That night it was as usual near to midnight when the High Priest
finished his daily routine of work. Incessant meetings, incessant
functions of some kind or other, kept him busy, month in, month
out--and yet the hard lips never grumbled, never complained outwardly
against this treadmill of Fate. He had given a great deal for it--its
greatest value being that other people thought it more than what it
really was, to him at least.
So the big stable clock was striking twelve as the fine bay horses
swung round to the Palace steps and the High Priest alighted.
He passed at once to his own private rooms--brightly lighted,
warm, luxurious--yet with the chill, silent shadow settling
there--unperceived except in that occasional weariness that of late
oppressed him oftentimes.
Supper was laid for two--a repast to please epicures. And waiting him
was that guest of the morning--sitting comfortably beside the blazing
fire, with little curls of smoke, like little serpents, wreathing from
his lips--the room filled with a delicious perfume passing even the
finest aroma of cigars.
“Is it possible,” said he languidly, “that you never get back here till
this infernal hour?”
“Often it is later; I count myself fortunate to-night to be here as the
clock strikes twelve. Have you been in long?”
“Just about twenty minutes. I took a stroll through the city. It hasn’t
altered much. That is its greatest charm. None of those absurd electric
toys about yet?”
“Not yet, but there is talk of them. It’s strange, but to-night I envy
you that quiet walk through the streets, St Armand. How many years is
it since I walked the streets alone? Never since I took up quarters
here, I think.”
“How many years is that?”
“Almost twenty-five. They were in favour of a young High Priest. I was,
myself.” (Here they both laughed.) “Now I think there is some wisdom in
an older man. He has less years of----”
“Of celibacy.”
“Oh no; not that. I never had any great weakness for the society of
women. He has less years of the very soul of vanity!”
“They say outside you are the most successful man they’ve had for ages.
They call you great, learned, even _wise_--the last and greatest
of distinctions!”
“Ah! yes--_they_--they chatter like magpies. It’s a pleasure to
them to hear themselves talk. In the day-time it pleases me, but at
night we are different!”
“Still, with a chef like yours, and such cellars, you can afford to
stand a little tedium outside.”
“Of late my appetite has gone, and even wine has lost its flavour. I am
becoming, I fancy, rather quickly either a dyspeptic or an aged man.”
“Dreadful things those, Alphonso! You must cure them! ‘Youth to the
end!’ One of the mottoes of the Gods! Badly carried out by mortals, but
still--ah! of course I forgot you are mortal yourself. So am I--so am
I; for the moment I forgot!”
The High Priest neither smiled nor commented; the pallor of extreme
weariness was on his features--the weariness of work and years. So once
more St Armand continued.
“I came back by Greensward Avenue to-night. There’s a building there
rather took my fancy, though it was too dark to see it properly
except with a pair of highly-polished glasses I possess. Black
marble--red blinds--aggressively red, seeing I consider that colour my
monopoly--the western windows brightly lit--the eastern ones dark.”
Alphonso looked up at him across the polished silver vessels and costly
china, and the expression on his face was more attentive.
“Marble house lit up in the western wing! It has been empty for years!”
“Indeed! how many would you say?”
“Nine, at the least. Let me see. Barringcourt went back to Fairy Sky
just after my installation. Eloped with a girl who--why do you smile?”
“Nothing! Nothing, I assure you. The frivolity of an elopement, I
suppose, in these days when women may be had so cheaply!”
“Be that as it may, he was the most fascinating companion I ever knew.
I think if I ever came near to loving any one it was he. And yet we
quarrelled, over a girl too.”
“That is not uncommon.”
“Indeed, it was more uncommon than you’d think. She had committed
sacrilege, and should have suffered imprisonment for life. Had I had
my way, she should have been in prison yet. But he, for no reason,
suddenly developed an interest in her, behaved like a fool on more than
one occasion, and ended up by running off with her in the teeth of the
law.”
“Exactly as his parents did. It runs in the spirit--damn it! I mean the
blood.”
“You knew him?” asked the High Priest with surprised interest.
“Only by hearsay--purely by that. He was wealthy. That’s enough, you
know--Lucifram’s a small place.”
“Yes, he was wealthy. But his wealth was the least thing about him,”
and suddenly the High Priest stretched his arms out on the table.
“I don’t know how it was, but, when he went, all my youth, all my real
life, went. And others have remarked the same thing in themselves. With
him there came a brilliancy. I felt when he was gone how much of it had
all been borrowed. This perhaps sounds strange to you, a stranger to
these parts. But he was young, easy, free, generous to a fault, or so
it seemed till near the end. And now, when I look back, I wonder if it
is not the dream of years since. For it seems often there was something
dark in that visage--something hard behind the merry laugh--something
sinister under the fascinating smile--some fierce temper behind the
contrary outbursts of youth.”
The big black eyes were fixed on him, listening to every word.
“Then this man--Barringcourt--leaves other than pleasant recollections
with you?”
“He leaves the memory of a time when life was life. That surely is
bitter pleasantness enough. Perhaps that bitterness has now pervaded
everything--moths and perpetual rust.”
“Was he a believer in the Serpent?”
Alphonso smiled almost indulgently.
“He is the only unbeliever I would have spared the rack. I can almost
excuse him, High Priest as I am, believing solely in himself. Yet
he attended the Temple regularly, and gave large donations often
privately. And he had the three sacred tails incrusted with jewels at
his own expense. ’Twas marvellously beautifully done by some workers
brought by him from Fairy Sky.”
“And his character? Was that above reproach?”
“I never enquired into it; I fear I was busy with my own affairs just
then. He never confessed to nor confided much in me. I believe it was
the other way about.”
“And after he left--who were the next tenants?”
“It remained empty three years. Then a foreign nobleman and his wife
rented it. She died about nine years since, and he soon followed her.
Unsatisfactory people, I believe. They worshipped some flimsy unseen
fetish--nothing definite or concrete. But then Marble House is cursed,
you know. It was built sacrilegiously--the strongest foundationed house
in the city. No one has lived in it since.”
“Has it stood empty since the foreigner’s death?”
“Yes. There was some talk of pulling it down a little while since; the
grounds were all overgrown, and no one could get entrance into the
house. It was brought up before Parliament--to be turned into a museum;
but a curt note arrived from Mr Barringcourt--I saw the handwriting,
so can vouch that it was his--asking them to kindly leave his property
alone till he was good enough to die. That shows he is still somewhere;
though, so far as any one could make out, the note might have dropped
from Heaven.”
“What is the meaning of the lights to-night?”
“That is one of the mysteries. In the dark hours of early morning it
is often lit up thus--at least, the people say so. I have never seen
it, nor have I believed the gossip till now you speak of it. All kinds
of curious tales have been afloat of late. That Geoffrey Todbrook was
seen looking out of an eastern window. That at midnight all the eastern
windows are lit up with a weird dusky blue. That on stormy nights
piercing shrieks and hollow moans are heard from the same quarter; and
that one day a lad fond of adventures and climbing, scaled the high
slippery garden wall, and was found lying, later on, on the pavement,
in a pool of blood, his neck broken. Taken on the whole, such stories
are not lively, their only redeeming feature being that they are false.”
“You know them to be false?”
“All except the boy. But that was a natural accident.”
“I see. You attach no importance then to my seeing the lights to-night?”
“It is the first time I have given the story any credence. I should not
think you were troubled much with imagination?”
“No; I distinctly saw lights in the west part of the house. To-morrow I
shall walk round again and enquire further.”
“Twenty-five years ago! By now he will be middle-aged--and I am
growing old. I wonder if we should find one another greatly altered?”
St Armand leant forward smiling.
“Remember the Gods’ motto--‘Eternal Youth.’”