"She is more precious than your Delhi topaz."
"She cost me more."
"What is she called?"
"The Honourable White Dew."
"I have never seen her before."
"Nor any other than myself."
"I think she is a dream."
"No, only part of a dream."
"How long will the dream last?"
"Until dawn."
"What is the dawn?"
"Death."
The word roused ungracious thoughts in Eveleth, and he turned his face
to the wall, falling into a half dream. When next he looked toward his
host it was at the instigation of low voices. A servant was standing by
the hammock,--not the mysterious Japanese girl, but a black boy in a red
fez. Aurelian looked toward Eveleth sleepily.
"One is without and craves entrance," said he. "What shall I say to him?
He has come as my guest; shall I receive him here?"
"Is he an 'Elect'?"
"No, he is not an 'Elect.'"
"A Philistine then."
"Neither a Philistine, wholly."
"What then?"
"A product of Philistinism, an Agitator."
Eveleth looked vaguely around over the silent room,--at Wentworth,
throned in a stately chair of mahogany and brass that had belonged to
the great Napoleon, still crowned with the garland of gold bay leaves he
had placed on his head after dinner, half in defiance, half in jest, now
sleeping, his chibouk lying between his knees; at the abandoned figures
motionless about the bronze brazier; at Aurelian, clothed gloriously in
a sleeveless gaberdine of blood-red silk over a white crêpe kimono heavy
with embroidery; at his own figure half wrapped in a big mantle of
rose-coloured damask. And everywhere the stillness of Oriental sleep. As
he looked he said dubiously, "An agitator? Do you think an agitator
would do--here? Isn't there rather too much to agitate?"
"Yes, and for that reason I will let him come; as it is, this is almost
stagnation. He will amuse me, I feel,--I feel, that in a little while,
I--might be bored."
Eveleth sank back resignedly and not without curiosity. Aurelian nodded,
and the servant glided away.
* * * * *
"Hello, Aurelian!"
The words were like a stone dashed in the midst of a pool of brown
water, still, under willows. Wentworth, looking like a Napoleonic
_revenant_, shivered into wakefulness; Eveleth sat bolt upright with a
start; even the opium-smokers, all but Enderby, turned their heavy
heads, wakened from mysterious dreams.
The new-comer stopped in the door and stared,--stared mightily. He
coughed and blinked in the smoky air. It was the clash of East and West,
of a fictitious, exotic East, of a commonplace, hard-headed, practical
West.
"Where are you?" McCann cried loudly, making his way through the
twilight toward the sound of Aurelian's voice.
"I'm glad to see you at last," he said doubtfully, "but I'm not quite
used to this sort of thing, you know; I feel as though I had drank too
much." His eyes fell on the confused heap of drowsy humanity around the
brazier. "Aurelian," he said sternly, "is this a 'joint' I have happened
on?"
"It is my house," said Aurelian, in his gentle voice, "wherein I have
the honour to count you for the moment a guest."
"I beg pardon," grimly; "but as I said, you must remember I am not
familiar with this sort of thing. I think I had better wait until you
are less busily engaged."
"My dear fellow, I am never busily engaged, and I am never more idle
than now. You will stay, of course. Will you smoke?--I mean tobacco. I
think you smoke narghilehs; shall Murad come and light you one?"
"Thanks, by your leave I will smoke my own," and McCann pulled out his
brier bull-dog, filled it from his own pouch, and sat down
constrainedly, his eyes fixed on the four men in their motley costumes,
strewn on the floor.
At once Aurelian began to talk to him frankly and freely, as though
nothing had changed since last master and pupil had spoken together,
questioning him of his adventures in England and Germany while on his
mission among the socialist leaders. McCann noted with surprise and with
a feeling almost of reassurance that no detail of recent sociological
events had escaped Aurelian; that he listened with equal interest to all
that he told him; that he showed keen satisfaction at the outcome of two
or three recent strikes in which the strikers had been victorious. But
all the time the agitator's eyes were wandering over the dimly visible
details of the strange treasure-house where he found himself. He looked
on it all with growing resentment; it was hardly to be called
socialistic, and there seemed to be a lack of harmony between these
luxurious surroundings and the words that Aurelian was saying. There was
something awfully wrong; but he shrunk from knowing what he feared to be
the worst.
After the first convulsion which his entrance had caused, the different
men had all fallen back languidly in their places; but now Wentworth
lifted himself lazily and came down toward Aurelian and the agitator.
"Well, _citoyen_," he said, nothing abashed by his fantastic garb, which
was far enough from being the same in which he generally met McCann,
"Well, _citoyen_, you come as a visitant from another world, like the
black steamers that crawl into the balmy vision known to the children of
men as Venice,--in it, not of it. Can you bring a tale of the things
without? Is there anything worthy of note in Philistia? How fare our
friends the republics of the world, there in the outer darkness?"
"Oh," said McCann, with indifference, "there is another revolution on
down in Guatemala, and one expected daily in Brazil, and one in the
French Republic--"
"And the smoke not yet cleared away from the last revolution in Brazil,
nor yet from the last in Chile, nor yet from the last in Honduras; wars
in half the republics in South and Central America, rumours of wars in
Mexico and all the rest; the French Republic counting the days that
already are numbered by its dupes at length undeceived,--I know the
whole grotesque story, and yet people talk about popular sovereignty and
republics. And you yourselves, McCann, _bon citoyen_, you agitators and
socialists, hug to yourselves the vain phantom of popular government.
You ought to know better, for you know something of sociology if you
_are_ sweetly ignorant on politics. What was that Balzac said, Aurelian?
Tell me."
"About popular government, you mean?"
"Yes."
"Why, he called it the only government that is irresponsible and whose
tyranny will be unchecked because exercised under the name of law."
"Ah, this is it! Isn't that exact? '_A bas la République_,' the King
shall come to his own again!" and he sung the words gaily to a fragment
of an old Jacobite air. "Don't interrupt me, Aurelian, the spirit is on
me and I must confound this blind leader." His tone changed and he put
his hand on McCann's shoulder. "Malcolm, you know as we all know here
that the present condition of this happy world is very like the Puritan
idea of hell. You know, also, that the preserving factor, if not the
original cause of this pleasant state of affairs, is the modern theory
of economics and its resulting industrial and commercial systems. Now,
what do you propose to substitute in place of this gigantic abortion,
this debauching incubus?"
"State Socialism."
"Exactly! Out of your own mouth have you condemned yourself. Man, man!
what would your State Socialism be in the hands of such a State as we
have now? In Chile? In Mexico? In any ring-ruled mob-ruled State in this
unhealthy republic? Why, simply the biggest and most wholesale 'job,'
the most arrant corruption, the most awful and omnipotent succubus that
ever waxed fat on the blood of a dying nation. Malcolm, you and your ilk
have made a dreary mistake; you think only of industrial reforms, while
to make these of effect you must first have a political reform which
will be in itself a revolution. Destroy the present system, build up an
honourable State, and then it will be time to talk of State Socialism."
McCann had chafed furiously under this tirade, and as Wentworth threw
himself down in a low chair, lighting his Dimitrino cigarette at the
flames of the brazier, he burst out violently: "You are all wrong, you
don't know what you are talking about when you say we don't want a
political reform! We do, a radical reform."
Wentworth's eyes gleamed amusedly through the rings of white smoke as he
said quietly, "How?"
"I would destroy the whole system of party and ring rule."
Wentworth smiled disdainfully. "My dear Malcolm," he said, blowing an
ash from his cigarette, "I spare you the humiliation of trying to tell
me how. Do you not realise that party and ring rule are the necessary
results of three of your dearest idols?--idols that you would defend, I
believe, with your life. They are these: Manhood suffrage, rotation in
office, and representative government. Until you are content to destroy
these in your political revolution your attempts to abolish ring and
partisan rule will fail."
"They will not fail, for we shall abolish those abuses through making
the control of the people over their representatives more absolute and
direct."
"The exact contrary of the result you hope for would follow from the
course you suggest. I can't convince you of that now; grant the truth of
your position for a moment, what would follow? You would simply
substitute for the repulsive rule of the 'bosses' a dreary and fleeting
government of emancipated slaves. We have seen the result of that in the
South, where we made fatal error in giving the black slaves a measure of
political power. You would do the same by giving the white slaves _all_
political power. I say, emancipate them,--and govern them."
"By whom?"
"Their King and their peers."
"Where will you find them in this country?"
"Choose them."
"By whom?"
"The people."
"Aha! Then you lose your point."
"By no means, for the franchise should be a privilege, not a right, and
while the people should choose, only their leaders should govern."
"You are a monarchist!"
"Yes."
"Then you are a reactionist, an aristocrat; no socialist!"
"I am a monarchist and a vehement socialist."
"That is a paradox."
"So are most final truths, since a paradox is only a concise statement
of the colour on each side of the shield; you remember the fable?"
"Then you mean to say that socialism and monarchism do not negative each
other?"
"No more than the silver of one side of the shield negatives the gold of
the other."
"You are a vain theorist!"
"It is you who are a vain theorist; my position is based on history. I
know the record of the attempts to put the visionary theory of popular
government into practice."
"We have never had a true popular government yet."
"I agree with you; but we have had true princes."
"Where?"
For answer Wentworth turned his head a little and raised his eyes toward
a great picture hanging in the shadow. McCann followed his glance, and
found himself looking at the sad face with the mournful eyes of
Vandyke's portrait of King Charles I. of England. Curtains of old
purple velvet wrought with Bourbon lilies of tarnished gold hung on
either side, and from their midst the King seemed looking on them as in
a vision. The picture annoyed McCann; it was the presentment of a King,
a tyrant; he scowled at it ill-naturedly.
"You keep that there because it is a good picture, I suppose," he said,
turning to Aurelian, who had been listening silently.
"Because it is a copy of a good picture of a glorious King," replied
Aurelian.
"A good _King_!"
"A glorious King and most noble man."
"You talk like a Jacobite."
"I _am_ a Jacobite."
McCann took his pipe out of his mouth. "What do you talk like that for?
You used to be a socialist."
"I am still a socialist."
"Are you bedevilled with Wentworth's theory that a man can be both a
socialist and a royalist?"
"Certainly."
"How do you justify such nonsense?"
"By regarding both sides of the shield."
"I deny that socialism is one side of a shield, the other side of which
is monarchism."
"Then you should study history more carefully," interrupted Wentworth.
"Will history prove to me that monarchism is not and has not been from
the first the bitter enemy of the people?" cried the agitator,
derisively, flashing his eyes savagely on the languid Wentworth.
"That is exactly what it will prove," returned his tormentor, sweetly.
"Well, I have studied history for twenty years, and it has taught me
exactly the reverse."
"_Histories_, you mean; but you must remember that there is very little
history in histories."
McCann gasped in impotent rage, but Aurelian interposed with his low
voice. "You will reach nothing by such argument, my children. You are
both visionaries,--you, Malcolm, who dream of ideal, impossible
republics surrounded by the tottering ruins of your fantastic fabrics,
builded on the shifting sand of popular fancies; you, Strafford
Wentworth, dear dupe of futile hopes, vainly watching for the King to
come to his own again. Dreamers both of you! I alone am the practical
man; I wait for that which the gods may give. In the mean time I stand
with the 'divine Plato,' aside, under the wall, while the storm of dust
goes by. Forsake your forlorn hope, Malcolm; stand to one side with me,
and wait. And in the mean time"--he lifted a strange Japanese viol--"in
the mean time, sing, and forget the imminent night. Malcolm, there is
beauty still left, and a little art; it will last us through the
twilight."
"Art will not quiet my conscience, nor blind my eyes to the sight of
rotting slaves and foul fat drivers."
"You take things too seriously!" cried Wentworth, biting the heavy
leaves one by one from a drooping rose. "It is like putting new wine
into old bottles to try to pour seriousness into this decrepit and
degenerate age."
McCann laughed aloud. "I accept the omen; for the bottles, if I remember
aright, were burst!"
"And you will spill your wine."
"The type of blood; and the blood of martyrs is the seed of the new
Commonwealth!"
"But why not take new bottles and save your precious wine?"
"We have none, and the old are at hand."
"They are rotting fast."
"The world cannot wait,--mothers and children starve every day."
"If you die for them it is only a life for a life, and the guilty
thrive."
"Some will go down with us to hades!"
Aurelian laughed softly, and rambled vaguely on over the strings of his
samosen, making strange music. "Now we will quarrel no more, for we are
where we began. Malcolm, if you must go to your death, _Vale_, I will
offer a kid and honey on the altar of Mnemosyne. Go your ways, and leave
me to mine; I am aweary of this servile and perishing world, rheumy and
gibbering. Here I have my books of the Elect, my fading pictures, my
treasures of dead civilisation. This is my monastery, like those of the
old Faith that, during the night that came down on the world after the
ruin of Rome, treasured as in an ark the seeds of the new life. Here I
can gather my Children of Light and bar my doors against the Philistines
without, among whom, dear Malcolm, force me not yet to number you. Be
lenient with me, accept my hospitality; it will strengthen you for your
fight with the windmill that forces the wind of God to grind men and
women like grain. In the mean time, it is still the youth of the night,
so I will give you more wine--or your favourite beer if you like; I have
some good Bavarian. Those four decadents and the poor agnostic there on
the floor are happy. I never take the black smoke myself, nor any of
you: wise, all of you, but God forbid that I should refuse any guest of
mine aught! They, sleeping in opium-dreams, have chosen their way. We
will choose another for ourselves."