THE DUCHESS'S DINNER PARTY
The Duchess welcomed the little party from Beauleys in person, and
with more than ordinary warmth.
"I am glad to see you all, of course," she said, "but I am really
delighted to see you about again, Henry. Do tell me, now. I have heard
so many contradictory reports. Did you shoot yourself, or was it one
of your guests who did it? I don't know how it is, but poor Ronald
always says that the men one asks to shoot, nowadays, hit everything
except the birds."
"My dear Duchess," Rochester answered, "I certainly did not shoot
myself. I have every confidence in my guests, and so far as we have
been able to ascertain, there wasn't another soul in the neighborhood.
Shall we say that I was shot by the act of God? There really doesn't
seem to be any other explanation."
The Duchess was not altogether satisfied.
"To-night I am going to offer you a great privilege," she said. "I am
going to give you a chance of finding out the answer to your riddle."
Rochester looked perplexed, and Lady Mary blandly curious. Pauline
alone seemed as though by instinct to realize what lay beneath their
hostess's words. Her face seemed suddenly to grow tense. She shrank
back--a slight, involuntary movement, but significant enough under the
circumstances.
"An answer to my riddle," Rochester remarked, smiling. "Really, I did
not know that I had propounded one."
"Only a moment ago," the Duchess reminded him, "you spoke of being
shot by the act of God. That, of course, was a form of speech. You
meant that you did not know who did it. Perhaps we shall be able to
solve that little mystery for you."
Rochester looked at his hostess as though for a moment he doubted her
sanity. Tall and slim in his immaculate clothes, standing before the
great wood fire which burned in the open grate, he leaned a little
forward upon his stick, with knitted brows. Then his eyes caught
Pauline's, and something which he was about to say seemed to die away
upon his lips.
"Of course, you are unbelievers, all of you," the Duchess said,
calmly, "but some day--perhaps even to-night--you may become converts.
Did I tell you, Mary," she continued, turning away from Rochester,
"that I met that extraordinary man Naudheim in London? He told me so
many interesting things, and since then I have been reading. He
introduced me to--to one of his most brilliant pupils--a young man, he
assured me, whose insight was more highly developed, even, than his
own. Of course, you understand that in these matters, insight and
perception take the place almost of brains."
"My dear Duchess," Rochester interrupted, "what are you talking
about?"
"The new science," the Duchess answered, with a note of triumph in her
tone. "You will learn all about it some day, and you cannot begin too
soon. The young man whom Professor Naudheim spoke so highly of is
dining here to-night. Curiously enough, I found that he was almost a
neighbor of both of ours."
There was an instant's silence. Pauline, who was prepared, was now
perhaps the calmest of the trio. Rochester's face was dark with anger.
"You refer, Duchess, I suppose," he said--
The Duchess left him unceremoniously. She took a step or two forward
with outstretched hands. The butler was announcing--
"Mr. Saton!"
* * * * *
The dinner was as successful as the Duchess's country dinners always
were. She herself, a hostess of renown, led the conversation at her
end of the table. Like all women with a new craze, she conscientiously
did her best to keep it in the background, and completely failed.
Before the third course had been removed, she was discussing occultism
with the bishop of the diocese. Rochester, from her other side,
listened with a thin smile. She turned upon him suddenly.
"Oh, I know that you're an unbeliever!" she said. "You're one of those
people who go through life doubting everything. You shan't have him
for an ally, Bishop," she said, "because your points of view are
entirely different. Henry here doubts everything, from his own
existence to the vintage of my champagne. You, on the other hand," she
added, turning toward her other companion, "are forced to disbelieve,
because you feel that any new power or gift that may be granted to us,
and which we discover for ourselves, is opposed, of course, to your
creed."
"It depends," the bishop remarked, "upon the nature of that power."
"Even in its elementary stages," the Duchess said, "there is no doubt
that it is a power which can do a great deal for us towards solving
the mysteries of existence. Personally, I consider it absolutely and
entirely inimical to any form of religious belief."
"Why?" Rochester asked quietly.
"Because," the Duchess answered, "all the faith that has been lavished
upon religion since the making of the world, has been a misapplied
force. If it had been applied toward developing this new part of
ourselves, there is no doubt that so many thousands of years could
never have passed without our entering the last and greatest chamber
in the treasure-house of knowledge."
The bishop, being a privileged guest, and a cousin of his hostess,
deliberately turned his back upon her and escaped from the
conversation. The Duchess looked past him towards Saton, who was
sitting a few places down the table.
"There!" she exclaimed. "I have been braver than even you could have
been."
Saton smiled.
"That sort of courage," he remarked, "is the prerogative of your sex."
"You have heard what I said," she continued. "Don't you agree with
me?"
"Of course," he answered.
He hesitated for a moment, but the Duchess was looking at him. She
evidently expected him to continue the subject.
"We are told," he said slowly, "that there is no such thing as waste
in the physical world--that matter simply changes its form. I suppose
that is true enough. And yet a change of form can be for the better or
for the worse, according to our caprices. Strictly speaking, it is a
waste when matter is changed for the worse. It is very much like this,
I think, with regard to the subject which you were just then
discussing. Faith, from our point of view, is a very real and
psychical force. The faith which has been spent upon religion through
all these ages, seems to us very much like the tragedy of an
unharnessed Niagara."
The Duchess looked around her triumphantly. She was chilled a little,
however, by Rochester's curling lip.
"Dear hostess," he whispered in her ear, "this sort of conversation is
scarcely respectful to the bishop, even though he be a relative. You
can let your young protege expound his marvelous views after dinner."
The Duchess shrugged her ample shoulders.
"I wonder how it is," she declared, a little peevishly, "that directly
one sets foot in the country, one seems to come face to face with the
true Briton. What hypocrites we all are! We are broad enough to
discuss any subject under the sun, in town, but we seem to shrink into
something between the Philistine and the agricultural pedagogue, as
soon as we sniff the air of the ploughed fields."
She rose a little pettishly, and motioned to Rochester to take her
place.
"Five minutes only," she said. "You will find us all over the place.
The cigarettes and cigars are in the hall. You can finish your wine
here, and come out."
"Is there anything particular," Rochester asked grimly, "that we are
permitted to talk about?"
"With this crowd," she whispered, "if I forbid politics and
agriculture, I don't think you'll last the five minutes."