The next day, when Colonel Estcourt sent to know if the Princess Zairoff
would receive him, he was informed she was ill, and could see no one.
Feeling strangely disinclined for mere ordinary society, he ordered his
horse to be brought round and spent the greater portion of the day in
long, fierce gallops over the miles of stretching sand that framed in
the bay.
The sky was chill and grey; a cold wind blew from the sea and dashed the
salt foam in his face as the waves swept stormily in. But the dull sky
and the stormy sea suited his mood, and seemed to string up the relaxed
tension of his nerves.
"Nature is man's best physician after all," he said to himself, reining
in his beautiful Arab at last, and baring his brow to the fresh breeze.
"Even as she is his best friend. Only we don't believe it. We live in
the world and follow the ways of the world, until our faculties are
blunted, our natures demoralised, our tastes vitiated, our energies
enfeebled. How many lands I have travelled over, how many cities I have
seen, and yet I verily believe that the wild Sioux in his prairies, and
the wandering Bedouin of the desert, have more of real manhood than we.
Yes; and get more real enjoyment out of life."
It was quite dusk before he reached the hotel. The country was all new
and strange to him, and he had missed his way more than once. But
though he was tired, and stiff, and hungry, he felt that his mental
energies were braced, his mind at ease, and the disturbing and torturing
memories of the previous night no longer tormented him.
At dinner he sat next to Mrs Ray Jefferson, who was radiant and voluble
as ever.
She had a great deal to say about the Princess, who, it appeared, had
again spent the morning in the Baths.
"She looked ill," said the little American. "Awfully white and languid.
I asked her if she had seen a ghost. There was something scared and
strange about her. I surmise it's nerves. It was odd, too," and she
lowered her voice as if taking the Colonel into a special confidence.
"But she went off to sleep in the hot room. Nothing could waken her. I
got rather frightened."
His face looked disturbed. "To sleep?" he said. "That is rather
unusual, is it not?"
"Oh, plenty of us go to sleep in the cooling-room," said Mrs Jefferson,
"but I never saw anyone do it in any of the others. She was talking to
me, and then quite suddenly she said `I feel sleepy. Please do not
speak. I shall wake in a quarter of an hour.' And so she did."
"You did not try to waken her, I suppose?" asked Colonel Estcourt
anxiously.
"Well, I did, but it was no use, so I let her be. I saw she was all
right, because she breathed naturally, and her heart beat quite
regularly. Still, it seemed odd. I asked her maid afterwards about it.
She's a pretty little Frenchwoman, and always waits in the cooling-room
for her mistress. But she didn't seem to think anything of it. She
said she very often does that, and it is best not to try and waken her.
I must say she seemed much better afterwards. Brighter and more alert.
What a lovely creature she is!" she added enthusiastically. "I suppose
you know you're the most envied person in the hotel at this present
moment?"
He smiled, but his face still looked anxious and disturbed.
"Because I have the privilege of being her friend?" he said. "Well, I
am not going to deny that it _is_ a privilege--a most enviable one."
"I should think," said Mrs Jefferson meaningly, "it is also one that
has its dangers."
The calm grey eyes met her sharp inquisitive glance, but were utterly
unrevealing.
"I will not affect to misunderstand you," he said, "but there are men
who covet danger for its own sake. They may seem foolhardy, but they
are only accountable to themselves for the risks they run."
"Well," said Mrs Jefferson warmly, "I'm only a woman, and yet if it's
possible to fall in love with one of my own sex, I've done it. She's
perfectly charmed me. I can't get her out of my head for a single
moment. It's not only her wonderful beauty, but her mind. As for our
poet," she added, laughing, "he's quite gone. He's done nothing all day
but moon about under the pine trees. Writing sonnets, I guess, and
hoping to catch a glimpse of her. All useless--she's not left the hotel
to-day, and I suppose she'll not favour us to night."
Colonel Estcourt was silent. Conversation was more or less general, but
it sounded vague and unmeaning to him. He heard a voice on his left
holding forth with energy, but he did not heed it until Mrs Jefferson
touched his arm and whispered an entreaty.
"Do listen," she said, "it's Diogenes. Isn't he coming out? I surmise
it's _her_ influence. You remember last night?"
"An atheist," said the dogmatic voice of the individual who had given
that common-sense view of spiritualism the previous evening, "must be a
fool of the most complete type. Because he doubts what _men_ teach of
God, is no reason for doubting the existence of God. I grant that the
Reverend John Smith, with his high-falutin' trappings of Ritualism on
one side, and the Reverend Josiah Stiggins, with his coarse and
commonplace familiarity with the Almighty (whose personality he has the
effrontery to expound as if he were discussing the characteristics of an
ordinary mortal), on the other, are enough to drive hundreds of people
out of the pale of Christianity, and force them to take refuge in
defiance and opposition. But, all the same, the expectation of another
life is a rooted belief in the minds of all men, quite apart from
religion. Even the savage has it. If we call it human nature to eat,
drink, fight, love, or desire, it must also be human nature that gives
universal assent to this idea of an after existence. The fact of
finding it in all races is but a proof that Man is the creation of a
Power that intends him for a far wider range of existence than he sees
before him. There are many things affirmed by man's consciousness that
he cannot really or logically explain. Yet it is a narrow reasoning
that bids us reject the inexplicable."
"Yet you reject spiritualism," said Mrs Jefferson quickly.
"Not at all, my dear madam. I only reject the humiliating and degrading
trickery that is its sensational form. I only repeat what I said
yesterday, that no lofty or educated mind could do anything but resent
the idea of being subjugated to a mere material will, and being forced
by that will to perform conjuring tricks in order that a small portion
of the civilised world should gape, and gaze, and cry out `How
wonderful!' To deny that spirits exist, aye and work, would be to deny
the very crudest faith in Christianity."
"There is no doubt," said Colonel Estcourt, "that everything _is_
explicable, but we must wait for the growth and development of our
higher natures before we can comprehend half the mysteries of the higher
life. The great fault of the materialist and the scientist is, that
they would fain bring everything down to the level of their _present_
comprehension, instead of patiently waiting the completion of their
future spiritual forces. It is quite evident that we are not meant to
attain our full mental stature on the earth-plane, or what would be left
to achieve in the countless ages of immortality? Man believes in
immortality and yet seems to contemplate it as a state of stagnation and
quiescence. Why he believes in it he cannot fully explain. It is, as
you said before, a consciousness given to the races of humanity, but no
more capable of commonplace analysis than time, or space, or thought."
"The beautiful is as the cloud that floats in radiant space," murmured
the poet. "The very vagueness of form permits the eye to clothe it in
the loveliest tints of Fancy."
"Now that's what I call rational," murmured Mrs Jefferson in Colonel
Estcourt's ear. "Do you think he knows what he means. I guess he
don't... Gracious!"
She started, and suddenly grasped his arm. "Look," she said, "there's
the princess in the doorway. Is she coming in? No! She's moving away.
I believe she's going into the drawing-room after all. Did you see
her?"
"No," said Colonel Estcourt. "Are you sure it was the princess?"
His face looked strangely pale. She saw that his hand trembled as he
laid down his knife on the plate before him.
"Sure?" exclaimed Mrs Jefferson, with asperity. "Of course I'm sure!
It's not easy to mistake _her_, I fancy. I can't think why you didn't
catch sight of her. She just looked in as she passed, I suppose."
"No doubt," he said. But the gravity and uneasiness of his face
deepened.
Just then one of the waiters paused beside Mrs Jefferson's chair. She
turned eagerly to him. "Watson," she said, "just oblige me by going to
the drawing-room and finding out if Madame Zairoff is there. I guess,"
she added laughingly to Colonel Estcourt, "that I'm not going to waste
my time over thirteen courses if she is."
Still he did not speak, and his unusual pallor and gravity began to
affect the lively little American woman. She helped herself to truffled
pheasant, and became absorbed in gastronomical duties.
Two or three minutes passed, when the man who had gone on her errand
returned. She glanced eagerly up.
"Madame Zairoff is not in the drawing-room," he said in a low voice. "I
met her maid on the stair-case, and she says that madame is not well
enough to leave her apartments this evening."
"But, good gracious me," began Mrs Jefferson, with angry impatience.
"I saw--"
"Hush," said Colonel Estcourt in a low, impressive voice. "Oblige me by
saying nothing about it. Remember, I too was looking in the same
direction, yet I saw--nothing."
Mrs Jefferson dropped her knife and fork and stared at him.
"Now, Colonel," she said, "am I in my senses, or am I not? I've only
had iced water to drink. I believe I'm a commonplace person eating a
commonplace, though very excellent, dinner. Nothing's been playing
tricks with my nerves I can swear, and I do assure you that the Princess
Zairoff stood there in that doorway and looked in here, not five minutes
ago. Why, I'll even tell you the gown she had on. It was thick white
silk and had a border of soft-looking white fur. There!" she added
triumphantly. "You may go up to her rooms after dinner, and if she
hasn't got that gown on, and if she didn't come by that doorway--well--
I'll say I've gone stark staring mad! That's so!"