The morning was steamy and still, giving promise of another tropically hot day, but Paul approached so quietly that he came within a few yards of Flamby without disturbing her. There he stopped, watching and admiring. She was making a water-colourdrawing of a tiny lamb which lay quite contentedly within reach of her hand, sometimes looking up into her face confidently and sometimes glancing at the woolly mother who grazed near the fringe of the trees. Flamby was so absorbed in her work that she noted nothing of Paul's approach, but the mother sheep looked up, startled, and the lamb made a sudden move in her direction.
"Be good, Woolly," said Flamby, and her voice had that rare vibrant note which belongs to the Celtic tongue; "I have nearly finished now."
But the lamb's courage had failed, and not even the siren voice could restore it. With the uncertain steps of extreme youth it sought its mother's side, and the two moved away towards the flock which grazed in a distant corner of the meadow.
"I fear I have disturbed you."
The effect of Paul's words was singular. Flamby dropped her brush and seemed to shrink as from a threatened blow, drawing up her shoulders and slowly turning her head to see who had spoken. As her face came into view, Paul saw that it was blanched with fear.
"Please forgive me," he said with concern; "but I did not mean to frighten you."
"Oh," moaned Flamby, "but you did. I thought——" She rose to her knees and then to her feet, the quick colour returning in a hot blush.
"What did you think?" asked Paul gently.
"I thought you were Sir Jacques."
She uttered the words impulsively and seemed to regret them as soon as spoken, standing before Paul with shyly lowered eyes. The attitude surprised him. From what he had seen and heard of Flamby he had not anticipated diffidence, and he regarded her silently for a moment, smiling in his charming way. She had evidently made some attempt this morning to arrange her rebellious hair, for it had been parted and brushed over to one side so that therippling waves gleamed like minted copper where the sun kissed them. Flamby had remarkable hair, nut-brown in its shadows, and in the light glowing redly like embers or a newly extinguished torch.
Her face was a perfect oval, and she had the most beautifully chiselled straight little nose imaginable. Her face and as much of her neck as was exposed by a white jumper were tanned to gipsy hue; so that when, shyly raising her eyes, she responded to Paul's smile, the whiteness of her teeth was extraordinary. A harsh critic might have said that her mouth was too large; but no man of flesh and blood would have quarrelled with such lips as Flamby's. She was below medium height, but shaped like a sylph and had the airy grace of one. As Paul stood regarding her he found wonder to be growing in his mind, for such wild roses as Flamby are rare enough in the countryside, as every artist knows.
"Why," he asked, "should you be so afraid of Sir Jacques?"
"He's dead!" replied Flamby, an elfin light of mischief kindling in her eyes; yet she was by no means at her ease.
"And what made you mistake me for him?"
"Your voice."
"Ah," said Paul, to whom others had remarked on this resemblance; "but you had no cause to fear him?—alive, I mean."
"No," replied Flamby, stooping to pick up her sketching materials.
Her monosyllabic reply was not satisfactory; but recognising that if she did not wish to talk about the late Sir Jacques he must merely defeat his own purpose by endeavouring to make her do so, he abandoned the topic.
"My name is Paul Mario," he said, "and I came to see you this morning."
Flamby stood up, paint-box, brushes and sketch in hand. "To seeme?"
"Yes! why not?"
Flamby confronted him, her natural self-confidence restored, and studied him with grave grey eyes. "What did you want to see me about?" she asked; and in the tone of the question there was a restrained anxiety which Paul could not understand. Also there was a faint and fascinating suggestion of brogue in her accent.
"About yourself, of course," he replied, and wondered more and more because of the knowledge—borne to him by that acute, almost feminine, intuition which was his—that the girl was fencing with him, and because of her strangeness and her beauty as she stood before him, hair flaming in the sunlight, and her eyes watching him observantly.
Now, her expression changed, and her pupils growing momentarily larger, he knew that her thoughts were in the past—and that they had brought relief from some secret anxiety which had been with her.
"Of course!" she said, and laughed with a sudden joyousness that was in harmony with the morning; "you came yesterday with Captain Courtier. I understand, now."
Swiftly as her laughter had come, it vanished, and her eyes grew dim with tears. Such tempestuous emotions must have nonplussed the average man, but to Paul Mario her moods read clearly as a printed page, so that almost as the image arose in Flamby's mind, it arose also in his; and he saw before him one who wore the uniform of a sergeant of Irish Guards. Hotly pursuing the tears came brave smiles. Flamby shook her curls back from her brow, gave Paul a glance which was half apologetic and wholly appealing, then laughed again and swept him a mocking curtsey.
"I am your honour's servant," she said; "what would you with me?"
The elfin light danced in her eyes again, and inthis country damsel who used the language of an obsolete vassalage he saw one who mocked at his manorial rights and cared naught for king or commoner. Beyond doubt, Sergeant Duveen had been a strange man, and strangely had he trained his daughter.
"May I see your drawing?"
Flamby hesitated. "Are you really interested?" she said wistfully, "or are you just trying to be kind?"
Paul was tempted to laugh outright, but his delicate sensibilities told him that laughter would give offence. "I am really interested," he assured her earnestly, "Captain Courtier is of opinion that you have a remarkable gift for portraying wild life."
He selected his words deliberately with the design of reassuring her respecting the sincerity of his interest. He was aware of a vague fear that some ill-chosen remark would send Flamby flying from him, the coy wood-nymph to whom Don had likened her, and that she would disappear as she had done from Bluebell Hollow. But still she hesitated.
"You look as though you mean it," she conceded, furtively glancing down at the sketching-board in her hand. "But it's a rotter."
"I'm afraid I am to blame. I spoiled it."
"No you didn't. It was a mess before you came." She glanced at him doubtfully, keeping the drawing turned away. "You see," she continued, "the shadowy part of a lamb on a sunny morning is quite blue—quiteblue. Did you know that?"
"Well," replied Paul, musingly, shielding his eyes and looking toward the distant flock, "now that you have drawn my attention to the fact I perceive it to be so—yes."
"But when you haven't got many colours," explained Flamby, "it's not so easy to paint. I've made my lamb too blue for anything!" She displayed the drawing, her eyes dancing with laughter."No man ever saw a blue lamb," she said—"while he was sober!"
The words shed a sidelight upon the domestic habits of the late Sergeant Duveen, as Paul did not fail to note; and in the masculinity of Flamby's jesting he glimpsed something of the closeness of the intimacy which had existed between father and daughter. But, taking the drawing from her hands, he was astonished at the skill which it displayed and which surpassed that of any work he had seen outside the best exhibitions. It possessed none of the graceful insipidity of the water colours which young ladies are taught to produce at all good boarding-schools and convents, but was characterised by the same vigour which informed Flamby's conversation. Furthermore, it represented a living animal, soft of fleece and inviting a caress and was drawn with almost insolent ease. Paul looked into the girl's watching eyes.
"You are an artist, Flamby," he said; "and like all artists you are unduly critical of your work."
A rich colour glowed through the tan upon Flamby's cheeks and she was aware of a delicious little nervous thrill. Paul Mario's fascinating voice had laid its thrall upon her and his eyes were far more beautiful even than she had supposed, when, confronting Fawkes in Bluebell Hollow, she had suddenly looked up to find Paul watching her. That easy self-possession which she had learned from her father and which deserted her rarely enough, threatened to desert her now; also, a poisonous doubt touched her joy. With its coming came a return of confidence and Flamby laid her hand confidingly upon Paul's arm.
"You really do mean what you say, don't you?" she asked wistfully.
"My dear little girl, why are you so doubtful of my honesty?"
Flamby lowered her fiery head. "Except father,"she said, "I never knew anybody who really thought I could paint. Some pretended to think so; and Miss Kingsbury at High Fielding, who ought to know, laughed at me—after she had asked me to go and see her—and told me to 'try and find a nice domestic situation.'"
The mimicry in the concluding words was delightfully funny, but Paul nodded sympathetically. A mental picture of Miss Kingsbury arose before him, and it was in vain that he sought to consider her and her kind without rancour. Beauty is a dangerous gift for any girl, making countless enemies amongst her own sex and often debarring her from harmless pleasures open to her plainer sisters. But the Miss Kingsburys of the smaller county towns are an especial menace to such as Flamby, although charity rarely assumes the dimensions of a vice among any of the natives of England's southern shires.
"And your father had intended that you should become a painter?"
Unconsciously, he found himself speaking of the late Michael Duveen as of one belonging to his own station in life, nor did the wild appearance and sometimes uncouth language of Flamby serve wholly to disguise the blue streak in her blood.
"When he was sober," she replied, and suddenly bursting into gay laughter she snatched the drawing and turned away, waving her hand to Paul. "Goodbye, Mr. Mario," she cried. "I like you heaps better than your uncle!"
Her impudence was delicious, and Paul detained her. "You must not run away like that," he said. "Captain Courtier made me promise that I would arrange for you to pursue your art studies——"
Flamby shook her head. "How can I do that?" she asked, in a gust of scorn. Then, as suddenly, her gaze grew wrapt and her face flushed. "But how I would love to!" she whispered.
"You shall. It is all arranged," declared Paulearnestly. "The—special pension which your mother will receive and which Captain Courtier is arranging will be sufficient to cover all costs."
Flamby looked up at him, her eyes aglow with excitement. "Oh, Mr. Mario," she said, "please don't think me ungrateful and a little beast; but—is it true?"
"Why should I mislead you in the matter, Flamby?"
"I don't know; but—if you knew how I've longed and longed to be able to go to London, among people who understand; to get away from these men and women who are really half vegetables!"
Paul laughed gaily. "But you love the country?"
"I could not live long away from it. But the people! And I love the birds and the animals, and—oh!"—her voice rose excitedly—"don't kill it!"
A wasp was humming dangerously about Paul's head, and although his love of all things that had life was as strong as Flamby's, the self-protective instinct had led him to endeavour to knock the wasp away. Now, Flamby extending one motionless hand, the gaudily-striped insect alighted upon her finger and began busily to march from thence to the rosy tip of the next, and so on until it reached Flamby's little curved thumb. Holding the thumb upright, so that the wasp stood upon a miniature tower, she pursed her lips entrancingly and blew the insect upon its way as gently as if borne upon a summer zephyr.
"They only sting if you hurt them," she explained; "and so would you!"
"But," said Paul, who had watched the incident wonderingly, "if all insects were permitted to live unmolested, and all animals for that matter, the world would become uninhabitable for man."
"I know," replied Flamby pensively—"and I cannot understand why nature is so cruel."
Paul studied the piquant, sun-kissed face with a new interest. "Flamby," he said earnestly, "one day you will be a great artist."
She looked into his eyes, but only for a moment, turned and fled. There were a hundred things he had wanted to say to her, a hundred questions he had wanted to ask. But off she ran along the margin of the wood, and where a giant elm stood, a forest outpost at a salient, paused and waved her hand to him.
For all the exquisite sympathy of his nature and intuitive understanding of others, there was a certain trait in the character of Paul Mario not infrequently found in men of genius. From vanity he was delightfully free, nor had adulation spoiled him; but his interest in the world was strangely abstract, and his outlook almost cosmic. He dreamed of building a ladder of stars for all earth-bound humanity, and thought not in units, but in multitudes. Picturesque distress excited his emotions keenly, and sometimes formed ineffaceable memories, but memories oddly impersonal, little more than appreciations of sorrow as a factor in that mystic equation to the solving of which he had bent all his intellect.
On the other hand he was fired by a passionate desire to aid; nor when occasion had arisen had he hesitated to sacrifice self for another's good. But such altruism was born of impulse and never considered. The spectacle of the universe absorbed him, and listening for the Pythagorean music of the spheres he sometimes became deaf to the voices of those puny lives about him. His attention being called to them, however, his solicitude was sweet and sincere, but once removed from his purview they were also dismissed from his mind; and because of his irresistible charm there were some who wept to be so soon forgotten. His intellect was patrician—almost deiform in the old Roman sense. Probablyall great masters have been similarly endowed, for if in order that one shall successfully conduct a military campaign he must think in armies and not in squads, so, if another would aspire to guide Thought, presumably must he think in continents. It does not follow that he shall lack genius for love and friendship, but merely that he cannot distract his mind in seeking out individual sorrows. The physician tends the hurts of the body, the priest ministers to the ills of the spirit; Paul Mario yearned to heal the wounds of a stricken world.
But Flamby interested him keenly, and therefore he draped her in a mantle of poesy, obscuring those shades displeasing to his sensibilities; as, an occasional coarseness due to association with her father; and enhancing her charms and accomplishments. Her beauty and spirit delighted the æsthete, and her mystery enthralled the poet. She had feared Sir Jacques. Why? Paul toyed with the question in his own fashion and made of Hatton Towers a feudal keep and of his deceased uncle a baron of unsavoury repute. The maid Flamby, so called because men had likened the glory of her hair to a waving flambeau, he caused to reside in a tiny cottage beneath the very shadow of Sir Jacques' frowning fortress; and the men-at-arms looking down from battlement and bartizan marvelled when the morning wove a halo around the head of the witch's daughter. (In the poem-picture which grew thus in his mind as he swung along towards Hatton, Mrs. Duveen had become even more shrivelled than nature had made her; her eyes had grown brighter and her earrings longer).
Word of the maid's marvellous comeliness reaching Sir Jacques, he won entrance to the cottage crouching against his outer walls, disguised as a woodman; for the mighty weald had reclaimed its own in the period visited by Paul's unfettered spirit and foresters roamed the greenwood. He wooed maid Flamby,employing many an evil wile, but she was obdurate and repulsed him shrewdly. Whereupon he caused Dame Duveen to be seized as a weaver of spells and one who had danced before Asmodeus at the Witches' Sabbath to music of the magic pipe. To serve his end Sir Jacques invoked inhuman papal witch-law; the stake was set, each faggot laid. But by stratagem of a humble cowherd who loved her with a fidelity staunch unto death, Flamby secured the Dame's escape and the two fled together covertly, through the forest and by night....
A few paces beyond the giant elm, Flamby paused, breathless, looking down at the drawing which she held in her hand. Then turning, she retraced her steps until she could peep around the great trunk of the tree. Thus peeping she stood and watched Paul Mario until, coming to the stile at the end of the meadow, he climbed over and was hidden by the high hedgerow.
Flamby looked at the sketch again, seized it as if to tear the board across; then changed her mind, studied the drawing attentively, smiled, and looked straight before her, but not at anything really visible. She was dreaming, as many another had dreamed who had heard Paul Mario's voice and looked into Paul Mario's eyes. From these maiden dreams, which may not be set down because they are formless, like all spiritual things, her mind drifted into a channel of reflection.
The memory of Paul's voice came back again and thrilled her as though he had but just spoken. She grew angry because she had imagined his voice to resemble that of Sir Jacques. Poor little Flamby, the very name of Sir Jacques was sufficient to make her shudder, to cast black shadows upon the sunny fields of her dream-world. She dared not believe that Paul's interest was sincere and disinterested—yet her heart believed it.
Almost the earliest recollection of her young womanhood was of a man's interest in her welfare; that was at the big racing stables in Yorkshire where her father had trained for Lord Loamhurst. Flamby was thirteen, then, and already her beauty, later to develop into that elfin loveliness which had excited the wonder of Don, was unusual. The man in question was his lordship's nephew, and his interest had grown so marked that Michael Duveen had spoken to him, had received an insolent reply and had struck down the noble youth with one blow of his formidable fist. The episode had terminated Duveen's career as a trainer.
Thereafter had begun the nomadic life, with its recurrent phases of brawls, drunken debauches by her father, occasional brief intervals of prosperity and longer ones of abject poverty. Lower Charleswood had seemed as an oasis in the wilderness and the employment offered by Sir Jacques too bountiful to be real. Nevertheless, it was real enough, and all went well for a season. Michael Duveen gave the bottle a go-by, and the first real home that Flamby had known established its altars in Dovelands Cottage. The understanding between father and daughter was complete and was rendered more perfect by the necessity for companionship experienced by both. Poor Mrs. Duveen possessed the personality of a chameleon, readily toning with any background; but intellectually she was never present. Why Michael Duveen had selected such a mate was a mystery which Flamby, who loved her mother the more dearly for her helplessness, could never solve. It was a mystery to which Duveen, in his darker moods, devoted himself cruelly, and many were the nights that Flamby had sobbed herself to sleep, striving to deafen her ears to the hateful insults and merciless taunts which Duveen would hurl at his wife.
Following such an outburst, Michael Duveen wouldexhibit penitence which was almost as shocking as his brutality—but it was always to Flamby that he came for forgiveness, bringing some love-gift which he would proffer shamefacedly, tears trembling in his eyes.
"Ask your mother to come into town with me, Flamby asthore; I've seen a fine coat at Dale's that'll make her heart glad."
It was invariably the same, and never was the olive branch rejected for a moment by his long-suffering wife. Hers was the dog-like fidelity which men of Duveen's pattern have the gift of inspiring in women, and had he been haled to the felon's dock she would gladly and proudly have stood beside her man. So the years stole by, and Flamby crept nearer to womanhood and closer to her father's heart. The drinking-bouts grew less frequent and only once again did Duveen offer violence to his wife. It was on the occasion of a house-party at Hatton Towers, and a racy young French commercial man who was one of Sir Jacques' guests fell to the lure of Flamby's ever increasing charms.
Flamby, who now was wise with a wisdom possessed by few women, and who could confound a gallant with the wit of Propertius, or damn his eyes like any trooper, amused herself with the overdressed youth, and ate many expensive chocolates. Mistaking the situation, and used to the complaisance of the French peasant, M. le Petit-Maitre presented himself at Dovelands Cottage and made certain overtures of a financial nature to Mrs. Duveen. Between his imperfect English, his delicate mode of expressing the indelicate, and his great charm, poor Mrs. Duveen found confusion, brewed tea and reported the conversation to her husband.
Michael Duveen grew black with wrath, and, taking up a heavy dish from the table, he hurled it at the poor, foolish woman. As he did so the door opened and Flamby came in. The dish, crashingagainst the edge of the door, was shattered and a fragment struck Flamby's bare arm, inflicting a deep wound.
Like a cloak discarded, Duveen's wrath fell from him at sight of the blood on that soft round arm. He was a man suddenly sick with remorse; and, to the last, the faint scar which the wound left was as a crucifix before which he abased himself. He did not even thrash the Frenchman, but was content with sending to that astonished gallant an acknowledgment of his offer couched in such pure and scathing French prose that it stung more surely than any lash.
Duveen's was a strange nature, and to Flamby, as her powers of observation grew keener, he presented a study at once fascinating and mournful. He had deeper scholarship than many a man who holds a university chair; he knew the classics as lesser men know their party politics; and the woodlands, fields and brooks, with their countless inhabitants, held no mysteries for him. Yet he was content to be as Flamby had always known him—a manual labourer. The larder of Dovelands Cottage was well stocked, winter and summer alike, and Mrs. Duveen, who accepted what the gods offered unquestioningly, never troubled to inquire how folks so poor as they could procure game and fish at all proper seasons. Fawkes could have enlightened her; but there was no man in Lower Charleswood, or for that matter in the county, of a hardihood to cross Michael Duveen. Furthermore, Sir Jacques, who was a Justice of the Peace, would hear no ill of him. Finally, one bitter winter's morning in the first year of the war, Flamby learned why.
Sir Jacques, for the first time since the Duveens had resided there, crossed the threshold of Dovelands Cottage, bringing a letter which he had received from Duveen, then newly arrived in Flanders. Thatmemorable visit was the first of many; and the diabolical patience with which Sir Jacques for over two years had awaited his opportunity was further exemplified in his conduct of the affair now that he was truly entered upon it.
At his first word of greeting, Flamby read his secret and her soul rose up in arms; by the time that he took his departure she doubted her woman's intuition—and wondered. Such was the magic of the silver voice, the Christian humility expressed in the bearing of that black figure. And when he had come again, and yet again, the first, true image began to fade more and more, and she listened with less and less misgiving to the words of encouragement which he bestowed upon her drawings. Her father, although himself no draughtsman, understood art as he understood all that was beautiful, and had taught her the laws of perspective and the tricks of the pencil as he had taught her the ways of the woodland and of the creatures who dwelt there. On her sixteenth birthday he had presented Flamby with a complete water-colour outfit, together with a number of text books; and many a golden morning had they spent together in solving the problem of why, although all shadows look black, some are really purple and others blue, together with kindred mysteries of the painter's craft.
Now came Sir Jacques, a trained critic and collector, with helpful suggestion and inspiring praise. He made no mistakes; his suggestions held no covert significance, his praise was never extravagant. Miss Kingsbury, of High Fielding, the local Lady Butler, hearing of Sir Jacques' protégée, as she heard of everything else in the county, sent a message of honeyed sweetness to Flamby, desiring her to call and bring some of her work. Flamby had never forgotten the visit. The honey of Miss Kingsbury was honey of Trebizond, and it poisoned poor Flamby's happiness for many a day. Strange is theparadox of a woman's heart; for Flamby, well knowing that this spinster's venom was a product of jealousy—jealousy of talent, super-jealousy of youth and beauty—yet took hurt from it and hugged the sting of cruel criticism to her breast. In this, for all her engrafted wisdom, she showed herself a true limb of Eve.
It was Sir Jacques who restored her confidence, and Sir Jacques who seized the opportunity to invite her to study the works in his collection. The original image of the master of Hatton Towers (which had possessed pointed ears and the hoofs of a goat) was faded by this time, and was supplanted by that of a courtly and benevolent patron. Flamby went to Hatton Towers, and meeting with nothing but kindness at the hands of Sir Jacques, went again many times. With the art of a Duc de Richelieu, Sir Jacques directed her studies, familiarising her mind with that "broad" outlook which is essential to the artist. It was done so cleverly that even Flamby the wise failed to recognise whither the rose-strewn path was tending, and might have pursued it to the end but that Fate—or Pan, god of the greenwood, jealous of trespass—intervened and unmasked the presumptuous Silenus.
Like one of those nymphs to whom Don had detected her resemblance, Flamby, throughout the genial months, often betook herself at early morning to a certain woodland stream far from all beaten tracks and inaccessible from the highroads. Narcissi carpeted the sloping banks above a pool like a crystal mirror, into which the tiny rivulet purled through forest ways sacred to the wild things and rarely profaned by foot of man. In their shy, brief hour, violets lent their sweetness to the spot, and at dusk came quiet creatures afoot and awing timidly to slake their thirst at the magic fountain. A verdant awning, fanlike, swayed above, and perhaps in some forgotten day an altar had stood in theshady groves which protected all approaches to this pool whereby Keats might have dreamed his wonder dreams.
One morning as she stepped out like Psyche from her bath, and stood for a moment where an ardent sunbeam entering slyly through the bower above wrapped her in golden embrace, upon that sylvan mystery intruded a sound which blanched the roses on Flamby's cheeks and seemed to turn her body to marble. It was a very slight sound, no more than a metallic click; but like the glance of Gyges it stilled her heart's beating. She had never known such helpless fear; for, without daring, or having power, to turn her head, she divined who hid beside the pool and the purpose of his coming.
In great leaps her heart resumed its throbbing, and Flamby, trembling and breathless, sprang into the undergrowth upon that side of the pool farthest from the high bank which masked the intruder and there crouched pitifully, watching. Another than she might have failed to discern him, so craftily did he crawl away; but Flamby, daughter of the woods, saw the wriggling figure, and knew it; moreover she knew, by the familiarity with the pathway which he displayed, that this was not the first time Sir Jacques had visited the spot.
She returned to the cottage, her courage restored and a cold anger in her breast, to find her mother alternately laughing and sobbing—because Michael Duveen would be home that day on leave. Whatever plan Flamby had cherished she now resigned, recognising that only by silence could she avert a tragedy. But from that morning the invisible guardians of the pool lamented a nymph who came no more, and the old joy of the woods was gone for Flamby. At one moment she felt that she could never again suffer the presence of Sir Jacques, at another that if she must remain in Lower Charleswood and not die of shame she must pretend that shedid not suspect him to have been the intruder. The subterfuge, ostrich-like, woman-like, finally was adopted; and meeting Sir Jacques in Babylon Lane she managed to greet him civilly, employing her mother's poor state of health as an excuse for discontinuing her visits to Hatton Towers. But if Flamby's passionate spirit had had its way Sir Jacques that day must have met the fate of Candaules at the hands of this modern Nyssia.
Standing there beneath the giant elm, Flamby lived again through the sunshine and the shadows of the past, her thoughts dwelling bitterly upon the memory of Sir Jacques and of his tireless persecution, which, from the time that she ceased her visits to Hatton Towers, became more overt and pursued her almost to the day of Sir Jacques' death. Finally, and inevitably, she thought again of Paul Mario, and still thinking of him returned to Dovelands Cottage.
Mrs. Duveen had gone into the town, an expedition which would detain her for the greater part of the day, since she walked slowly, and the road was hilly. Therefore Flamby proceeded to set the house in order. A little red-breasted robin hopped in at the porch, peeped around the sitting-room and up at the gleaming helmet above the mantelpiece, then finding the apartment empty hopped on into the kitchen to watch Flamby at work. Sunlight gladdened the garden and the orchard where blackbirds were pecking the cherries; a skylark rose from the meadow opposite the cottage, singing rapturously of love and youth—so that presently, the while she worked, Flamby began to sing, too.
It was late on the following afternoon when the solicitors left Hatton Towers, and Paul, who detested business of every description, heaved a great sigh of relief as he watched the dust resettle in the fir avenuebehind the car which was to bear the two legal gentlemen to the station. The adviser of the late Sir Jacques had urged him to keep up Hatton Towers, "in the interests of the county," even if he lived there only occasionally, and his own solicitor seemed to agree with his colleague that it would be a pity to sell so fine a property. A yearning for solitude and meditation was strong upon Paul, and taking a stout ash stick he went out on to the terrace at the rear of the house, crossed the lawns and made his way down to the winding path which always, now, he associated with Don.
An hour's walk brought him to the brink of the hilly crescent which holds the heathland of the county as a giant claw grasping a platter. Below him lay mile upon mile of England, the emerald meadows sharply outlined by their hedges, cornfields pale patches of gold, roofs of farms deep specks of grateful red, and the roads blending the whole into an intricate pattern like that of some vast Persian carpet. Upon its lighter tones the heat created a mirage of running water.
Human activity was represented by faint wisps of smoke, and by specks which one might only determine to be men by dint of close scrutiny, until a train crept out from the tunnel away to the left and crossed the prospect like a hurried caterpillar, leaving little balls of woolly vapour to float away idly upon the tideless air. A tang of the heather rose even to that height, and mingled its scent with the perfume of the many wildflowers cloaking the hillside. The humming of bees and odd chirping of grasshoppers spoke the language of summer, and remotely below childish voices and laughter joined in the gladness.
Paul began to descend the slope. In the joyous beauty of English summer there was something at variance with his theme, and he found himself farther than ever from the task which he had taken up. Almost he was tempted to revise his estimateof the worth of things worldly and of the value of traditional beliefs. His imagination lingered delightedly over a tiny hamlet nestling about a Norman church as the brood about the mother. He pictured the knight of the Cross kneeling before the hidden altar and laying his sword and his life at the feet of the Man of Sorrows. He saw, as it is granted to poets to see, the plumed Cavalier leading his lady to that same altar and saw the priest bless them in the holy name. Almost he could read the inscriptions upon the tombs which told of generations of country gentlemen who had worshipped at the simple shrine, unquestioning, undoubting. The Roundheads dour, with their pitiless creed, had failed to destroy its fragrant sanctity, which lingered in those foot-worn aisles like the memory of incense, the echo of a monkish prayer. Was it all a great delusion?—or were our fathers wise in their simplicity? In the past men had died for every faith; to-day it would be hard to find men having any faith to die for.
A shadow crept over his mind, and although in his preoccupation he failed to observe the fact, it corresponded with the coming of an ominous cloud over the hill crest above and behind him; for we are but human lutes upon which nature plays at will, now softly and gently, now sounding chords of gladness, now touching to deep melancholy and the grandeur of despair. The promise of those days of tropical heat was about to be fulfilled, and already, three miles behind, black banks lowered over the countryside turning its smile to a frown.
But even the remote booming of thunder failed to awaken Paul to the reality of the brewing tempest; it reached him in his daydream, but as a message not of the wrath of heaven but of the wrath of man. He mistook it for the ceaseless voice of the guns and weaved it into his brooding as Wagner wove the Valkyrie theme into the score of theNibelüngen. A faint breeze whispered through the tree-tops.
Paul came to the foot of the slope; and below him ran a continuous gully roofed over by stunted trees and conforming to the hillside as a brim conforms to a hat. Entrance might be made through any one of several gaps, and Paul, scrambling down, found himself in a dark tunnel, its brown, leafy floor patched at irregular intervals by grey light reflected from the creeping thunder cloud. Right and left it went, this silent gallery, and although he was unaware of the fact, it joined other like galleries which encircled the slopes and met and intercrossed so that one might wander for hours along these mystic aisles of the hills. Below again, beyond a sloping woody thicket, lay the meadows and farmlands sweeping smoothly onward to the heath. Now, the shadow of the storm had draped hillside and valley and was touching the bloom of the heather with the edge of its sable robe. Bird voices were still and all life was hushed before the coming of the tempest. The ghostly trees bending low above the aisles whispered fearfully one to another, and about Paul was a darkness like that of a crypt. The earth and her children shrank as from an impending blow.
Several large raindrops, heralds of the torrent to come, fell through an opening above and pattered upon the dusty carpet at Paul's feet. He glanced upward at the darkening pall which seemed to rest upon the hill top. Its oppressive blackness suggested weight, so that one trembled for the stability of the chalky scarp which must uphold that ebon canopy. Paul moved further along the aisle to a spot where the foliage was unbroken, as rain began a rapid tattoo upon the leafy roof. In the following instant the hillside was illuminated wildly as lightning wrote its message in angular characters across the curtain of darkness. Life cowered affrighted to the bosom of mother earth. The raindrops ceased, awaiting the crashing word of the thunder. It came, deafening, awesome; buffeting this bluff and thatrebounding, rebounding again and muttering down the valleys and the aisles of the hills. Then burst the rain, torrential, tropical.
In the emotional vision of Paul, horror rode the tempest. Man, discarding the emblem of the Cross and prostrating himself at the feet of strange idols, now was chained to a planet deserted by God, doomed and left to the mercy of monstrous earth spirits revitalised by homage and made potent again. To this gruesome fancy he resigned himself with the spiritual abandonment whereof he was capable and his capacity for which had made his work what it was: he grovelled before a nameless power which dwelt in primeval caverns of the underworld and spoke with the voice of the storm. Fear touched him, because the Divine face was turned from man. Awe wrapped him about, because the Word had failed to redeem, and a new message must be given. The Prince of Darkness became a real figure—and seemed to be very near him. As if the lightning had been a holy fire, with it enlightenment burst upon his mind, and he saw himself no longer unwanted, flotsam, a thing supine, but a buckler—a shield—one chosen and elected to a mighty task. The words of Don had first raised the curtain; now it was rent as the Temple veil and his eyes were dazzled. The Gate of Tophet had opened and Something had crept out upon the world; it was for him to cast It back into the Pit!
He seemed to grow physically cold. Again the lightning blazed; and Paul, starting as one rudely awakened from sleep, saw that a man was standing close beside him.
That inclination to the marvellous which belongs to creative temperaments led Paul to invest the stranger with the attributes of an apparition; he seemed to be a materialisation of the darkness which cloakedthe modern world, a menace and a challenge; to stand for Lucifer. He was a man above average height, having a vast depth of chest and weight of limb, a strong, massive man. His suit of blue serge displayed his statuesque proportions to full advantage, and Paul's all-embracing glance did not fail to take note of the delicacy of hand and foot which redeemed the great frame from any suggestion of grossness. The stranger's head was bare, for he held in one gloved hand a hard black felt hat, flat topped and narrow of brim; and his small head, with close tight curls, set upon a neck like that of a gladiator, was markedly Neronian. The hue of this virile curling hair was a most uncompromising and fiery red, and equally red were the short moustaches and close-cut curling beard. It was a remarkable head, the head of a pagan emperor, rendered even more statuesque by an unusual ivory pallid skin and by large and somewhat prominent eyes of limpid golden brown.
He was staring at Paul, as Paul was staring at him; and, out of the darkness which instantly fell again, as the booming of thunder went rolling, demoniac, along the valleys, he spoke. His voice was rich and cultured.
"I fear I startled you—and you certainly startled me. I did not observe your approach."
Paul laughed. "Nor I yours. But I believe I was preoccupied, for I failed to notice the gathering storm until the rain attracted my attention."
"I can guess at the nature of your preoccupation," continued the deep voice. "Unless the illustrated press has deceived me I have the pleasure of sharing this shelter with Mr. Paul Mario."
"That is my name. May I ask if you are one of my neighbours?"
"I am called Jules Thessaly, and I have made Babylon Hall locally unpopular for some time past."
"A stormy meeting but none the less a welcomeone, Mr. Thessaly. We have several mutual friends. Captain Courtier spoke of you to me only yesterday."
"Captain 'Don' Courtier?—a clever artist and I believe a useful officer. I should have appreciated an opportunity of meeting him again. He has leave?"
"A few days; but the usual demands upon his time, poor fellow. You were also, I think, a friend of my late uncle?"
"I was acquainted with Sir Jacques—yes. Mr. Mario, our present meeting is more gratifying to me than I can hope to express. I may say that I had designed to call upon you had Fate not taken a hand."
"Your visit would have been very welcome. I have been so busy with unavoidable affairs since my arrival, that I fear I have quite neglected social duties. With one or two exceptions I know nothing of my neighbours. May I count upon the pleasure of your company at dinner to-night?"
"You forestall me, Mr. Mario. I was about to ask you to come over to me. Apart from my natural interest in yourself there is a matter which I particularly desire to discuss with you. I trust you will excuse my apparent rudeness, but indeed I know you will. Social dogma is the armour of the parvenu."
Paul laughed again; Jules Thessaly was a welcome stimulant. "Clearly we have many things in common," he said. "I shall be more than glad to join you. Fascinating rumours are afloat concerning your collection of Eastern wonders. May I hope that it is housed at Babylon Hall?"
A blaze of lightning came, illuminating the two figures, showing Paul Mario's fine face turned expectantly toward Jules Thessaly, and alive with an eagerness almost boyish; showing the Neronian countenance of the other, softened by a smile which revealed small, strong teeth beneath the crisp red moustache.
"Rumour is a lying jade, Mr. Mario. My collection I admit is a good one, but there are at least three others in Europe and two in America which are better. It is unique in one particular: the section containing religious objects, totems, and gods of all ages is more complete than that of any other collector, or of any museum. The bulk of it unfortunately is at my house in London."
"In these days of air raids would it not be safer at Babylon Hall?"
"If all the gods to whom man has offered prayer cannot protect their images in Park Lane, they cannot protect them in Lower Charleswood."
"Diogenes speaks from his tub!"
"The truth is often cynical."
"I fear that life has not a single illusion left for you."
"All men work like rebels, Mr. Mario, to win freedom from youth's sweetest mistress—illusion, and spend the twilight of old age groping for what they have lost."
"Yours must be a barren outlook. If I thought all the world a mere dream of some wanton god I should lay down my pen—for I should have nothing to say."
"There can be nothing really new to say until man climbs up to another planet or until creatures of another planet climb down to this one."
"A doctrine of despair."
"Not at all—unless for the materialist."
"How is that?"
"Would you trammel the soul with the shackles of the flesh?"
"You mean that literature and art persistently look in the gutter for subjects when they would be more worthily employed in questioning the stars?"
"I mean that if literature and art were not trades, inspiration might have a chance."
"And you regard inspiration as a spiritual journey?"
"Certainly; and imagination as the memory of the soul. There is no such thing as intellectual creation. We are instruments only. John Newman did not inventThe Dream of Gerontius; he remembered it. There is a strain in the music ofSamson et Dalilawhich was sung in the temples of Nineveh, where it must have been heard by Saint Saëns. The wooing of Tarone in yourFrancesca of the Liliesis a faithful account of a scene enacted in Florence during the feuds between the Amidei and Buondelmonti."
Paul Mario fell silent. The storm was passing, and now raged over the remote hills which looked out upon the sea; but the darkness prevailed, and he became aware of a vague disquiet which stirred within him. The conversation of Jules Thessaly impressed him strangely, not because of its hard brilliance, but because of a masterful certainty in that quiet voice. His words concerning Newman and Saint Saëns were spoken as though he meant them to be accepted literally—and there was something terrifying in the idea. For he averred that which many have suspected, but which few have claimed to know. Presently Paul found speech again.
"You believe, as I believe, that our 'instincts' are the lessons of earlier incarnations. Perhaps you are a disciple of Pythagoras, Mr. Thessaly?"
"I am, in one sense. I am a disciple of his Master."
"Do you refer to Orpheus?"
Jules Thessaly hesitated, but the pause was scarcely perceptible. "The Orphic traditions certainly embody at least one cosmic truth."
"And it is?"
"That for every man there is a perfect maid, and for every maid a perfect lover; that their union will be eternal, but that until it is accomplished each must remain incomplete—a work in two volumes of which one is missing."
"Would you then revive the Eleusinian Mysteries?"
"Why not?"
"You would scandalise society!"
"In other words become the pet of the petty. You care as little for the institution called 'Society' as I do, Mr. Mario. Moreover, there is no Society nowadays. Murray's has taken its place."
Again the lightning flashed—less vividly; and in the glimpse thus afforded him of the speaker's face Paul derived the impression that Jules Thessaly was laughing, but of this he could not be sure. The thunder when it came spoke with a muted voice, for the storm was speeding coastward, and a light cool breeze stole through the aisles of the hills. A grey eerie light began to spread ghostly along the gallery. The ebon cloud was breaking, but torrents of rain continued to descend. Paul's keen intuition told him that Jules Thessaly was indisposed to pursue the Orphic discussion further at the moment, but he realised that the owner of Babylon Hall was no ordinary man, but one who had delved deeply into lore which had engaged much of his own attention. He found himself looking forward with impatient curiosity to his visit to the home of this new acquaintance.
"You are comparatively a new-comer in Lower Charleswood, Mr. Thessaly?"
"Yes, Babylon Hall had been vacant for some years, having formerly belonged to a certain Major Rushin, a retired Anglo-Indian of sixty-five, with a nutmeg liver and a penchant for juvenile society. He was drowned one morning in the lake which lies beyond the house, whilst bathing with three young ladies who were guests of his at the time. He was one of the pillars of the late Sir Jacques' church."
Paul laughed outright. "Do you quarrel with the whole of humanity, Mr. Thessaly?"
"Not at all. I love every creature that has life;I share the very tremors of the sheep driven to the slaughter-house. Human sorrow affects me even more profoundly."
"But you are hotly intolerant of human hypocrisy? So am I."
"Yet it may be one of the principles of nature. Witness the leaf insect."
"You don't believe it to be, though. You probably regard it as a hateful disguise imposed upon man by a moral code contrary to that of nature."
"Mr. Mario, your words contain the germ of a law upon the acceptance of which I believe humanity's spiritual survival to depend."
The elfin light was growing brighter by perceptible degrees; and Paul, looking toward the speaker, now was able to discern him as a shadowy bulk, without definite outline, but impressive, pagan—as a granite god, or one of those broken pillars of Medînet Habû. Either because Jules Thessaly had moved nearer to him, or by reason of an optical delusion produced by the half-light, the space between them seemed to have grown less—not only physically, but spiritually. The curves of their astral selves were sweeping inward to a point of contact which Paul knew subconsciously would be electric, odic, illuminating. He felt the driving force of Jules Thessaly's personality, and it struck from the lyre of his genius strange harmonious chords. He knew, as some of the ancients knew, that the very insect we crush beneath our feet is crushed not by accident, but in accordance with a design vast beyond human conception; and he wondered what part in his life this strange, powerful man was cast to play. His thoughts found expression.
"There is no such thing as chance," he said dreamily.
"No," answered Jules Thessaly. "There is no such thing in the universe. Our meeting to-day was an appointment."
Jules Thessaly, like the Indian rope trick, was a kind of phenomenon twice removed. In every capital throughout the world one heard of him; of his wealth, of his art collection, of his financial interests; but one rarely met a man who actually claimed to know him although every second man one met knew another who did.
When he acquired Babylon Hall, for so long vacant, the county was stirred from end to end. Lower Charleswood, which lacked a celebrity, felt assured at last of its place in history and ceased to cast envious glances toward that coy hamlet of the hills which enshrined the cottage of George Meredith. The Vicar of High Fielding, who contributed occasional "Turn-overs" to theGlobe, investigated the published genealogy of the great man, and caused it to be known that Jules Thessaly was a French Levantine who had studied at Oxford and Göttingen, a millionaire, an accomplished musician, and an amateur of art who had exhibited a picture in the Paris Salon. He was a member (according to this authority) of five clubs, had other country seats, as well as a house in Park Lane, was director of numberless companies—and was unmarried. Miss Kingsbury called upon the reverend gentleman for further particulars.
But when at last Jules Thessaly actually arrived, Lower Charleswood experienced a grievous disappointment. He brought no "introductions," he paid no courtesy calls, and those who sought him at Babylon Hall almost invariably were informed that Mr. Thessaly was abroad. When he entertained, his guests arrived from whence no one knew, but usually in opulent cars, and thereby departed no one knew whither. Lower Charleswood was patient, for great men are eccentric; but in time Lower Charleswood to its intense astonishment and mortification realisedthat Jules Thessaly was not interested in "the county." Lower Charleswood beheld itself snubbed, but preferred to hide its wounds from the world, and therefore sent Jules Thessaly ceremoniously to Coventry. He was voted a vulgar plutocrat and utterly impossible. When it leaked out that Lady James knew him well and that Sir Jacques frequently dined at Babylon Hall, Miss Kingsbury said, "LadyJames? Well, of course"—And Sir Jacques, as the only eligible substitute for a real notability, was permitted a certain license. He was "peculiar," no doubt, but he had built a charming church and was a bachelor.
Urged to the task by Miss Kingsbury, the Vicar of High Fielding made further and exhaustive enquiries. He discovered that it was impossible to trace Jules Thessaly's year at Oxford for the same reason that it was impossible to trace anything else in his history. One man knew another man whose brother was at Oriel with Thessaly; a second man had heard of a third man who distinctly remembered him at Magdalen. The vicar's cousin, a stockbroker, said that Thessaly's father had been a Greek adventurer. Miss Kingsbury's agent—who sometimes succeeded in disposing of her pictures—assured Miss Kingsbury that Jules Thessaly was a Jew. When war began all the county whispered that Jules Thessaly was a big shareholder in Krupps.
The constitution of his establishment at Babylon Hall was attacked in the local press. Babylon Hall was full of dangerous aliens. Strains of music had been heard proceeding from the Hall at most unseemly hours—by the village innkeeper. Orgies were held there. But Jules Thessaly remained silent, unmoved, invisible. So that at the time of Sir Jacques' death Lower Charleswood had passed through three phases: pique, wonder, apathy. One or two folks had met Thessaly—but always by accident; had acclaimed him a wonderful man possessingthe reserve of true genius. Finally, Miss Kingsbury had met him—in Lower Charleswood post office, and by noon of the following day, all "the county" knew that he was "a charming recluse with the soul of a poet."
And this was the man with whom Paul Mario paced along the green aisles toward the point where they crossed that Pilgrim's Way which linking town to village, village to hamlet, lies upon the hills like a rosary on a nun's bosom.
"My car is waiting below," said Jules Thessaly. "You will probably prefer to drive back?"
Paul assented. He was breathing deeply of the sweet humid air, pungent with a thousand fresh scents and the intoxicating fragrance of rain-kissed loam. The sound of greedily drinking plant things arose from the hillside. Beyond the purple heath hung the midnight curtain, embroidered fitfully with silver, and he removed his hat that the cool breeze might touch him. Hatless he was magnificently picturesque; Antinöus spared to maturity; the nature-worshipper within him stirred to quickness by magic perfumes arising from the breast of Mother Earth, he resembled that wonderful statue of the Bithynian which shows him as Dionysus the Twice-born, son of the raincloud, lover of the verdure.
"The world," said Jules Thessaly, "is waiting for you."
Through his abstract Orphic dreams the words reached Paul's mind; and they were oddly familiar. Who had spoken them—now, and once before? He awoke, and remembered. Don had said that the world awaited him. He turned and glanced at his companion. Jules Thessaly was regarding him fixedly.
"You spoke," said Paul. "Pardon my abstraction; but what did you say?"
"I said that when Nature endows a man at once with the genius of Dante and the appearance of aGreek god, that man holds the world in the hollow of his hand. He was born with a purpose. Hedaresnot seek to evade his destiny."
Paul met the glance of the golden, prominent eyes, and it held him enthralled. "I do not seek to evade it," he replied slowly. "I accept it; but I am afraid."
A low-pitched powerful French car stood at the foot of the slope, the chauffeur in his seat and a footman standing beside the open door. Poised ethereally betwixt solid earth and some sphere remote peopled by Greek nature-myths, Paul found himself beside Jules Thessaly, and being borne swiftly, strongly upward to the hills. At the gap beyond the toll-gate, where one may view a prospect unique in all the county, the car stopped, perhaps in obedience to a summons of the master. From the open window Paul looked out over the valley; and a rainbow linked the crescent of the hills, point to point. Backed by the murk of the moving storm, Babylon Hall looked like a giant sarcophagus behind which Titan hands had draped a sable curtain; and it seemed to Paul as he looked, wondering, that the arc of heaven-born colours which no brush may reproduce, rested upon the hidden roof of Dovelands Cottage, crossed Babylon Hall, and swept down to the rain mist of the horizon, down to the distant sea. The palette of the gods began to fade from view, and Paul turned impulsively to his companion.
Jules Thessaly, his elbows resting upon his knees, was staring down, apparently at the flat-crowned black hat which he held in his hands. The car had resumed its smooth progress.
"An omen!" cried Paul. "The world isnotpast redemption!"
He spoke wildly, emotionally, not choosing his words, scarce knowing what he desired to convey. Jules Thessaly glanced aside at him.
"The worlddesiresredemption," he said. "It is for you to gratify the world's desire."
The mystery which steals out from the woods, creeps down from the hills, and lurks beneath the shadowed hedgerows at beckoning of dusk, was abroad and potent when Paul Mario that evening walked up Babylon Lane towards the Hall. Elemental forces, which the ancients clothed in semi-human shape and named and feared, moved beside him and breathed strange counsels in his ear. The storm had released uneasy spirits from their bondage in crannies of primeval hills, and it was on such a night as this that many a child has glimpsed the Folk tripping lightly around those fairy-rings which science would have us believe due to other causes than the mystic dance. The Pipes of Pan were calling, and up in the aisles of the hills moonbeams slyly sought and found bare-limbed dryads darting from the eagerness of wooing fauns. Progress has banished those Pandean spirits from the woodlands, but the moon is the mother of magic, and her children steal out, furtive, half fearful, when she raises her lamp as of old.
Between prescience and imagination the borderline is ill defined. Although Dovelands Cottage was seemingly sleeping, or deserted, Paul pictured Flamby standing by the stile beyond, where the orchard path began. And when, nearing it, he paused, looking to the right, there was she, a figure belonging to the elfin world of which he dreamed, and seemingly on the point of climbing over the stile.
"Flamby!" he cried.
She turned, descended, and came forward slowly, a wild-haired nymph; and that odd shyness which sat so ill upon her was manifest in her manner. She had expected Paul; had really been waiting for him—and she felt that he knew it.
"Were you dreaming in the twilight?" he asked, merrily.
Flamby stood a little apart from him, staring down at the dusty road. "No," she replied. "I was scared, so I came out."
"Scared? Of what?"
"Don't know. Just scared. Mother is over at Mrs. Fawkes', and it's not likely I was going with her."
"Why not?"
"She hates me," explained Flamby, with brief simplicity.
"But why should she hate you?"
"Don't know," said Flamby, busily burrowing a little hole in the road with the heel of her left shoe. Her shoes were new ones, and boasted impudently high heels. She had been proud of her arched instep when first she had worn the new shoes, and had been anxious that Paul, who hitherto had seen her shod in the clumsy boots which she called her "workers," should learn that she possessed small feet and slim ankles. Now, perceiving his glance to be attracted to the burrowing operation, she flushed from brow to neck, convinced that he believed her to have worn the shoes for his particular admiration—which was true; and to have deliberately drawn his attention to them—which was untrue. She had been longing to hear Paul's voice again, and now that he stood before her she told herself that he must be comparing her with the hundreds of really pretty girls known to him, and thinking what an odd-looking, ignorant little fool she was. Gladly would Flamby have fled, but she lacked the courage to do so.
"So you were afraid," said Paul, smiling; "but not, on this occasion, of my late uncle, I hope?"
Flamby had half expected the question, but nevertheless it startled her. A Latin tag entered her mind immediately. "O," she began—and herstrange shyness overwhelming her anew, said no more.
Paul assumed that he had misunderstood her. "Pardon me," he prompted, "but I'm afraid I failed to catch what you said."
"I said 'no,'" declared Flamby untruthfully, and silently blessed the dusk which veiled her flaming cheeks. Paul Mario abashed her. She delighted to be with him, and, with him, longed to run away. She had been conscious of her imperfections from the very moment that she had seen him in Bluebell Hollow, had hesitated to speak, doubting her command of English, had ceased to joy in her beauty, and had wondered if she appeared to Paul as a weird little gnome. Now, she was resolved never to see him again—to hide away from him, to forget him—or to try.
"You are a true artist, Flamby," he said; "a creature of moods. Perhaps to-night the fairy gates have opened for you as they have opened for me. Titania has summoned you out into the woods, and you are half afraid. But the artist lives very near to Nature, and has nothing to fear from her. Surely you love these nights of the early moon?"
And as he spoke Flamby's resolution became as naught, and she knew that to hear him and to share his dreams was worth any sacrifice of self-esteem. Never since her father's death had she had a confidant to whom she might speak of her imaginings, from whom she might hope for sympathy and understanding. She forgot her shyness, forgot her new shoes.
"I have always loved the moon," she confessed. "Perhaps I thought of her as Isis once long ago."
Now it was Paul who hesitated and wondered, his respect for Flamby and for the complex personality who had tutored her growing apace.
"But in London they must hate the moon," sheadded, and the tone betokened one of her swift changes of mood.
"Yes," said Paul, raising his eyes, "the old goddess of the Nile seems to have transferred her allegiance to the Rhine." He glanced at the luminous disc of his watch. "I fear I am late. I shall call upon your mother to-morrow, if I may, and see if we can arrange something definite about your studies."
"Oh!" cried Flamby—"what time will you come?"
"May I come in the morning?"
"Of course."
"In the morning, then, about eleven o'clock. I must hurry, or Mr. Thessaly will be waiting. What do you think of your new and wonderful neighbour?"
"I have heard that he is a clever man and very rich; but I have never seen him."
"Never seen him? And Babylon Hall is only a few hundred yards away."
"I know. But I have never seen Mr. Thessaly."
"How very queer," said Paul. "Well, good night, Flamby."
He took off his soft grey hat and extended his hand. All Flamby's shyness descended upon her like the golden shower on Danae, and barely touching the outstretched hand she whispered, "Good night, Mr. Mario," turned and very resolutely walked away, never once looking back.
At the gate of the cottage she began to limp, and upon the instant of entering the sitting-room, where Mrs. Duveen, returned from her visit, was lighting a large brass table lamp, Flamby dropped cross-legged upon the floor and tenderly removed her left shoe. Having got it free of her foot, she hurled it violently into the kitchen.
"Hell!" she said, succinctly.
"Flamby!" cried her mother, in a tone of mild reproval. "How can you swear like that!"
Flamby began to remove her stocking. "You'dswear if you had a damn great nail sticking in your heel!" she retorted.
Paul arrived at Babylon Hall exactly eight minutes late for his appointment. In the wonderful dusk unknown to the tropics, when sun contests with moon, disputing the reign of night, he walked up the long avenue past the silent lodge, and was shown into a small room adjoining the entrance hall. Of the latter he derived no very definite impression, except that it was queerly furnished. Wherein this queerness was manifested he found himself unable to decide on subsequent reflection. But the ante-room was markedly Eastern, having Arabesque mosaics, rugs and low tables of the Orient, and being lighted by a brass mosque-lamp. The footman who had opened the door for him was a foreigner of some kind, apparently a Greek.
He wondered at his reception; for the servant merely bowed and departed, without relieving him of hat and coat. Indeterminate, he stood, vaguely conscious of misgiving and questioning the stillness of the great house. But almost immediately a young man entered whose face expressed the utmost concern. He was clean-shaven, except for those frustrated whiskers once sacred to stage butlers, but latterly adopted as the sigil of the New Bohemia. He had pleasing dark brown hair, and if nature had not determined otherwise, might have been counted a handsome brunette. His morning-dress was worthy of Vesta Tilley's tailor. Paul detected the secretary even before the new arrival proclaimed his office.
"You have missed Mr. Thessaly by less than three minutes," he said, glancing at his watch. "I am his secretary, and upon me devolves the very delicate task of explaining his departure. In theabsence of a hostess—this is a bachelor establishment—the position is peculiarly unfortunate—"
"Pray say no more, Mr.——"
"My name is Caspar."
"I beg you to offer no apologies, Mr. Caspar. Believe me, I quite understand and sympathise. Mr. Thessaly has been called away at the last moment by affairs of urgent importance."
"Exactly. I am indebted to you, Mr. Mario. The news—of a distressing nature—only reached us over the telephone five minutes ago. A groom was despatched immediately to Hatton Towers, but he seems to have missed you."
"Nothing of a family nature, I trust."
"Not exactly, Mr. Mario; but a matter of such urgency that there was no time for hesitation. Mr. Thessaly is already upon his way to London. He will write you a full explanation, and for that purpose took writing materials in the car. His letter should reach you by the first post in the morning. You will readily understand that the hospitality of Babylon Hall——"
Paul interrupted him. "My dear Mr. Caspar, I could not think of intruding at a time of such distress and uncertainty. I can return to Hatton Towers in less than twenty minutes and the larder is quite capable of satisfying my modest requirements. Please say no more. Directly you are able to communicate with him express to Mr. Thessaly my sincere condolence."
"A car is at your service, Mr. Mario."
"I appreciate the kindness fully, but I should much prefer to walk. Please banish from your mind any idea that you have inconvenienced me. Good night, Mr. Caspar."
The several extraordinary features of the incident he did not come to consider until later, but as he walked contemplative along Babylon Lane he detected sounds of distant gunfire, distinct from themore remote rumbling which was the voice of the battle front. He stood still—listening. An air raid on London was in progress.
"Thank God that Yvonne is out of it," he said earnestly—"and may He be with every poor soul to-night who needs Him."
Jules Thessaly and Babylon Hall were banished from his mind, although the raid on London might very well prove to be the explanation of Thessaly's sudden departure. From the stricken area his imagination recoiled, and in spirit he stood in a quaintly rambling village street of Devon before a rose-smothered cottage, looking up to an open casement window. It was there that Yvonne was, perhaps already sleeping—Yvonne, his wife. And all the old fear visited him as he contemplated their happiness, their immunity from the horrors, the sacrifices of an anguished world. Why was he spared when others, seemingly more worthy, suffered? True, he had suffered in spirit, which is the keenest torture of all; but he had emerged to a greater happiness, to a reunion with Yvonne which had been like a second and sweeter honeymoon. It could only be that he was spared for a great purpose, that he might perform a giant task. He was permitted, untrammelled, to view the conflict, the sorrow and the agony of mankind from an Olympic height, serene and personally untouched, only in order that he might heal the wounds laid bare before him. "The world is waiting for you," Don had said. Paul silently prayed that the world might not wait in vain.
"Master of Destiny, inscrutable God, grant me light that I may see to perform the duty laid upon me. Use me, mould me, make of me an instrument. Millions have offered all and lost all. Guide my steps. If death lies upon the path I will not shrink, but suffer me to be of some little use to thy scarred and bleeding world. Amen."