prussians. Many of the

larger buildings in the neighbourhood are occupied by temporary civil

servants engaged in promulgating those laws. Thus by the passing of an

Act having twenty clauses, twenty thousand clerks are created and five

more hotels sequestered for their accommodation. No laws which do not

bear directly or indirectly upon the slaying of Prussians have been made

in recent years. This is sometimes called government, but used to be

known as self-preservation when men dressed in yellow ochre and carried

stone clubs.

"Eastward over the Thames hangs a pall of smoke. It is the smoke of

Silvertown. Left, right, and all about are other palls. They are created

by the furnaces of works which once were making useful things and

beautiful things; paints and enamels and varnishes, pottery and metal

ware, toys for sport and instruments of science. To-day they make

instruments of death; high explosives to shatter flesh and bone to pulp

and powder, deadly gases to sear men's eyes, to choke out human life. It

is called work of national importance, but Christ would have wept to see

it. Squatting in Whitehall--look, the setting sun strikes venomous

sparks from its windows--is the War Office. Ponder well the name of

this imposing pile--the _War Office_. Nearly two thousand years have

elapsed since the last of the Initiates delivered His Sermon on the

Mount. See! the city bristles with the spires of His churches; they are

as thorns upon a briar-bush. Look north, the spire of a church

terminates the prospect; south, it is the same; east and west--spires,

spires, spires. And squatting grimly amid a thousand shrines of Jesus

Christ is the War Office--the _War_ Office, my friend. Watch how the

spears of light strike redly into that canopy of foulness hanging above

Kynoch's Works. A Ministry of Munitions controls all that poisonous

activity. Mario, it is the second Crucifixion. The Jews crucified the

Body; all the world has conspired to crucify the Spirit.

"The Word has failed. There lies the reading of your day dream, Mario,

your dream of the _Sheikh_ of El Wasr. Look how the shadow of the

campanile creeps out beneath us, over church and War-Office-Annexe, over

life and over death. Religion is a corpse and the world is its morgue.

But out of corruption comes forth sweetness. No creature known to man

possesses more intense vitality than the _dermestes_ beetle which

propagates in the skull of a mummy. From the ashes of the Cross you

arise. Christ is dead; long live Christianity. Behold the world at your

feet. Courage, my friend, open the Gates and lead mankind into the

garden of the gods."

X

That Paul had established a platform strong enough to support the tower

of a new gospel became evident. His second book of Revelations, _The

Key_, was awaited eagerly by the whole of the civilised world. In

determined opposition to the wishes of Bassett, unmoved by an offer from

an American newspaper which would have created a record serial price,

Paul had declined to print any part of _The Key_ in a periodical. With

the publication of _The Gates_, which but heralded a wider intent, he

had become the central figure of the world. Politically he was regarded

as a revolutionary so dangerous that he merited the highest respect, and

the tactful attitude of the Roman Church was adopted by those temporal

rulers who recognised in Paul Mario one who had almost grasped a power

above the power of kings.

"In Galileo's days," said Thessaly on one occasion, "a man who

proclaimed unpalatable truths was loaded with chains and hurled into a

dungeon. Nowadays we load him with honours and raise him to the peerage,

an even more effectual method of gagging him. Try to avoid the House of

Peers, Mario. Your presence would disturb the orthodox slumbers of the

bishops."

On the eve of the opening of the German offensive Paul received a long

letter from Don which disturbed him very much. It was the outcome of

Don's last interview with Flamby and represented the result of long

deliberation. "I have had a sort of brain-wave," wrote Don in his

whimsical fashion, "or rush of intellect to the brow. I suppose you

recognise that you are now the outstanding figure of the War and

consequently of the world? Such a figure always arises out of a great

upheaval, as history shows. His presence is necessary to the

readjustment of shattered things, I suppose--and he duly arrives. I take

you to stand, Paul, for spiritual survival. You are the chosen retort of

the White to the challenge of the Black, but I wonder if you have

perceived the real inwardness of your own explanation of the War?

"You show it to be an upcrop of that primitive Evil which legend has

embodied in the person of Lucifer. Has it occurred to you that the

insidious process of corruption which you have followed step by step

through the art, the music, the literature, the religion and the

sociology of Germany may have been directed by _someone_? If you are the

mouthpiece of the White, who is the mouthpiece of the Black? It is

difficult to visualise such a personality, of course. We cannot imagine

Pythagoras in his bath or even Shakespeare having his hair cut, and if

What's-his-name revisited earth to-morrow I don't suppose anybody would

know him. I often find it hard to realise that _you_, the old Paul with

the foul briar pipe and the threadbare Norfolk, really wrote _The

Gates_, not to mention _Francesca_. But you did, and I have been

wondering if the Other Fellow--the Field-Marshal of the Powers of

Darkness--is equally disappointing to look at--I mean, without halos,

or, in his case, blue fire. In short, I have been wondering if, meeting

him, one would recognise him? I have tried to imagine a sort of sinister

Whisperer standing at the elbows of Germany's philosophers, scientists,

artists and men of letters; one who was paving the way for a war that

should lay religion in ashes. And now, Paul, forgive me if I seem to

rave, but conditions here are not conducive to the production of really

good literature--I wonder if you will divine where this line of

reflection led me? The Whisperer, upon the ruins of the old creeds,

would try to uprear a new creed--his own. _You_ would be his obstacle.

Would he attack you openly, or would he remain--the Whisperer? To adopt

the delightful mediaeval language of the Salvation Army, watch for the

Devil at your elbow.... I wish I could get home, if only for a day, not

because I funk the crash which is coming at any moment now but because I

should like to see _The Key_ before, it goes to press...."

Paul read this strange letter many times. "The Whisperer ... would try

to uprear a new creed--his own." Paul glanced at a bulky typescript

which lay upon the table near his hand. _The Key_ was complete and he

had intended to deliver it in person to Bassett later the same morning.

Strange doubts and wild surmises began to beat upon his brain and he

shrank within himself, contemplative and somewhat fearful. A

consciousness of great age crept over him like a shadow. He seemed to

have known all things and to have wearied of all things, to have

experienced everything and to have found everything to be nothing. Long,

long ago he had striven as he was striving now to plant an orchard in

the desert of life that men might find rest and refreshment on their

journey through pathless time. Long, long ago he had doubted and

feared--and failed. In some dim grove of the past he had revealed the

secret of eternal rebirth to white-robed philosophers; in some vague

sorrow that reached out of the ages and touched his heart he seemed to

recognise that death had been his reward, and that he had welcomed death

as a friend.

So completely did this mood absorb him that he started nervously to find

Jules Thessaly standing beside his chair. Thessaly had walked in from

the garden and he carried a flat-crowned black felt hat in his hand.

"If I have intruded upon a rich vein of reflection forgive me."

Paul turned and looked at the strong massive figure outlined against the

bright panel of the open window. The influence of that mood of age

lingered; he felt lonely and apprehensive. He noticed a number of empty

flower vases about the room. Yvonne used to keep them always freshly

filled. He wondered when she had ceased to do so and why. "You have

rescued me from a mood that was almost suicidal, Thessaly. A horrible

recognition of the futility of striving oppresses me this morning. I

seem to be awaiting a blow which I know myself powerless to avert. If we

were at your place I should prescribe a double 'Fra Diavolo' but,

failing this, I think something with a fizz in it must suffice. Will you

give the treatment a trial?"

"With pleasure. Let it be a stirrup-cup, or, as our northern friends

have it, a _doch-an-dorroch_."

Paul stood up and stared at Thessaly. "Do I understand you to mean that

you are about to set out upon a journey?"

"I am, Mario. Like Eugene Sue's tedious Jew, I am cursed with a lack of

repose. I sail for New York to-morrow or the following day."

"Shall you be long absent?"

"I cannot say with any certainty. There seems to be nothing further for

me to do in England at present. I feel that England has ceased to be the

pivot of the world. I am turning my attention to America, not without

sparing a side glance for the island kingdom of the Mikado. You know how

unobtrusive I am, Mario; I am taking no letter of introduction to

President Wilson, nor if I visit Japan shall I trouble official Tokio.

Mine is a lazy life, but not an idle one. I am an enthusiastic

onlooker."

Paul gazed at him reproachfully. "You never even warned me of your

projected journey, Thessaly. Do you leave all your friends with equally

slight regret?"

Thessaly gazed into the peculiar hat, and something in the pose of his

head transported Paul to the hills above Lower Charleswood, where,

backed by the curtain of a moving storm, he seemed to see Babylon Hall

framed in a rainbow which linked the crescent of the hills. "You

misjudge me," replied Thessaly. "What I have said is true, but I go in

response to a sudden and unforeseen summons. Death and a frail woman

have tricked me, and at one stroke have undone all that I had done. I am

compelled to go."

Paul detected in the deep voice a note of pathos, of defeat. "I am

sorry," he said simply. "I value your friendship."

"Friendship, Mario, is heaven's choicest gift. The love of woman is

sometimes wonderful, but it always rests upon a physical basis. The love

of a friend is the loftiest sentiment of which man is capable. Its only

parallel is the unselfish devotion of a dog to his master."

A servant came in with the refreshments which Paul had ordered. Directly

she had departed Thessaly began speaking again. "I have lived in

Germany, Mario, and in my younger student days--for I am perhaps an

older man than you imagine me to be--I have met those philosophers, or

some of them, to whom Germany owes a debt of hatred which cannot be

repaid even unto the third and fourth generation. I have lived in

France, and in many a sunset I have seen the blood that would drench her

fairest pastures. I have watched the coming of the storm, and I saw it

break upon the rocks of these inviolable islands. I thought that I knew

its portent; I thought that I had discerned the inner meaning of the

Day. Mario, I was wrong. Humanity has proved too obstinate."

He spoke with a suppressed vehemence that was startling. "The point of

this escapes me," said Paul, watching him. "For what or for whom has

humanity proved too obstinate?"

"For _us_, Mario--for _us_. There is many an ancient knot to be untied

before man can be free to think unfettered. The myth, Imperialism, alone

is an iron barrier to universal brotherhood. Not even in the spectacle

of the Germanic peoples pouring out their blood in pursuit of that

shadow has the rest of the world perceived a lesson. A colony is like a

married son with whose domestic arrangements his father persists in

interfering. The jewels in an imperial crown mean nothing even to the

wearer of that crown, except additional headache. But attack the

blood-stained legend of Imperialism and you attack Patriotism, its

ferocious parent. Humanity has grown larger since the wolf suckled

Romulus, but no wiser, and strong wine is not for weak intellects."

He laid his hand upon the typed pages of _The Key_. "Is our friendship

staunch enough to sustain the shock of real candour, Mario?"

Paul was deeply and unaccountably moved by something in Thessaly's

manner. "I trust so," he replied.

"Then--forgive me--burn _The Key_. It is not yet too late."

"Thessaly! You offer me this counsel! Do you realise what it means to

me?"

"Some day, Mario, you may comprehend all that it meant to _me_."

Paul stared at him truly dumfounded. "What can have happened thus

suddenly to divert the current of your life and the tenor of your

philosophy?"

"The inevitable, against which we fight in vain."

"And your advice--that I burn _The Key_--is given sincerely?"

"It is."

"I cannot realise that you mean it, Thessaly. I cannot realise that you

are going."

"I am sorry, Mario. In these troublous days a cloud of misgiving hangs

over every parting, since _au revoir_ may mean good-bye. But I must go,

following the precept of that wise man who said, 'Live unobserved, and

if that cannot be, slip unobserved from life.'"

* * * * *

An hour later Paul was about to leave the house when a telegram was

brought to him. He experienced great difficulty in grasping its purport.

He could not make out from whom it came, and it seemed at first to be

without meaning....

"Regret to inform you Captain Donald H. Courtier,--Coy., Irish

Guards, killed in action...."

XI

On the following day a phenomenal storm burst upon London out of a blue

sky. Tropical rain beat down into the heated streets and thunder roared

in Titan anger. Paul came out of the War Office and stood on the steps

for some moments watching a rivulet surging along the edge of the

pavement.... "I am sorry, Mario, but it was mercifully swift, and his

end was glorious. Ireland has disappointed some of us, but fellows like

Courtier and those who went with him make one think...."

Paul walked out into the lashing rain, going in the direction of Charing

Cross. He was thinking of another storm which had struck swiftly out of

a fair sky, of the aisles of the hills, and of one that he had met

there. To-day Jules Thessaly was leaving England. Don was dead. Some who

knew Paul and who saw him driving on through the downpour as if

fury-ridden or sped by some great urgency, wondered and later

remembered. But to him London was empty, and heedless of the curiosity

of men and the tumult of the elements he pressed on. Nothing penetrated

to his consciousness save the eternal repetition of his own name and the

name of his book. Evidences of his influence seemed to leer at him from

window and hoarding. A performance of the French symphony, _Dawn_, was

advertised to take place at the Queen's Hall, and he found one bill

announcing an exhibition of pictures by an ultra-modern

Belgian--pictures which their painter declared to be "illustrations" of

_The Gates_. And in his pocket were the papers deposited with Nevin to

be given to Paul only in the event of Don's death. Paul had read them,

and whilst he longed with a passionate longing to go to Flamby, he knew

that to-day he dared not trust himself within sight of the clear grey

eyes, of the alluring lips, within touch of the red-brown hair. But he

recognised that he must go ultimately, and so he drove on through the

storm and right and left of him were traces of his mark upon the world.

* * * * *

Tropical heat prevailed throughout the following day and Paul spent the

morning pacing up and down his study. Yvonne was in Brighton. Paul long

since had realised that the sympathy between them was imperfect, but

always he had counted upon re-establishing the old complete comradeship

when his great task should be at last concluded. This morning he had

learned the truth, that Yvonne was with Orlando James, but his brain was

still too numb fully to appreciate it. Towards noon he sat down at his

writing-table and began to read with close attention the typed pages of

_The Key_. Bassett was becoming anxious and had rung up more than once

during the morning. Arrangements had been made to publish simultaneously

in the principal capitals of the world, and the publishers had been busy

for several months accumulating paper to meet the unparalleled demand

for this vast first edition.... Eustace knocked three times at the study

door to announce that luncheon was served, but Paul continued his

reading. During the afternoon he caused a fire to be lighted in the

study grate.

It was late evening before he left the house, and he set out with no

conscious objective in view, yet subconsciously he was already come to

his journey's end. His ideas were chaotic, and he seemed to be

spiritually adrift. That his book was indeed the Key he was unable to

doubt. He had truly grasped the stupendous truth underlying that

manifestation called life, but seeking to discern retrospectively the

path whereby he had pierced to the heart of the labyrinth he found

confusion and stood dismayed before the dazzling jewel which he had

unearthed. The past intruded subtly upon him, and he was all but swept

away by sorrowful memories of Don. He saw him coming along the Pilgrim's

Way and heard his cheery greeting as he stepped upon the terrace of

Hatton Towers.

Where that night's wandering led him he knew not, but there were those

who saw him passing along Limehouse Causeway as if in quest of the

Chinese den where once he and Thessaly had watched men smoke opium, and

others who spoke to him, but without receiving acknowledgment, in the

neighbourhood of Westminster Cathedral. He appeared, too, at the Cafe

Royal, standing just within the doorway and looking from table to table

as one who seeks a friend, but went out again without addressing a word

to anyone. At a late hour he saw a light shining from a casement window

and mechanically he pressed the knob of a bell above which appeared the

number 23. Flamby opened the door and Paul stood looking at her in the

dusk.

XII

"Oh," said Flamby, "I had given you up."

She wore a blue and white kimono and had little embroidered Oriental

slippers on her feet. Under the light of the silk-shaded lamp her hair

gleamed wonderfully. She had matured since that day in Bluebell Hollow,

when Paul and Don had first seen her. The world had not hardened her and

the curves of her face were almost childlike, yet there was something

gone from her eyes and something new come to replace it. Resourcefulness

was there, but no hint of boldness and her moods of timidity were

exquisite. Now, having naively confessed her dreams, her sudden

confusion was lovable.

"I scarcely know," declared Paul. "I scarcely know why I have come at

such an hour. It is not fair to you, and it is not practising what I

preach."

"Please come in. You are welcome at any time, and as nobody will see you

there can be no harm done."

Paul entered and stood looking vaguely at the parcel which he carried.

It contained the manuscript of _The Key_. Thus reminded of its presence

he found himself wondering why since he had forgotten that he carried

it, he had not absently left it behind somewhere during his aimless

wanderings. He laid it with his hat on the open bureau. The little

apartment had assumed very marked individuality. Many delightful

sketches and water-colour drawings ornamented the walls and a delicate

pastel study of Dovelands Cottage hung above the famous clock on the

mantelpiece. Paul crossed and examined this picture closely.

"Who is living in Dovelands Cottage now, Flamby?" he asked. "I believe

Nevin told me that it had been sold."

Flamby turned aside to take up a box of cigarettes.

"Don bought it," she said slowly. "I don't know why he didn't want you

to know, but he asked me not to tell you."

Paul continued to stare at the picture, until Flamby spoke again. "Will

you have a cigarette?" she asked, her voice low and monotonous.

"No, thank you very much."

"I can make coffee in a minute."

"Please don't think of it."

Through the little mirror immediately below the pastel Flamby studied

Paul covertly. He had aged; all the beauty of his face resided now in

his eyes. Two years had changed him from a young and handsome man to one

whose youth is left behind, and who from the height of life's pilgrimage

looks down sadly but unfalteringly into a valley of shadows. He turned

to her.

"Mrs. Chumley?"

"I was with her this morning. She is staying for a while at the cottage.

I think she is nearly broken-hearted. From the time that his mother

died, when Don was very little, Mrs. Chumley looked after him until he

went away to school. You know, don't you? But she is so brave. I wish,"

said Flamby, her voice sunken almost to a whisper, "I wish I could be as

brave ..." She sat down on the settee, biting her lower lip and striving

hard to retain composure.

"You are very brave indeed, and very loyal," answered Paul, but he did

not approach her where she sat. "You have taught me that there are women

as far above pettiness and spitefulness as every man should be, but as

every man is not."

"I wasn't like it before I knew Mrs. Chumley and--Don."

"You were always true to yourself, and there is no higher creed. Flamby,

I have received some papers which Don left with Nevin to be delivered to

me. You thought me so mean and lowly, so ignorant and so vainglorious

that I could judge a girl worthy of Don's love to be unworthy of my

friendship. You were right. No! please don't speak--yet You were right,

but you suffered in silence, and you did not hate me. I don't ask you to

forgive me, I only thank you very, very sincerely."

Flamby held a handkerchief tightly between her teeth, and stared fixedly

at a photograph of one of her propaganda pictures which hung on the wall

to the right of the bedroom door.

"There on your bureau," continued Paul, "lies my second book. It

contains the key to mysteries which have baffled men since the world

began. I do not say it with vanity; vanity is dead within me. I say it

with fear, for _I_ did not unravel those mysteries; I did not write that

book."

"Oh," whispered Flamby.

"Yes--again you saw clearly, little wonder-girl. Don has told me how you

traced the black thread running through the woof of _The Gates_, and

that black thread was _truth_. It is truth that slays and truth that

damns. Not for a million ages can men be sufficiently advanced to know

and to live. Hypocrisy triumphs; for the few is the fruit of

knowledge--for the multitude, the husk. I have seen the Light of the

World, but I stand in the shadow. Yet from the bottom of my heart I

thank God that at the price of happiness I have bought escape from a sin

more deadly than that which any man has committed. Only by renouncing

the world may we win the world. This is the lesson of Golgotha. Behind

the curtain of the War move forces of incalculable evil which first

found expression in Germany to-day as they found expression there in the

Middle Ages. It was in a Rhine monastery that the first Black Mass was

sung. It was in a Rhine town that Lucifer opened his new campaign

against mankind; it was in German soil that he planted his seed. Flamby,

I tell you that the Hohenzollerns are a haunted race, ruling a haunted

land, doomed and cursed. About them are obscene spirits wearing the

semblance of men--of men gross and heavy, and leaden-eyed; and upon each

brow is the mark of the Bull, the sigil of Hell."

Flamby watched him, listening spellbound to his strange words. He was

inspired; anger and sorrow drove him remorselessly on and a chill finger

seemed to touch Flamby's heart as she listened; for resignation and

finality informed his speech.

"Each human soul must fight its way out of the night of the valley,

Flamby, before it can pass the gates of dawn. Each error is a step in

the path and there are steps right to the top. To me it was given to see

but not to understand until this very hour. What I have done it was

ordained that I should do; what I was about to do God forbade." He

paused, glancing at Flamby and quickly away again. "Don's letter has

opened my eyes, which were blinded. I shall not ask you for what purpose

you risked so much to visit the studio of Orlando James. I know. Your

fire is laid, Flamby; may I light it?"

"Of course, if you wish."

Paul stooped and held a match to the paper, watching the tongues of

flame licking the dry wood; and ere long a small fire was crackling in

the grate. He turned to Flamby, pointing to the parcel which lay upon

the bureau. "The purpose with which I set out recurs to me," he said. "I

have destroyed all the typed copies and every note. It is my wish that

_you_ shall destroy the manuscript."

"Of _The Key_?" she whispered.

"Please."

"But--are you sure?"

"Quite sure."

Flamby met his set gaze and unwrapping the manuscript she approached the

fire. Paul stood aside, resting his elbow upon a corner of the

mantelshelf. Flamby's hands were very unsteady.

"Tear out the pages," said Paul, "and throw them loosely on the flames.

They will burn more readily."

Flamby obeyed him, and page by page began to destroy the book containing

truths which were known in the sanctuaries of Memphis but which the

world was yet too young to understand. Excepting the voice of the flames

there was no sound in the room until Flamby had laid the last page upon

the pyre, when she sank upon her knees and hid her face in her hands.

Her hair rippled down and veiled her redly.

Paul watched her for a while and then, irresistibly, inevitably, he was

drawn down beside her; his arm crept around the bowed shoulders and he

pressed his cheek against fragrant curls. "Flamby," he said, "dear

little wild-haired Flamby. The sorrow of the world has claimed us both.

Let us both be brave--and true." And although he would have bartered

many things once accounted of price for the right to crush her in his

arms he rose to his feet again and moved away to the corner of the

mantelshelf, for the nearness and the touch of her intoxicated him.

Flamby did not stir. The mound of ashes settled lower in the grate. Paul

took up his hat and walked to the door.

"Good night, Flamby," he said. "Wait for me. I shall be waiting for

you."

The door closed and Flamby heard footsteps retreating along the gallery.

As the sound became inaudible, a maroon burst dully at no great distance

away. Flamby leapt to her feet. Her eyes were wild as she stood there,

hands clenched tightly, and listened. A second maroon gave warning of

the approaching air raiders. Flamby ran to the door, threw it open and

sprang out into the brilliant moonlight as police whistles began to

skirl in the distance. The slender chain about her neck parted

unaccountably and unperceived by Flamby her locket fell at her feet.

"Paul!" she cried. "Paul! come back--come back!"

But only an echo which dwelt in the arch of the entrance answered her,

saying sadly: "Paul ... Paul ..."

* * * * *

Heedless of those who urged him to take cover, of the flat shrieking of

whistles and later of the roar of the barrage, Paul walked on under the

stars of a perfect night and above him droned the Gotha engines. He

prayed silently.

"Master of Destiny, all-Merciful God, suffer me to die that I may be

reborn a wiser and a better man. Of Thine infinite mercy guide the steps

of Yvonne who was my wife. Grant her the happiness for which she sought

and which I denied her. To those who wait give faith and fortitude: to

me, O God, give death. Amen."

A bomb fell shrieking through the air and burst with a rumbling

monstrous peal, digging a pit, a smoking grave, on the spot where Paul

had stood. His body was scattered like flock by the wind; his spirit was

drawn into the ceaseless Loom.

OM MANI PADME HUM.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE NORTHUMBERLAND PRESS, THORNTON STREET,

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE