‘If this is a case of a seven or seventy-fold murder, and the gentleman in the cloak has made a fair clearance of every living creature the house contains, perhaps it’s just as well I’ve chanced upon the scene,—still I do think that one of the corpses might get up to answer the door. If it is possible to make noise enough to waken the dead, you bet I’m on to it.’
And I was,—I punished that knocker! until I warrant the pounding I gave it was audible on the other side of Green Park. And, at last, I woke the dead,—or, rather, I roused Matthews to a consciousness that something was going on. Opening the door about six inches, through the interstice he protruded his ancient nose.
‘Who’s there?’
‘Nothing, my dear sir, nothing and no one. It must have been your vigorous imagination which induced you to suppose that there was,—you let it run away with you.’
Then he knew me,—and opened the door about two feet.
‘Oh, it’s you, Mr Atherton. I beg your pardon, sir,—I thought it might have been the police.’
‘What then? Do you stand in terror of the minions of the law,—at last?’
A most discreet servant, Matthews,—just the fellow for a budding cabinet minister. He glanced over his shoulder,—I had suspected the presence of a colleague at his back, now I was assured. He put his hand up to his mouth,—and I thought how exceedingly discreet he looked, in his trousers and his stockinged feet, and with his hair all rumpled, and his braces dangling behind, and his nightshirt creased.
‘Well, sir, I have received instructions not to admit the police.’
‘The deuce you have!—From whom?’
Coughing behind his hand, leaning forward, he addressed me with an air which was flatteringly confidential.
‘From Mr Lessingham, sir.’
‘Possibly Mr Lessingham is not aware that a robbery has been committed on his premises, that the burglar has just come out of his drawing-room window with a hop, skip, and a jump, bounded out of the window like a tennis-ball, flashed round the corner like a rocket.’
Again Matthews glanced over his shoulder, as if not clear which way discretion lay, whether fore or aft.
‘Thank you, sir. I believe that Mr Lessingham is aware of something of the kind.’ He seemed to come to a sudden resolution, dropping his voice to a whisper. ‘The fact is, sir, that I fancy Mr Lessingham’s a good deal upset.’
‘Upset?’ I stared at him. There was something in his manner I did not understand. ‘What do you mean by upset? Has the scoundrel attempted violence?’
‘Who’s there?’
The voice was Lessingham’s, calling to Matthews from the staircase, though, for an instant, I hardly recognised it, it was so curiously petulant. Pushing past Matthews, I stepped into the hall. A young man, I suppose a footman, in the same undress as Matthews, was holding a candle,—it seemed the only light about the place. By its glimmer I perceived Lessingham standing half-way up the stairs. He was in full war paint,—as he is not the sort of man who dresses for the House, I took it that he had been mixing pleasure with business.
‘It’s I, Lessingham,—Atherton. Do you know that a fellow has jumped out of your drawing-room window?’
It was a second or two before he answered. When he did, his voice had lost its petulance.
‘Has he escaped?’
‘Clean,—he’s a mile away by now.’
It seemed to me that in his tone, when he spoke again, there was a note of relief.
‘I wondered if he had. Poor fellow! more sinned against than sinning! Take my advice, Atherton, and keep out of politics. They bring you into contact with all the lunatics at large. Good night! I am much obliged to you for knocking us up. Matthews, shut the door.’
Tolerably cool, on my honour,—a man who brings news big with the fate of Rome does not expect to receive such treatment. He expects to be listened to with deference, and to hear all that there is to hear, and not to be sent to the right-about before he has had a chance of really opening his lips. Before I knew it—almost!—the door was shut, and I was on the doorstep. Confound the Apostle’s impudence! next time he might have his house burnt down—and him in it!—before I took the trouble to touch his dirty knocker.
What did he mean by his allusion to lunatics in politics,—did he think to fool me? There was more in the business than met the eye,—and a good deal more than he wished to meet mine,—hence his insolence. The creature.
What Marjorie Lindon could see in such an opusculum surpassed my comprehension; especially when there was a man of my sort walking about, who adored the very ground she trod upon.
Allthrough the night, waking and sleeping, and in my dreams, I wondered what Marjorie could see in him! In those same dreams I satisfied myself that she could, and did, see nothing in him, but everything in me,—oh the comfort! The misfortune was that when I awoke I knew it was the other way round,—so that it was a sad awakening. An awakening to thoughts of murder.
So, swallowing a mouthful and a peg, I went into my laboratory to plan murder—legalised murder—on the biggest scale it ever has been planned. I was on the track of a weapon which would make war not only an affair of a single campaign, but of a single half-hour. It would not want an army to work it either. Once let an individual, or two or three at most, in possession of my weapon-that-was-to-be, get within a mile or so of even the largest body of disciplined troops that ever yet a nation put into the field, and—pouf!—in about the time it takes you to say that they would be all dead men. If weapons of precision, which may be relied upon to slay, are preservers of the peace—and the man is a fool who says that they are not!—then I was within reach of the finest preserver of the peace imagination ever yet conceived.
What a sublime thought to think that in the hollow of your own hand lies the life and death of nations,—and it was almost in mine.
I had in front of me some of the finest destructive agents you could wish to light upon—carbon-monoxide, chlorine-trioxide, mercuric-oxide, conine, potassamide, potassium-carboxide, cyanogen—when Edwards entered. I was wearing a mask of my own invention, a thing that covered ears and head and everything, something like a diver’s helmet—I was dealing with gases a sniff of which meant death; only a few days before, unmasked, I had been doing some fool’s trick with a couple of acids—sulphuric and cyanide of potassium—when, somehow, my hand slipped, and, before I knew it, minute portions of them combined. By the mercy of Providence I fell backwards instead of forwards;—sequel, about an hour afterwards Edwards found me on the floor, and it took the remainder of that day, and most of the doctors in town, to bring me back to life again.
Edwards announced his presence by touching me on the shoulder,—when I am wearing that mask it isn’t always easy to make me hear.
‘Someone wishes to see you, sir.’
‘Then tell someone that I don’t wish to see him.’
Well-trained servant, Edwards,—he walked off with the message as decorously as you please. And then I thought there was an end,—but there wasn’t.
I was regulating the valve of a cylinder in which I was fusing some oxides when, once more, someone touched me on the shoulder. Without turning I took it for granted it was Edwards back again.
‘I have only to give a tiny twist to this tap, my good fellow, and you will be in the land where the bogies bloom. Why will you come where you’re not wanted?’ Then I looked round. ‘Who the devil are you?’
For it was not Edwards at all, but quite a different class of character.
I found myself confronting an individual who might almost have sat for one of the bogies I had just alluded to. His costume was reminiscent of the ‘Algerians’ whom one finds all over France, and who are the most persistent, insolent and amusing of pedlars. I remember one who used to haunt therépétitionsat the Alcazar at Tours,—but there! This individual was like the originals, yet unlike,—he was less gaudy, and a good deal dingier, than his Gallic prototypes are apt to be. Then he wore a burnoose,—the yellow, grimy-looking article of the Arab of the Soudan, not the spick and span Arab of the boulevard. Chief difference of all, his face was clean shaven,—and whoever saw an Algerian of Paris whose chiefest glory was not his well-trimmed moustache and beard?
I expected that he would address me in the lingo which these gentlemen call French,—but he didn’t.
‘You are Mr Atherton?’
‘And you are Mr—Who?—how did you come here? Where’s my servant?’
The fellow held up his hand. As he did so, as if in accordance with a pre-arranged signal, Edwards came into the room looking excessively startled. I turned to him.
‘Is this the person who wished to see me?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Didn’t I tell you to say that I didn’t wish to see him?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then why didn’t you do as I told you?’
‘I did, sir.’
‘Then how comes he here?’
‘Really, sir,’—Edwards put his hand up to his head as if he was half asleep—‘I don’t quite know.’
‘What do you mean by you don’t know? Why didn’t you stop him?’
‘I think, sir, that I must have had a touch of sudden faintness, because I tried to put out my hand to stop him, and—I couldn’t.’
‘You’re an idiot.—Go!’ And he went. I turned to the stranger. ‘Pray, sir, are you a magician?’
He replied to my question with another.
‘You, Mr Atherton,—are you also a magician?’
He was staring at my mask with an evident lack of comprehension.
‘I wear this because, in this place, death lurks in so many subtle forms, that, without it, I dare not breathe.’ He inclined his head,—though I doubt if he understood. ‘Be so good as to tell me, briefly, what it is you wish with me.’
He slipped his hand into the folds of his burnoose, and, taking out a slip of paper, laid it on the shelf by which we were standing. I glanced at it, expecting to find on it a petition, or a testimonial, or a true statement of his sad case; instead it contained two words only,—‘Marjorie Lindon.’ The unlooked-for sight of that well-loved name brought the blood into my cheeks.
‘You come from Miss Lindon?’
He narrowed his shoulders, brought his finger-tips together, inclined his head, in a fashion which was peculiarly Oriental, but not particularly explanatory,—so I repeated my question.
‘Do you wish me to understand that you do come from Miss Lindon?’
Again he slipped his hand into his burnoose, again he produced a slip of paper, again he laid it on the shelf, again I glanced at it, again nothing was written on it but a name,—‘Paul Lessingham.’
‘Well?—I see,—Paul Lessingham.—What then?’
‘She is good,—he is bad,—is it not so?’
He touched first one scrap of paper, then the other. I stared.
‘Pray how do you happen to know?’
‘He shall never have her,—eh?’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Ah!—what do I mean!’
‘Precisely, what do you mean? And also, and at the same time, who the devil are you?’
‘It is as a friend I come to you.’
‘Then in that case you may go; I happen to be overstocked in that line just now.’
‘Not with the kind of friend I am!’
‘The saints forefend!’
‘You love her,—you love Miss Lindon! Can you bear to think of him in her arms?’
I took off my mask,—feeling that the occasion required it. As I did so he brushed aside the hanging folds of the hood of his burnoose, so that I saw more of his face. I was immediately conscious that in his eyes there was, in an especial degree, what, for want of a better term, one may call the mesmeric quality. That his was one of those morbid organisations which are oftener found, thank goodness, in the east than in the west, and which are apt to exercise an uncanny influence over the weak and the foolish folk with whom they come in contact,—the kind of creature for whom it is always just as well to keep a seasoned rope close handy. I was, also, conscious that he was taking advantage of the removal of my mask to try his strength on me,—than which he could not have found a tougher job. The sensitive something which is found in the hypnotic subject happens, in me, to be wholly absent.
‘I see you are a mesmerist.’
He started.
‘I am nothing,—a shadow!’
‘And I’m a scientist. I should like, with your permission—or without it!—to try an experiment or two on you.’
He moved further back. There came a gleam into his eyes which suggested that he possessed his hideous power to an unusual degree,—that, in the estimation of his own people, he was qualified to take his standing as a regular devil-doctor.
‘We will try experiments together, you and I,—on Paul Lessingham.’
‘Why on him?’
‘You do not know?’
‘I do not.’
‘Why do you lie to me?’
‘I don’t lie to you,—I haven’t the faintest notion what is the nature of your interest in Mr Lessingham.’
‘My interest?—that is another thing; it is your interest of which we are speaking.’
‘Pardon me,—it is yours.’
‘Listen! you love her,—and he! But at a word from you he shall not have her,—never! It is I who say it,—I!’
‘And, once more, sir, who are you?’
‘I am of the children of Isis!’
‘Is that so?—It occurs to me that you have made a slight mistake,—this is London, not a dog-hole in the desert.’
‘Do I not know?—what does it matter?—you shall see! There will come a time when you will want me,—you will find that you cannot bear to think of him in her arms,—her whom you love! You will call to me, and I shall come, and of Paul Lessingham there shall be an end.’
While I was wondering whether he was really as mad as he sounded, or whether he was some impudent charlatan who had an axe of his own to grind, and thought that he had found in me a grindstone, he had vanished from the room. I moved after him.
‘Hang it all!—stop!’ I cried.
He must have made pretty good travelling, because, before I had a foot in the hall, I heard the front door slam, and, when I reached the street, intent on calling him back, neither to the right nor to the left was there a sign of him to be seen.
‘I wonderwhat that nice-looking beggar really means, and who he happens to be?’ That was what I said to myself when I returned to the laboratory. ‘If it is true that, now and again, Providence does write a man’s character on his face, then there can’t be the slightest shred of a doubt that a curious one’s been written on his. I wonder what his connection has been with the Apostle,—or if it’s only part of his game of bluff.’
I strode up and down,—for the moment my interest in the experiments I was conducting had waned.
‘If it was all bluff I never saw a better piece of acting,—and yet what sort of finger can such a precisian as St Paul have in such a pie? The fellow seemed to squirm at the mere mention of the rising-hope-of-the-Radicals’ name. Can the objection be political? Let me consider,—what has Lessingham done which could offend the religious or patriotic susceptibilities of the most fanatical of Orientals? Politically, I can recall nothing. Foreign affairs, as a rule, he has carefully eschewed. If he has offended—and if he hasn’t the seeming was uncommonly good!—the cause will have to be sought upon some other track. But, then, what track?’
The more I strove to puzzle it out, the greater the puzzlement grew.
‘Absurd!—The rascal has had no more connection with St Paul than St Peter. The probability is that he’s a crackpot; and if he isn’t, he has some little game on foot—in close association with the hunt of the oof-bird!—which he tried to work off on me, but couldn’t. As for—for Marjorie—my Marjorie!—only she isn’t mine, confound it!—if I had had my senses about me, I should have broken his head in several places for daring to allow her name to pass his lips,—the unbaptised Mohammedan!—Now to return to the chase of splendid murder!’
I snatched up my mask—one of the most ingenious inventions, by the way, of recent years; if the armies of the future wear my mask they will defy my weapon!—and was about to re-adjust it in its place, when someone knocked at the door.
‘Who’s there?—Come in!’
It was Edwards. He looked round him as if surprised.
‘I beg your pardon, sir,—I thought you were engaged. I didn’t know that—that gentleman had gone.’
‘He went up the chimney, as all that kind of gentlemen do.—Why the deuce did you let him in when I told you not to?’
‘Really, sir, I don’t know. I gave him your message, and—he looked at me, and—that is all I remember till I found myself standing in this room.’
Had it not been Edwards I might have suspected him of having had his palm well greased,—but, in his case, I knew better. It was as I thought,—my visitor was a mesmerist of the first class; he had actually played some of his tricks, in broad daylight, on my servant, at my own front door,—a man worth studying. Edwards continued.
‘There is someone else, sir, who wishes to see you,—Mr Lessingham.’
‘Mr Lessingham!’ At that moment the juxtaposition seemed odd, though I daresay it was so rather in appearance than in reality. ‘Show him in.’
Presently in came Paul.
I am free to confess,—I have owned it before!—that, in a sense, I admire that man,—so long as he does not presume to thrust himself into a certain position. He possesses physical qualities which please my eye—speaking as a mere biologist. I like the suggestion conveyed by his every pose, his every movement, of a tenacious hold on life,—of reserve force, of a repository of bone and gristle on which he can fall back at pleasure. The fellow’s lithe and active; not hasty, yet agile; clean built, well hung,—the sort of man who might be relied upon to make a good recovery. You might beat him in a sprint,—mental or physical—though to do that you would have to be spry!—but in a staying race he would see you out. I do not know that he is exactly the kind of man whom I would trust,—unless I knew that he was on the job,—which knowledge, in his case, would be uncommonly hard to attain. He is too calm; too self-contained; with the knack of looking all round him even in moments of extremest peril,—and for whatever he does he has a good excuse. He has the reputation, both in the House and out of it, of being a man of iron nerve,—and with some reason; yet I am not so sure. Unless I read him wrongly his is one of those individualities which, confronted by certain eventualities, collapse,—to rise, the moment of trial having passed, like Phoenix from her ashes. However it might be with his adherents, he would show no trace of his disaster.
And this was the man whom Marjorie loved. Well, she could show some cause. He was a man of position,—destined, probably, to rise much higher; a man of parts,—with capacity to make the most of them; not ill-looking; with agreeable manners,—when he chose; and he came within the lady’s definition of a gentleman, ‘he always did the right thing, at the right time, in the right way.’ And yet—! Well, I take it that we are all cads, and that we most of us are prigs; for mercy’s sake do not let us all give ourselves away.
He was dressed as a gentleman should be dressed,—black frock coat, black vest, dark grey trousers, stand-up collar, smartly-tied bow, gloves of the proper shade, neatly brushed hair, and a smile, which if was not childlike, at any rate was bland.
‘I am not disturbing you?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Sure?—I never enter a place like this, where a man is matching himself with nature, to wrest from her her secrets, without feeling that I am crossing the threshold of the unknown. The last time I was in this room was just after you had taken out the final patents for your System of Telegraphy at Sea, which the Admiralty purchased,—wisely—What is it, now?’
‘Death.’
‘No?—really?—what do you mean?’
‘If you are a member of the next government, you will possibly learn; I may offer them the refusal of a new wrinkle in the art of murder.’
‘I see,—a new projectile.—How long is this race to continue between attack and defence?’
‘Until the sun grows cold.’
‘And then?’
‘There’ll be no defence,—nothing to defend.’
He looked at me with his calm, grave eyes.
‘The theory of the Age of Ice towards which we are advancing is not a cheerful one.’ He began to finger a glass retort which lay upon a table. ‘By the way, it was very good of you to give me a look in last night. I am afraid you thought me peremptory,—I have come to apologise.’
‘I don’t know that I thought you peremptory; I thought you—queer.’
‘Yes.’ He glanced at me with that expressionless look upon his face which he could summon at will, and which is at the bottom of the superstition about his iron nerve. ‘I was worried, and not well. Besides, one doesn’t care to be burgled, even by a maniac.’
‘Was he a maniac?’
‘Did you see him?’
‘Very clearly.’
‘Where?’
‘In the street.’
‘How close were you to him?’
‘Closer than I am to you.’
‘Indeed. I didn’t know you were so close to him as that. Did you try to stop him?’
‘Easier said than done,—he was off at such a rate.’
‘Did you see how he was dressed,—or, rather, undressed?’
‘I did.’
‘In nothing but a cloak on such a night. Who but a lunatic would have attempted burglary in such a costume?’
‘Did he take anything?’
‘Absolutely nothing.’
‘It seems to have been a curious episode.’
He moved his eyebrows,—according to members of the House the only gesture in which he has been known to indulge.
‘We become accustomed to curious episodes. Oblige me by not mentioning it to anyone,—to anyone.’ He repeated the last two words, as if to give them emphasis. I wondered if he was thinking of Marjorie. ‘I am communicating with the police. Until they move I don’t want it to get into the papers,—or to be talked about. It’s a worry,—you understand?’
I nodded. He changed the theme.
‘This that you’re engaged upon,—is it a projectile or a weapon?’
‘If you are a member of the next government you will possibly know; if you aren’t you possibly won’t.’
‘I suppose you have to keep this sort of thing secret?’
‘I do. It seems that matters of much less moment you wish to keep secret.’
‘You mean that business of last night? If a trifle of that sort gets into the papers, or gets talked about,—which is the same thing!—you have no notion how we are pestered. It becomes an almost unbearable nuisance. Jones the Unknown can commit murder with less inconvenience to himself than Jones the Notorious can have his pocket picked,—there is not so much exaggeration in that as there sounds.—Good-bye,—thanks for your promise.’ I had given him no promise, but that was by the way. He turned as to go,—then stopped. ‘There’s another thing,—I believe you’re a specialist on questions of ancient superstitions and extinct religions.’
‘I am interested in such subjects, but I am not a specialist.’
‘Can you tell me what were the exact tenets of the worshippers of Isis?’
‘Neither I nor any man,—with scientific certainty. As you know, she had a brother; the cult of Osiris and Isis was one and the same. What, precisely, were its dogmas, or its practices, or anything about it, none, now, can tell. The Papyri, hieroglyphics, and so on, which remain are very far from being exhaustive, and our knowledge of those which do remain, is still less so.’
‘I suppose that the marvels which are told of it are purely legendary?’
‘To what marvels do you particularly refer?’
‘Weren’t supernatural powers attributed to the priests of Isis?’
‘Broadly speaking, at that time, supernatural powers were attributed to all the priests of all the creeds.’
‘I see.’ Presently he continued. ‘I presume that her cult is long since extinct,—that none of the worshippers of Isis exist to-day.’
I hesitated,—I was wondering why he had hit on such a subject; if he really had a reason, or if he was merely asking questions as a cover for something else,—you see, I knew my Paul.
‘That is not so sure.’
He looked at me with that passionless, yet searching glance of his.
‘You think that she still is worshipped?’
‘I think it possible, even probable, that, here and there, in Africa—Africa is a large order!—homage is paid to Isis, quite in the good old way.’
‘Do you know that as a fact?’
‘Excuse me, but do you know it as a fact?—Are you aware that you are treating me as if I was on the witness stand?—Have you any special purpose in making these inquiries?’
He smiled.
‘In a kind of a way I have. I have recently come across rather a curious story; I am trying to get to the bottom of it.’
‘What is the story?’
‘I am afraid that at present I am not at liberty to tell it you; when I am I will. You will find it interesting,—as an instance of a singular survival.—Didn’t the followers of Isis believe in transmigration?’
‘Some of them,—no doubt.’
‘What did they understand by transmigration?’
‘Transmigration.’
‘Yes,—but of the soul or of the body?’
‘How do you mean?—transmigration is transmigration. Are you driving at something in particular? If you’ll tell me fairly and squarely what it is I’ll do my best to give you the information you require; as it is, your questions are a bit perplexing.’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,—as you say, “transmigration is transmigration.”’ I was eyeing him keenly; I seemed to detect in his manner an odd reluctance to enlarge on the subject he himself had started. He continued to trifle with the retort upon the table. ‘Hadn’t the followers of Isis a—what shall I say?—a sacred emblem?’
‘How?’
‘Hadn’t they an especial regard for some sort of a—wasn’t it some sort of a—beetle?’
‘You meanScarabaeus sacer,—according to Latreille,Scarabaeus Egyptiorum? Undoubtedly,—the scarab was venerated throughout Egypt,—indeed, speaking generally, most things that had life, for instance, cats; as you know, Orisis continued among men in the figure of Apis, the bull.’
‘Weren’t the priests of Isis—or some of them—supposed to assume, after death, the form of a—scarabaeus?’
‘I never heard of it.’
‘Are you sure?—think!’
‘I shouldn’t like to answer such a question positively, offhand, but I don’t, on the spur of the moment, recall any supposition of the kind.’
‘Don’t laugh at me—I’m not a lunatic!—but I understand that recent researches have shown that even in some of the most astounding of the ancient legends there was a substratum of fact. Is it absolutely certain that there could be no shred of truth in such a belief?’
‘In what belief?’
‘In the belief that a priest of Isis—or anyone—assumed after death the form of a scarabaeus?’
‘It seems to me, Lessingham, that you have lately come across some uncommonly interesting data, of a kind, too, which it is your bounden duty to give to the world,—or, at any rate, to that portion of the world which is represented by me. Come,—tell us all about it!—what are you afraid of?’
‘I am afraid of nothing,—and some day you shall be told,—but not now. At present, answer my question.’
‘Then repeat your question,—clearly.’
‘Is it absolutely certain that there could be no foundation of truth in the belief that a priest of Isis—or anyone—assumed after death the form of a beetle?’
‘I know no more than the man in the moon,—how the dickens should I? Such a belief may have been symbolical. Christians believe that after death the body takes the shape of worms—and so, in a sense, it does,—and, sometimes, eels.’
‘That is not what I mean.’
‘Then what do you mean?’
‘Listen. If a person, of whose veracity there could not be a vestige of a doubt, assured you that he had seen such a transformation actually take place, could it conceivably be explained on natural grounds?’
‘Seen a priest of Isis assume the form of a beetle?’
‘Or a follower of Isis?’
‘Before, or after death?’
He hesitated. I had seldom seen him wear such an appearance of interest,—to be frank, I was keenly interested too!—but, on a sudden there came into his eyes a glint of something that was almost terror. When he spoke, it was with the most unwonted awkwardness.
‘In—in the very act of dying.’
‘In the very act of dying?’
‘If—he had seen a follower of Isis in—the very act of dying, assume—the form of a—a beetle, on any conceivable grounds would such a transformation be susceptible of a natural explanation?’
I stared,—as who would not? Such an extraordinary question was rendered more extraordinary by coming from such a man,—yet I was almost beginning to suspect that there was something behind it more extraordinary still.
‘Look here, Lessingham, I can see you’ve a capital tale to tell,—so tell it, man! Unless I’m mistaken, it’s not the kind of tale in which ordinary scruples can have any part or parcel,—anyhow, it’s hardly fair of you to set my curiosity all agog, and then to leave it unappeased.’
He eyed me steadily, the appearance of interest fading more and more, until, presently, his face assumed its wonted expressionless mask,—somehow I was conscious that what he had seen in my face was not altogether to his liking. His voice was once more bland and self-contained.
‘I perceive you are of opinion that I have been told a taradiddle. I suppose I have.’
‘But what is the tarradiddle?—don’t you see I’m burning?’
‘Unfortunately, Atherton, I am on my honour. Until I have permission to unloose it, my tongue is tied.’ He picked up his hat and umbrella from where he had placed them on the table. Holding them in his left hand, he advanced to me with his right outstretched. ‘It is very good of you to suffer my continued interruption; I know, to my sorrow, what such interruptions mean,—believe me, I am not ungrateful. What is this?’
On the shelf, within a foot or so of where I stood, was a sheet of paper,—the size and shape of half a sheet of post note. At this he stooped to glance. As he did so, something surprising occurred. On the instant a look came on to his face which, literally, transfigured him. His hat and umbrella fell from his grasp on to the floor. He retreated, gibbering, his hands held out as if to ward something off from him, until he reached the wall on the other side of the room. A more amazing spectacle than he presented I never saw.
‘Lessingham!’ I exclaimed. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
My first impression was that he was struck by a fit of epilepsy,—though anyone less like an epileptic subject it would be hard to find. In my bewilderment I looked round to see what could be the immediate cause. My eye fell upon the sheet of paper. I stared at it with considerable surprise. I had not noticed it there previously, I had not put it there,—where had it come from? The curious thing was that, on it, produced apparently by some process of photogravure, was an illustration of a species of beetle with which I felt that I ought to be acquainted, and yet was not. It was of a dull golden green; the colour was so well brought out,—even to the extent of seeming to scintillate, and the whole thing was so dexterously done that the creature seemed alive. The semblance of reality was, indeed, so vivid that it needed a second glance to be assured that it was a mere trick of the reproducer. Its presence there was odd,—after what we had been talking about it might seem to need explanation; but it was absurd to suppose that that alone could have had such an effect on a man like Lessingham.
With the thing in my hand, I crossed to where he was,—pressing his back against the wall, he had shrunk lower inch by inch till he was actually crouching on his haunches.
‘Lessingham!—come, man, what’s wrong with you?’
Taking him by the shoulder, I shook him with some vigour. My touch had on him the effect of seeming to wake him out of a dream, of restoring him to consciousness as against the nightmare horrors with which he was struggling. He gazed up at me with that look of cunning on his face which one associates with abject terror.
‘Atherton?—Is it you?—It’s all right,—quite right.—I’m well,—very well.’
As he spoke, he slowly drew himself up, till he was standing erect.
‘Then, in that case, all I can say is that you have a queer way of being very well.’
He put his hand up to his mouth, as if to hide the trembling of his lips.
‘It’s the pressure of overwork,—I’ve had one or two attacks like this,—but it’s nothing, only—a local lesion.’
I observed him keenly; to my thinking there was something about him which was very odd indeed.
‘Only a local lesion!—If you take my strongly-urged advice you’ll get a medical opinion without delay,—if you haven’t been wise enough to have done so already.’
‘I’ll go to-day;—at once; but I know it’s only mental overstrain.’
‘You’re sure it’s nothing to do with this?’
I held out in front of him the photogravure of the beetle. As I did so he backed away from me, shrieking, trembling as with palsy.
‘Take it away! take it away!’ he screamed.
I stared at him, for some seconds, astonished into speechlessness. Then I found my tongue.
‘Lessingham!—It’s only a picture!—Are you stark mad?’
He persisted in his ejaculations.
‘Take it away! take it away!—Tear it up!—Burn it!’
His agitation was so unnatural,—from whatever cause it arose!—that, fearing the recurrence of the attack from which he had just recovered, I did as he bade me. I tore the sheet of paper into quarters, and, striking a match, set fire to each separate piece. He watched the process of incineration as if fascinated. When it was concluded, and nothing but ashes remained, he gave a gasp of relief.
‘Lessingham,’ I said, ‘you’re either mad already, or you’re going mad,—which is it?’
‘I think it’s neither. I believe I am as sane as you. It’s—it’s that story of which I was speaking; it—it seems curious, but I’ll tell you all about it—some day. As I observed, I think you will find it an interesting instance of a singular survival.’ He made an obvious effort to become more like his usual self. ‘It is extremely unfortunate, Atherton, that I should have troubled you with such a display of weakness,—especially as I am able to offer you so scant an explanation. One thing I would ask of you,—to observe strict confidence. What has taken place has been between ourselves. I am in your hands, but you are my friend, I know I can rely on you not to speak of it to anyone,—and, in particular, not to breathe a hint of it to Miss Lindon.’
‘Why, in particular, not to Miss Lindon?’
‘Can you not guess?’
I hunched my shoulder.
‘If what I guess is what you mean is not that a cause the more why silence would be unfair to her?’
‘It is for me to speak, if for anyone. I shall not fail to do what should be done.—Give me your promise that you will not hint a word to her of what you have so unfortunately seen?’
I gave him the promise he required.
* * * * * * *
There was no more work for me that day. The Apostle, his divagations, his example of the coleoptera, his Arabian friend,—these things were as microbes which, acting on a system already predisposed for their reception, produced high fever; I was in a fever,—of unrest. Brain in a whirl!—Marjorie, Paul, Isis, beetle, mesmerism, in delirious jumble. Love’s upsetting!—in itself a sufficiently severe disease; but when complications intervene, suggestive of mystery and novelties, so that you do not know if you are moving in an atmosphere of dreams or of frozen facts,—if, then, your temperature does not rise, like that rocket of M. Verne’s,—which reached the moon, then you are a freak of an entirely genuine kind, and if the surgeons do not preserve you, and place you on view, in pickle, they ought to, for the sake of historical doubters, for no one will believe that there ever was a man like you, unless you yourself are somewhere around to prove them Thomases.
Myself,—I am not that kind of man. When I get warm I grow heated, and when I am heated there is likely to be a variety show of a gaudy kind. When Paul had gone I tried to think things out, and if I had kept on trying something would have happened—so I went on the river instead.
Thatnight was the Duchess of Datchet’s ball—the first person I saw as I entered the dancing-room was Dora Grayling.
I went straight up to her.
‘Miss Grayling, I behaved very badly to you last night. I have come to make to you my apologies,—to sue for your forgiveness!’
‘My forgiveness?’ Her head went back,—she has a pretty bird-like trick of cocking it a little on one side. ‘You were not well. Are you better?’
‘Quite.—You forgive me? Then grant me plenary absolution by giving me a dance for the one I lost last night.’
She rose. A man came up,—a stranger to me; she’s one of the best hunted women in England,—there’s a million with her.
‘This is my dance, Miss Grayling.’
She looked at him.
‘You must excuse me. I am afraid I have made a mistake. I had forgotten that I was already engaged.’
I had not thought her capable of it. She took my arm, and away we went, and left him staring.
‘It’s he who’s the sufferer now,’ I whispered, as we went round,—she can waltz!
‘You think so? It was I last night,—I did not mean, if I could help it, to suffer again. To me a dance with you means something.’ She went all red,—adding, as an afterthought, ‘Nowadays so few men really dance. I expect it’s because you dance so well.’
‘Thank you.’
We danced the waltz right through, then we went to an impromptu shelter which had been rigged up on a balcony. And we talked. There’s something sympathetic about Miss Grayling which leads one to talk about one’s self,—before I was half aware of it I was telling her of all my plans and projects,—actually telling her of my latest notion which, ultimately, was to result in the destruction of whole armies as by a flash of lightning. She took an amount of interest in it which was surprising.
‘What really stands in the way of things of this sort is not theory but practice,—one can prove one’s facts on paper, or on a small scale in a room; what is wanted is proof on a large scale, by actual experiment. If, for instance, I could take my plant to one of the forests of South America, where there is plenty of animal life but no human, I could demonstrate the soundness of my position then and there.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘Think of the money it would cost.’
‘I thought I was a friend of yours.’
‘I had hoped you were.’
‘Then why don’t you let me help you?’
‘Help me?—How?’
‘By letting you have the money for your South American experiment;—it would be an investment on which I should expect to receive good interest.’
I fidgeted.
‘It is very good of you, Miss Grayling, to talk like that.’
She became quite frigid.
‘Please don’t be absurd!—I perceive quite clearly that you are snubbing me, and that you are trying to do it as delicately as you know how.’
‘Miss Grayling!’
‘I understand that it was an impertinence on my part to volunteer assistance which was unasked; you have made that sufficiently plain.’
‘I assure you—’
‘Pray don’t. Of course, if it had been Miss Lindon it would have been different; she would at least have received a civil answer. But we are not all Miss Lindon.’
I was aghast. The outburst was so uncalled for,—I had not the faintest notion what I had said or done to cause it; she was in such a surprising passion—and it suited her!—I thought I had never seen her look prettier,—I could do nothing else but stare. So she went on,—with just as little reason.
‘Here is someone coming to claim this dance,—I can’t throw all my partners over. Have I offended you so irremediably that it will be impossible for you to dance with me again?’
‘Miss Grayling!—I shall be only too delighted.’ She handed me her card. ‘Which may I have?’
‘For your own sake you had better place it as far off as you possibly can.’
‘They all seem taken.’
‘That doesn’t matter; strike off any name you please, anywhere and put your own instead.’
It was giving me an almost embarrassingly free hand. I booked myself for the next waltz but two,—who it was who would have to give way to me I did not trouble to inquire.
‘Mr Atherton!—Is that you?’
It was,—it was also she. It was Marjorie! And so soon as I saw her I knew that there was only one woman in the world for me,—the mere sight of her sent the blood tingling through my veins. Turning to her attendant cavalier, she dismissed him with a bow.
‘Is there an empty chair?’
She seated herself in the one Miss Grayling had just vacated. I sat down beside her. She glanced at me, laughter in her eyes. I was all in a stupid tremblement.
‘You remember that last night I told you that I might require your friendly services in diplomatic intervention?’ I nodded,—I felt that the allusion was unfair. ‘Well, the occasion’s come,—or, at least, it’s very near.’ She was still,—and I said nothing to help her. ‘You know how unreasonable papa can be.’
I did,—never a more pig-headed man in England than Geoffrey Lindon,—or, in a sense, a duller. But, just then, I was not prepared to admit it to his child.
‘You know what an absurd objection he has to—Paul.’
There was an appreciative hesitation before she uttered the fellow’s Christian name,—when it came it was with an accent of tenderness which stung me like a gadfly. To speak to me—of all men,—of the fellow in such a tone was—like a woman.
‘Has Mr Lindon no notion of how things stand between you?’
‘Except what he suspects. That is just where you are to come in, papa thinks so much of you—I want you to sound Paul’s praises in his ear—to prepare him for what must come.’ Was ever rejected lover burdened with such a task? Its enormity kept me still. ‘Sydney, you have always been my friend,—my truest, dearest friend. When I was a little girl you used to come between papa and me, to shield me from his wrath. Now that I am a big girl I want you to be on my side once more, and to shield me still.’
Her voice softened. She laid her hand upon my arm. How, under her touch, I burned.
‘But I don’t understand what cause there has been for secrecy,—why should there have been any secrecy from the first?’
‘It was Paul’s wish that papa should not be told.’
‘Is Mr Lessingham ashamed of you?’
‘Sydney!’
‘Or does he fear your father?’
‘You are unkind. You know perfectly well that papa has been prejudiced against him all along, you know that his political position is just now one of the greatest difficulty, that every nerve and muscle is kept on the continual strain, that it is in the highest degree essential that further complications of every and any sort should be avoided. He is quite aware that his suit will not be approved of by papa, and he simply wishes that nothing shall be said about it till the end of the session,—that is all.’
‘I see! Mr Lessingham is cautious even in love-making,—politician first, and lover afterwards.’
‘Well!—why not?—would you have him injure the cause he has at heart for want of a little patience?’
‘It depends what cause it is he has at heart.’
‘What is the matter with you?—why do you speak to me like that?—it is not like you at all.’ She looked at me shrewdly, with flashing eyes. ‘Is it possible that you are—jealous?—that you were in earnest in what you said last night?—I thought that was the sort of thing you said to every girl.’
I would have given a great deal to take her in my arms, and press her to my bosom then and there,—to think that she should taunt me with having said to her the sort of thing I said to every girl.
‘What do you know of Mr Lessingham?’
‘What all the world knows,—that history will be made by him.’
‘There are kinds of history in the making of which one would not desire to be associated. What do you know of his private life,—it was to that that I was referring.’
‘Really,—you go too far. I know that he is one of the best, just as he is one of the greatest, of men; for me, that is sufficient.’
‘If you do know that, it is sufficient.’
‘I do know it,—all the world knows it. Everyone with whom he comes in contact is aware—must be aware, that he is incapable of a dishonourable thought or action.’
‘Take my advice, don’t appreciate any man too highly. In the book of every man’s life there is a page which he would wish to keep turned down.’
‘There is no such page in Paul’s,—there may be in yours; I think that probable.’
‘Thank you. I fear it is more than probable. I fear that, in my case, the page may extend to several. There is nothing Apostolic about me,—not even the name.’
‘Sydney!—you are unendurable!—It is the more strange to hear you talk like this since Paul regards you as his friend.’
‘He flatters me.’
‘Are you not his friend?’
‘Is it not sufficient to be yours?’
‘No,—who is against Paul is against me.’
‘That is hard.’
‘How is it hard? Who is against the husband can hardly be for the wife,—when the husband and the wife are one.’
‘But as yet you are not one.—Is my cause so hopeless?’
‘What do you call your cause?—are you thinking of that nonsense you were talking about last night?’
She laughed!
‘You call it nonsense.—You ask for sympathy, and give—so much!’
‘I will give you all the sympathy you stand in need of,—I promise it! My poor, dear Sydney!—don’t be so absurd! Do you think that I don’t know you? You’re the best of friends, and the worst of lovers,—as the one, so true; so fickle as the other. To my certain knowledge, with how many girls have you been in love,—and out again. It is true that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, you have never been in love with me before,—but that’s the merest accident. Believe me, my dear, dear Sydney, you’ll be in love with someone else to-morrow,—if you’re not half-way there to-night. I confess, quite frankly, that, in that direction, all the experience I have had of you has in nowise strengthened my prophetic instinct. Cheer up!—one never knows!—Who is this that’s coming?’
It was Dora Grayling who was coming,—I went off with her without a word,—we were half-way through the dance before she spoke to me.
‘I am sorry that I was cross to you just now, and—disagreeable. Somehow I always seem destined to show to you my most unpleasant side.’
‘The blame was mine,—what sort of side do I show you? You are far kinder to me than I deserve,—now, and always.’
‘That is what you say.’
‘Pardon me, it’s true,—else how comes it that, at this time of day, I’m without a friend in all the world?’
‘You!—without a friend!—I never knew a man who had so many!—I never knew a person of whom so many men and women join in speaking well!’
‘Miss Grayling!’
‘As for never having done anything worth doing, think of what you have done. Think of your discoveries, think of your inventions, think of—but never mind! The world knows you have done great things, and it confidently looks to you to do still greater. You talk of being friendless, and yet when I ask, as a favour—as a great favour!—to be allowed to do something to show my friendship, you—well, you snub me.’
‘I snub you!’
‘You know you snubbed me.’
‘Do you really mean that you take an interest in—in my work?’
‘You know I mean it.’
She turned to me, her face all glowing,—and I did know it.
‘Will you come to my laboratory to-morrow morning?’
‘Will I!—won’t I!’
‘With your aunt?’
‘Yes, with my aunt.’
‘I’ll show you round, and tell you all there is to be told, and then if you still think there’s anything in it, I’ll accept your offer about that South American experiment,—that is, if it still holds good.’
‘Of course it still holds good.’
‘And we’ll be partners.’
‘Partners?—Yes,—we will be partners.’
‘It will cost a terrific sum.’
‘There are some things which never can cost too much.’
‘That’s not my experience.’
‘I hope it will be mine.’
‘It’s a bargain?’
‘On my side, I promise you that it’s a bargain.’
When I got outside the room I found that Percy Woodville was at my side. His round face was, in a manner of speaking, as long as my arm. He took his glass out of his eye, and rubbed it with his handkerchief,—and directly he put it back he took it out and rubbed it again. I believe that I never saw him in such a state of fluster,—and, when one speaks of Woodville, that means something.
‘Atherton, I am in a devil of a stew.’ He looked it. ‘All of a heap!—I’ve had a blow which I shall never get over!’
‘Then get under.’
Woodville is one of those fellows who will insist on telling me their most private matters,—even to what they owe their washerwomen for the ruination of their shirts. Why, goodness alone can tell,—heaven knows I am not sympathetic.
‘Don’t be an idiot!—you don’t know what I’m suffering!—I’m as nearly as possible stark mad.’
‘That’s all right, old chap,—I’ve seen you that way more than once before.’
‘Don’t talk like that,—you’re not a perfect brute!’
‘I bet you a shilling that I am.’
‘Don’t torture me,—you’re not. Atherton!’ He seized me by the lapels of my coat, seeming half beside himself,—fortunately he had drawn me into a recess, so that we were noticed by few observers. ‘What do you think has happened?’
‘My dear chap, how on earth am I to know?’
‘She’s refused me!’
‘Has she!—Well I never!—Buck up,—try some other address,—there are quite as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.’
‘Atherton, you’re a blackguard.’
He had crumpled his handkerchief into a ball, and was actually bobbing at his eyes with it,—the idea of Percy Woodville being dissolved in tears was excruciatingly funny,—but, just then, I could hardly tell him so.
‘There’s not a doubt of it,—it’s my way of being sympathetic. Don’t be so down, man,—try her again!’
‘It’s not the slightest use—I know it isn’t—from the way she treated me.’
‘Don’t be so sure—women often say what they mean least. Who’s the lady?’
‘Who?—Is there more women in the world than one for me, or has there ever been? You ask me who! What does the word mean to me but Marjorie Lindon!’
‘Marjorie Lindon?’
I fancy that my jaw dropped open,—that, to use his own vernacular, I was ‘all of a heap.’ I felt like it.
I strode away—leaving him mazed—and all but ran into Marjorie’s arms.
‘I’m just leaving. Will you see me to the carriage, Mr Atherton?’ I saw her to the carriage. ‘Are you off?—can I give you a lift?’
‘Thank you,—I am not thinking of being off.’
‘I’m going to the House of Commons,—won’t you come?’
‘What are you going there for?’
Directly she spoke of it I knew why she was going,—and she knew that I knew, as her words showed.
‘You are quite well aware of what the magnet is. You are not so ignorant as not to know that the Agricultural Amendment Act is on to-night, and that Paul is to speak. I always try to be there when Paul is to speak, and I mean to always keep on trying.’
‘He is a fortunate man.’
‘Indeed,—and again indeed. A man with such gifts as his is inadequately described as fortunate.—But I must be off. He expected to be up before, but I heard from him a few minutes ago that there has been a delay, but that he will be up within half-an-hour.—Till our next meeting.’
As I returned into the house, in the hall I met Percy Woodville. He had his hat on.
‘Where are you off to?’
‘I’m off to the House.’
‘To hear Paul Lessingham?’
‘Damn Paul Lessingham!’
‘With all my heart!’
‘There’s a division expected,—I’ve got to go.’
‘Someone else has gone to hear Paul Lessingham,—Marjorie Lindon.’
‘No!—you don’t say so!—by Jove!—I say, Atherton, I wish I could make a speech,—I never can. When I’m electioneering I have to have my speeches written for me, and then I have to read ’em. But, by Jove, if I knew Miss Lindon was in the gallery, and if I knew anything about the thing, or could get someone to tell me something, hang me if I wouldn’t speak,—I’d show her I’m not the fool she thinks I am!’
‘Speak, Percy, speak!—you’d knock ’em silly, sir!—I tell you what I’ll do,—I’ll come with you! I’ll to the House as well!—Paul Lessingham shall have an audience of three.’
TheHouse was full. Percy and I went upstairs,—to the gallery which is theoretically supposed to be reserved for what are called ‘distinguished strangers,’—those curious animals. Trumperton was up, hammering out those sentences which smell, not so much of the lamp as of the dunderhead. Nobody was listening,—except the men in the Press Gallery; where is the brain of the House, and ninety per cent. of its wisdom.
It was not till Trumperton had finished that I discovered Lessingham. The tedious ancient resumed his seat amidst a murmur of sounds which, I have no doubt, some of the pressmen interpreted next day as ‘loud and continued applause.’ There was movement in the House, possibly expressive of relief; a hum of voices; men came flocking in. Then, from the Opposition benches, there rose a sound which was applause,—and I perceived that, on a cross bench close to the gangway, Paul Lessingham was standing up bareheaded.
I eyed him critically,—as a collector might eye a valuable specimen, or a pathologist a curious subject. During the last four and twenty hours my interest in him had grown apace. Just then, to me, he was the most interesting man the world contained.
When I remembered how I had seen him that same morning, a nerveless, terror-stricken wretch, grovelling, like some craven cur, upon the floor, frightened, to the verge of imbecility, by a shadow, and less than a shadow, I was confronted by two hypotheses. Either I had exaggerated his condition then, or I exaggerated his condition now. So far as appearance went, it was incredible that this man could be that one.
I confess that my feeling rapidly became one of admiration. I love the fighter. I quickly recognised that here we had him in perfection. There was no seeming about him then,—the man was to the manner born. To his finger-tips a fighting man. I had never realised it so clearly before. He was coolness itself. He had all his faculties under complete command. While never, for a moment, really exposing himself, he would be swift in perceiving the slightest weakness in his opponents’ defence, and, so soon as he saw it, like lightning, he would slip in a telling blow. Though defeated, he would hardly be disgraced; and one might easily believe that their very victories would be so expensive to his assailants, that, in the end, they would actually conduce to his own triumph.
‘Hang me!’ I told myself, ‘if, after all, I am surprised if Marjorie does see something in him.’ For I perceived how a clever and imaginative young woman, seeing him at his best, holding his own, like a gallant knight, against overwhelming odds, in the lists in which he was so much at home, might come to think of him as if he were always and only there, ignoring altogether the kind of man he was when the joust was finished.
It did me good to hear him, I do know that,—and I could easily imagine the effect he had on one particular auditor who was in the Ladies’ Cage. It was very far from being an ‘oration’ in the American sense; it had little or nothing of the fire and fury of the French Tribune; it was marked neither by the ponderosity nor the sentiment of the eloquent German; yet it was as satisfying as are the efforts of either of the three, producing, without doubt, precisely the effect which the speaker intended. His voice was clear and calm, not exactly musical, yet distinctly pleasant, and it was so managed that each word he uttered was as audible to every person present as if it had been addressed particularly to him. His sentences were short and crisp; the words which he used were not big ones, but they came from him with an agreeable ease; and he spoke just fast enough to keep one’s interest alert without involving a strain on the attention.
He commenced by making, in the quietest and most courteous manner, sarcastic comments on the speeches and methods of Trumperton and his friends which tickled the House amazingly. But he did not make the mistake of pushing his personalities too far. To a speaker of a certain sort nothing is easier than to sting to madness. If he likes, his every word is barbed. Wounds so given fester; they are not easily forgiven;—it is essential to a politician that he should have his firmest friends among the fools; or his climbing days will soon be over. Soon his sarcasms were at an end. He began to exchange them for sweet-sounding phrases. He actually began to say pleasant things to his opponents; apparently to mean them. To put them in a good conceit with themselves. He pointed out how much truth there was in what they said; and then, as if by accident, with what ease and at how little cost, amendments might be made. He found their arguments, and took them for his own, and flattered them, whether they would or would not, by showing how firmly they were founded upon fact; and grafted other arguments upon them, which seemed their natural sequelae; and transformed them, and drove them hither and thither; and brought them—their own arguments!—to a round, irrefragable conclusion, which was diametrically the reverse of that to which they themselves had brought them. And he did it all with an aptness, a readiness, a grace, which was incontestable. So that, when he sat down, he had performed that most difficult of all feats, he had delivered what, in a House of Commons’ sense, was a practical, statesmanlike speech, and yet one which left his hearers in an excellent humour.
It was a great success,—an immense success. A parliamentary triumph of almost the highest order. Paul Lessingham had been coming on by leaps and bounds. When he resumed his seat, amidst applause which, this time, really was applause, there were, probably, few who doubted that he was destined to go still farther. How much farther it is true that time alone could tell; but, so far as appearances went, all the prizes, which are as the crown and climax of a statesman’s career, were well within his reach.
For my part, I was delighted. I had enjoyed an intellectual exercise,—a species of enjoyment not so common as it might be. The Apostle had almost persuaded me that the political game was one worth playing, and that its triumphs were things to be desired. It is something, after all, to be able to appeal successfully to the passions and aspirations of your peers; to gain their plaudits; to prove your skill at the game you yourself have chosen; to be looked up to and admired. And when a woman’s eyes look down on you, and her ears drink in your every word, and her heart beats time with yours,—each man to his own temperament, but when that woman is the woman whom you love, to know that your triumph means her glory, and her gladness, to me that would be the best part of it all.
In that hour,—the Apostle’s hour!—I almost wished that I were a politician too!
The division was over. The business of the night was practically done. I was back again in the lobby! The theme of conversation was the Apostle’s speech,—on every side they talked of it.
Suddenly Marjorie was at my side. Her face was glowing. I never saw her look more beautiful,—or happier. She seemed to be alone.
‘So you have come, after all!—Wasn’t it splendid?—wasn’t it magnificent? Isn’t it grand to have such great gifts, and to use them to such good purpose?—Speak, Sydney! Don’t feign a coolness which is foreign to your nature!’
I saw that she was hungry for me to praise the man whom she delighted to honour. But, somehow, her enthusiasm cooled mine.
‘It was not a bad speech, of a kind.’
‘Of a kind!’ How her eyes flashed fire! With what disdain she treated me! ‘What do you mean by “of a kind?” My dear Sydney, are you not aware that it is an attribute of small minds to attempt to belittle those which are greater? Even if you are conscious of inferiority, it’s unwise to show it. Mr Lessingham’s was a great speech, of any kind; your incapacity to recognise the fact simply reveals your lack of the critical faculty.’
‘It is fortunate for Mr Lessingham that there is at least one person in whom the critical faculty is so bountifully developed. Apparently, in your judgment, he who discriminates is lost.’
I thought she was going to burst into passion. But, instead, laughing, she placed her hand upon my shoulder.
‘Poor Sydney!—I understand!—It is so sad!—Do you know you are like a little boy who, when he is beaten, declares that the victor has cheated him. Never mind! as you grow older, you will learn better.’
She stung me almost beyond bearing,—I cared not what I said.
‘You, unless I am mistaken, will learn better before you are older.’
‘What do you mean?’
Before I could have told her—if I had meant to tell; which I did not—Lessingham came up.