Six months stole almost unobserved into a dim land of memories. The war, which ate up all things, did not spare the almanack; and what should appear to later generations as the most stirring period in the world's history, appeared to many of those who lived through it in London as a dreary blank in their lives, a hiatus, an interval of waiting—a time to be speedily forgotten when its dull aches were no more and absent dear ones again worked side by side for simple ends, and the sweeter triumphs of peace. Some there were whose sorrows drove them like Sarak in quest of the Waters of Oblivion, but, to all, those days were poppy days, unreal and meaningless; transitionary, as a bridge between unlike states.
Flamby made progress at Guilder's, growing more and more familiar with the technique of her art, but, under the careful guidance of Hammett, never losing that characteristic nonchalance of style which was the outstanding charm of her work. So many professors seem to regard their pupils as misshapen creatures, who must be reduced to a uniform pattern, but Hammett was not as one of these. He encouraged originality whilst he suppressed eccentricity, and although, recognising the budding genius in the girl's work, he lavished particular care upon her artistic development, he never tried to make love to her, which proved that he was not only a good painter, but also a soundphilosopher. He took her to lunch once or twice to Regali's, which created a coterie of female enemies, but Flamby regarded all women in a more charitable manner since her meeting with Mrs. Chumley, and some of her enemies afterwards became her friends, for she bore them no malice, but sought them out and did her utmost to understand them. Her father had taught her to despise the pettiness of women, but in Mrs. Chumley's sweet sympathy she had found a new model of conduct. Her later philosophy was a quaint one.
"It isn't fair, Mrs. Chumley," she said one day, sitting on the settee in her little room, knees drawn up to chin and her arms embracing them—"it isn't fair to hate a girl for being spiteful. You might as well hate a cat for killing mice."
"Quite agree, dear. I am glad you think so."
"Women are different from men. They haven't got the same big interests in life, and they are not meant to have. I am sorry for women who have to live alone and fight for themselves. But I can't be sorry for those whowantto fight. Loneliness must be very terrible, and there is really no such thing as a girl friend after school days, is there? Except for very ugly girls or very daft ones."
"I am sure you would be a staunch friend to anyone, dear."
"Yes; but they don't know it, you see. Naturally they judge me by themselves," said Flamby wistfully. "I used to hate being a woman before I met you, Mrs. Chumley, but I am not quite so sorry now."
"I am glad, dear. So nice of you to say so."
"If there were no men in the world I think women might be nicer," continued Flamby the philosopher—"not at first, of course, but when they had got over it. Nearly all the mean things girls do to one another are done because of men, and yet all the splendid things they do are done for men as well.Aren't we funny? Three of the girls from the school went to be nurses recently, one because her boy had been killed, another because she was in love with a doctor, and the third because she had heard that a great many girls became engaged to Colonials in France. Not one of them went because she wanted to be a nurse. Now, ifyouwent, Mrs. Chumley, you would go because you were sorry for all the poor wounded, I know. It would have been just the same when you were eighteen, and that's why I think you are so wonderful."
Mrs. Chumley became the victim of silent merriment, from which she recovered but slowly. "You are a really extraordinary child, dear," she said. "Yet you seem to have quite a number of girl friends come to see you as well as boys."
"Yes. You see I make allowances for them and then they are quite good friends."
"Who was that fair man who took you to the theatre last night, and brought you home in a lovely car?"
"Orlando James. He has the next studio to Mr. Chauvin. I hate him."
Mrs. Chumley's blue eyes became even more circular than usual. "But you went to the theatre with him?"
"Yes; that was why I went. He buys me nice presents, too. I wouldn't take them if I liked him."
Presently, retiring to her own abode, Flamby picked up a copy of a daily paper and stared for a long time at two closely-printed columns headed, "Mr. Paul Mario's Challenge to the Churches." The article was a commentary by a prominent literary man upon Paul's second paper,Le Monde, which had appeared that week and had occasioned even wider comment than the first,Le Bateleur. Long excerpts had been printed by practically every journal of note in Great Britain. It had beenpublished in full in New York, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Christiania and Copenhagen, and had been quoted at great length by the entire Colonial press. It was extraordinary; revolutionary, but convincing. It appealed to every man and woman who had loved, lost and doubted; it was written with conviction and displayed knowledge beyond the compass of ordinary minds. Touching as it did upon mysteries hitherto veiled from public ken, it set the civilized world agog, hoping and questioning, studying the secrets of the Tarot and seeking to divine the hidden significance of the word of power,Yod-he-vau-he.
Flamby, disciple of the Greek sages, could face the truth unflinchingly, and now she recognised that to endeavour to battle against the memory of Paul Mario was a waste of energy. But because her pride was lofty and implacable she avoided meeting him, yet could not avoid following all that he said and wrote, nor could her pride withhold her from seeking glimpses of him in places which she knew him to frequent.Le Mondefrightened her. It had the authority of conviction based upon knowledge, and it slew hope in her breast. If nothing was hidden from this wonderful man, why did he omit to explain the mystery of unrequited love?
On more than one occasion Flamby had found herself in that part of Chelsea where Paul's house was situated, and from a discreet distance she had looked at his lighted windows, and then had gone home to consider her own folly from a critical point of view. Flamby, the human Eve, mercilessly taxed by Flamby the philosopher, pleaded guilty to a charge of personal vanity. Yes, she had dared to think herself pretty—until she had seen Yvonne Mario. Flamby, the daughter of Michael Duveen, had defined Yvonne's appearance as "a slap in the face." She no longer expected any man who had seen Yvonne Mario to display the slightest interestin little insignificant Flamby Duveen; for Yvonne possessed the type of beauty which women count irresistible, but which oddly enough rarely enchains the love of men, which inflames the imagination without kindling the heart. Thus was the fairness of the daughter of Icarius, which might not withhold Ulysses from the arms of Calypso, and of this patrician beauty was Fulvia, whom Antony forgot when the taunting smiles of Cleopatra set his soul on fire.
That Paul's esteem was diminished Flamby had known from the very hour that he had quitted Lower Charleswood without word of farewell. His first visit to The Hostel had confirmed her opinion, although confirmation was not needed. He had visited her twice since then; once at Chauvin's studio and once at Guilder's. She had met him on a third occasion by chance. His manner had been charming as ever but marked by a certain gravity, and as Flamby had thought, by restraint. Sense of a duty to Don alone had impelled him to see her. He had never mentioned his wife.
Flamby first saw Yvonne in the cloisteresque passage into which Chauvin's studio opened, for the studio was one of a set built around three sides of a small open courtyard in the centre of which was a marble faun. Orlando James, the fashionable portrait painter, occupied the studio next to Chauvin. Flamby had been rather anxious to meet James because Chauvin had warned her to avoid him, and one afternoon as she was leaving for home, she came out into the passage at the same moment that a man and a woman passed the studio door on their way to the gate. The woman walked on without glancing aside, but the man covertly looked back, bestowing a bold glance of his large brown eyes upon Flamby. It was Orlando James. She recognised him immediately, tall, fair, arrogantly handsome and wearing his soft hatà la Mousquetaire. But, at the moment, Flamby had no eyes for the debonair Orlando. Stepping back into the shadow of the door, she gazed and gazed, fascinatedly, at the tall, graceful figure of his companion whose slim, daintily shod feet seemed to disdain the common pavement, whose hair of burnished gold gleamed so wonderfully in the wintry sunlight. Flamby's heart would have told her even if she were not familiar with the many published photographs that this elegant woman was Yvonne Mario. Opening the gate, Orlando James held it whilst Yvonne passed out; then ere following her he looked back again smiling destructively at Flamby.
He was painting Yvonne's portrait, as Flamby had pointed out to Chauvin when Chauvin had uttered veiled warnings against his neighbour.
"I know, my dear kid," Chauvin had replied, peering over his horn-rimmed spectacles; "but Mrs. Paul Mario can walk in where angels fear to tread. She is Mrs. Paul Mario, my dear kid, and if Mr. Paul Mario approves it is nobody else's business. But your Uncle Chauvin does not approve and your Uncle Chauvin is responsible to your Uncle Don."
"Don't call him that!" Flamby had cried, with one of her swift changes of mood. "It sounds damned silly!"
Thereupon Chauvin had laughed until he had had to polish his spectacles, for Chauvin was a cheery soul and the embodiment of all that Mürger meant when he spoke of a Bohemian. "Oh! oh!" he had chuckled—"you little devil! I must tell Hammett." And he had been as good as his word; but that same day he had bought Flamby a huge box of chocolates which was a direct and highly immoral encouragement of profanity.
Nevertheless Flamby managed to make the acquaintance of Orlando James, but she did not tellChauvin. She detested James, but it had been very gratifying to be noticed by a man actually in the company of the dazzling Yvonne Mario. Flamby had profound faith in her ability to take care of herself and not without sound reason, for she was experienced and wise beyond her years, and James's pride in his new conquest amused her vastly because she knew it to be no conquest at all. Only with age do women learn that the foolish world judges beauty harshly and that the judgment of the foolish world may not be wholly neglected. Thus, for human life is a paradox, this knowledge comes when it is no longer of any use, since every woman is not a Ninon de Lenclos.
Of such-like matters were Flamby's thoughts as she sat squeezed up into the smallest possible compass upon her settee, arms embracing knees; and, as was so often the case, they led her back to Paul Mario. It was wonderful how all paths seemed to lead to Paul Mario. She sighed, reaching down for the newspaper which had slipped to the floor. As her fingers touched it, the door-bell rang.
Flamby jumped up impetuously, glancing at the celebrated china clock, which recorded the hour of ten p.m. She assumed that Mrs. Chumley had called for what she was wont to describe as "a goodnight chat." Flamby opened the door, and the light shone out upon Paul Mario.
There are surprises which transcend the surprising, and as the finer tones of music defeat our ears and pass by us unnoticed so do these super-dramatic happenings find us unmoved. Flamby was aware of a vague numbness; she felt like an automaton, but she was quite composed.
"Good evening, Mr. Mario," she said. "How nice of you to call."
The trite precision of her greeting sounded unfamiliar—the speech of a stranger.
"May I come in, or will the lateness of my visit excite comment among your neighbours?"
"Of course you may come in."
Paul walked into the cosy little sitting-room and Flamby having closed the door contrived to kick the newspaper under the bureau whilst placing an armchair for Paul. Paul smiled and made a nest of cushions in a corner of the settee. "Sit there, Flamby," he said, "and let me talk to you."
Flamby sat down facing him, and her nerves beginning to recover from the shock imposed upon them, she found that her heart was really beating, and beating rapidly. Paul was in evening dress, and as the night was showery, wore a loose Burberry. A hard-working Stetson hat, splashed with rain, he had dropped upon the floor beside his chair. His face looked rather gaunt in the artificial light, which cast deep shadows below his eyes, and he was watching her in a way that led her to hope, yet fear, that he might have come to speak about the Charleswood photographs. He was endowed with that natural distinction whose possessor can never be ill at ease, yet he was palpably bent upon some project which he scarcely knew how to approach.
"Will you have a cigarette?" asked Flamby, in a faint voice. "You may smoke your pipe if you would rather."
"May I really?" said Paul buoyantly. "It is a very foul pipe, and will perfume your curtains frightfully."
"I like it. Lots of my visitors smoke pipes."
"You have a number of visitors, Flamby?"
"Heaps. I never had so many friends in my life."
Paul began to charge his briar from a tattered pouch. "Have you ever thought, Flamby, that I neglected you?" he asked slowly.
"Neglected me? Of course not. You have beento see me twice, and I felt all the time that I was keeping you from your work. Besides—why should I expect you to bother about me?"
"You have every reason to expect it, Flamby. Your father was—a tenant of my uncle, and as I am my uncle's heir, his debts are mine. Your father saved me from the greatest loss in the world. Lastly"—he lighted his pipe—"I want you to count me amongst your friends."
He held the extinguished match in his fingers, looking around for an ash-tray. Flamby jumped up, took the match and threw it in the hearth, then returned slowly to her place. Her hands were rather unsteady, and she tucked them away behind her, squeezing up closely against the cushions. "Wearefriends," she said. "You have always been my friend."
"I don't want you to feel alone in the world, as though nobody cared for you. When Don is home I have no fear, but when he is away there is really no one to study your interests, and, after all, Flamby, you are only a girl."
"There is Mrs. Chumley and Mr. Hammett and Claude Chauvin."
"Three quite delightful people, Flamby, I admit. But Hammett and Chauvin cannot always be with you, and Mrs. Chumley's sweet and unselfish life affords nothing but an illustration of unworldliness. Yet, if these were your only friends, I should be more contented."
Flamby tapped her foot upon the carpet and stared down at it unseeingly. "Are there some of my friends you don't think quite nice?" she asked. Her humility must have surprised many a one who had thought he knew her well.
Paul bent forward, resting one hand upon the head of the settee. "I know very little about your friendships, Flamby. That is why I reproach myself. But a girl who lives alone should exercisethe greatest discretion in such matters. You must see that this is so. Friends who would be possible if you were under the care of a mother become impossible when you are deprived of that care. It is not enough to know yourself blameless, Flamby. Worldly folks are grossly suspicious, especially of a pretty girl, and believe me, life is easier and sweeter without misunderstanding."
"Someone has been telling you tales about me," said Flamby, an ominous scarlet enflaming her cheeks.
Paul laughed, bending further forward and seeking to draw Flamby's hands out from their silken hiding-place. She resisted a little, averting her flushed face, but finally yielded, although she did not look at Paul. "Dear little Flamby," he said, and the tenderness in his voice seemed now to turn her cold. "You are not angry with me?" He held her hands between his own, looking at her earnestly. She glanced up under her lashes. "If I had not cared I should have said nothing."
"Everybody goes on at me," said Flamby tremulously. "I haven't done any harm."
"Who has been 'going on' at you, little Flamby?"
"Youhave, and Chauvin, and everybody."
"But what have they said? What haveIsaid?"
"That I am no good—an absolute rotter!"
"Flamby! Who has said such a thing? Not Chauvin, I'll swear, and not I. You are wilfully misjudging your real friends, little girl. Because you are clever—and you are clever, Flamby—you have faith in your judgment of men yet lack faith in your judgment of yourself. Now, tell me frankly, have you any friends of whom Don would disapprove?"
"No. Don trusts me."
"But he does not trust the world, Flamby, any more than I do, and the world can slay the innocent as readily as the guilty."
"Iknow!" cried Flamby, looking up quickly. "It was Mr. Thessaly who told you."
"Who told me what?"
"That he had seen me at supper with Orlando James. I didn't see him, but James said he was there."
She met Paul's gaze for a moment and tried to withdraw her hands, but he held them fast, and presently Flamby looked down again at the carpet.
"Whoever told me," said Paul, "it is the truth. Do you write often to Don?"
"Yes—sometimes."
"Then write and ask him if he thinks you should be seen about with Orlando James and I shall be content if you will promise to abide by his reply. Will you do that, Flamby? Please don't be angry with me because I try to help you. I have lived longer than you and I have learned that if we scorn the world's opinion the world will have its revenge. Will you promise?"
"Yes," said Flamby, all humility again.
Paul stood up, taking his hat from the floor and beginning to button his Burberry. "I am coming to see you at the school one day soon, but if ever there is anything you want to tell me or if ever I can be of the slightest use to you, telephone to me, Flamby. Don't regard me as a bogey-man." Flamby had stood up, too, and now Paul held her by the shoulders looking at her charming downcast face. "We are friends, are we not, little Flamby?"
Flamby glanced up swiftly. "Yes," she said. "Thank you for thinking about me."
The rain-swept deserted streets made a curious appeal to Paul that night—an appeal to something in his mood that was feverish and unquiet, that first had stirred in response to an apparently chance remark of Thessaly's and that had sent him out to seekFlamby in despite of the weather and the late hour. He did not strive to analyse it, but rather sought to quench it, unknown, and his joy in the steady downpour was a reflection of this sub-conscious state. Self-distrust, vague and indefinite, touched him unaccountably. He considered the intellectual uproar (for it was nothing less) which he had occasioned by the publication of his two papers—comprising as they did selections from the first part of his book. The attitude of the Church alone indicated how shrewdly he had struck. He had bred no mere nine days' wonder but had sowed a seed which, steadily propagating, already had assumed tall sapling form and had unfolded nascent branches. The bookstalls were beginning to display both anonymous pamphlets and brochures by well-known divines; not all of them directly attacking Mario nor openly defending dogma, but all of them, covertly or overtly, being aimed at him and his works. He had been inundated with correspondence from the two hemispheres; he had been persecuted by callers of many nationalities; a strange grey-haired woman with the inspired eyes of a Sita who had addressed him asMasterand acclaimed him one long expected, and a party of little brown men, turbaned and urbane, from India, who spoke of theVishnu-Purana, hailing him as a brother, and whose presence had conjured up pictures of the forests of Hindustan. A dignified Chinaman, too, armed with letters of introduction, had presented him with a wonderful book painted upon ivory of theTrigrams of Fo-Hi. But most singular visitor of all was a sort of monk, having a black, matted beard and carrying a staff, who had gained access to the study, Paul never learned by what means, and who had thundered out an incomprehensible warning against "unveiling the shrine," had denounced what he had termed "the poison of Fabre d'Olivet" and had departed mysteriously as he had come.
There had been something really terrifying in the personality of this last visitor, power of some kind, and Paul, whose third paper,La Force, was in the press, seemed often to hear those strange words ringing in his ears, and he hesitated even now to widen the chasm which already he had opened and which yawned threateningly between the old faith and the new wisdom which yet was a wisdom more ancient than the world. He was but a common man, born of woman; no Krishna conceived of a Virgin Devâki, nor even a Pythagoras initiate of Memphis and heir of Zoroaster; and this night he distrusted his genius. What if he should beckon men, like a vaporous will-o'-the-wisp, out into a morass of error wherein their souls should perish? His power he might doubt no longer; a thousand denunciations, a million acclamations, had borne witness to it. And he had barely begun to speak. Truly the world awaited him and already he bent beneath the burden of a world's desire.
Few pedestrians were abroad and no cabs were to be seen. Every motor-bus appeared to be full inside, with many passengers standing, and even a heroic minority hidden beneath gleaming umbrellas on top. Paul had found the interiors of these vehicles to possess an odour of imperfectly washed humanity, and he avoided the roof, unless a front seat were available, because of the existence of that type of roof-traveller who converts himself into a human fountain by expectorating playfully at selected intervals. Theatre audiences were on their several ways home, and as Paul passed by the entrance to a Tube station he found a considerable crowd seeking to force its way in, a motley crowd representative of every stratum of society from Whitechapel to Mayfair. Women wearing opera cloaks and shod in fragile dress-shoes stood shivering upon the gleaming pavement besideJewesses from the East-End. Fur-collared coats were pressed against wet working raiments, white gloved hands rested upon greasy shoulders. Officers jostled privates, sailors vied with soldiers in the scrum before the entrance to the microbic land of tunnels. War is a potent demagogue.
Isolated standard lamps whose blackened tops gave them an odd appearance of wearing skull caps, broke the gloom of the rain mist at wide intervals. All shops were shut, apparently. One or two cafés preserved a ghostly life within their depths, but their sombre illuminations were suggestive of the Rat Mort. Musicians from theatre orchestras hurried in the direction of the friendly Tube, instrument cases in hand, and one or two hardy members of the Overseas forces defied the elements and lounged about on corners as though this were a summer's evening in Melbourne. Policemen sheltered in dark porches. Paul walked on, his hands thrust into his coat pockets and the brim of his hat pulled down. He experienced no discomfort and was quite contented with the prospect of walking the remainder of the way home; he determined, however, to light his pipe and in order to do so he stepped into the recess formed by a shop door, found his pouch and having loaded his briar was about to strike a match when he saw a taxi-cab apparently disengaged and approaching slowly. He stepped out from his shelter, calling to the man, and collided heavily with a girl wearing a conspicuous white raincoat and carrying an umbrella.
She slipped and staggered, but Paul caught her in time to save her from a fall upon the muddy pavement. "I am sincerely sorry," he said with real solicitude. "I know I must have hurt you."
"Not in the least," she replied in a low tone which might have passed for that of culture with a less inspired observer than Paul. A faint light from the head lamp of the cab which had drawn up beside the pavement, touched her face. She was young andwould have been pretty if the bloom of her cheeks and the redness of her lips had not been due to careful make-up; for her features were good and, as Paul recognised, experiencing a sensation of chill at his heart, not unlike those of his wife. If he could have imagined a debauched Yvonne, she would have looked like this waif of the night who now stood bending beneath the shelter of her wet umbrella upon which the rain pattered, ruefully rubbing a slim silken-clad ankle.
"I can only offer one reparation," Paul persisted. "You must allow me to drive you home."
The cabman coughed dryly, reaching around to open the door. "It's a rotten night, sir," he said, "and I'm short of petrol. Make it a double fare."
"Really," declared the girl with that exaggerated drawling accent, "I can manage quite well."
"Please don't argue," said Paul, smiling and assisting her into the cab. "Tell me where you want to go."
She gave an address near Torrington Square and Paul got in beside her. "Now," he said as the cab moved off, "I want to talk to you. You must not be angry with me but just listen! In the first place I know I collided with you roughly and I am sorry, but you deliberately got in my way and I did not hurt your ankle at all!"
"What do you mean?" she cried, the accent more overdone than ever. "I thought you were a gentleman!"
"Perhaps you were wrong. It is one of the most difficult things in the world to recognise a gentleman. But we can all recognise the truth and I want you to admit that I have told you the truth."
"Did you get me in here to start the Bible-banging business?" inquired the girl, her factitious refinement deserting her. "Because if you did I'm getting out."
"You are going to do nothing of the kind," saidPaul, patting her white-gloved hand. "You are going to tell me all about yourself and I am going to show you your mistakes and see if some of them cannot be put right."
"You're nothing to do with the Salvation Army, are you?" she asked sarcastically. But already she was half enslaved by the voice and manner of Paul. "Do you think I don't know my mistakes? Do you think preaching can do me any good? Are you one of those fools who think all women like me only live the way we do because we can't see where it will end? I know! I know! And I don't care! See that? The sooner the better!" Her sudden violence was that of rebellion against something akin to fear which this strange picturesque-looking man threatened to inspire in her—and it formed no part of her poor philosophy to fear men.
Paul took her hand and held it firmly. "Little chance acquaintance," he said, "was there never anyone in the world whom you loved?—never anyone who was good to you?" She turned aside from him, making no reply. "If ever there was such a one tell me."
The cab had already reached the Square, and now the man pulled up before a large apartment-house, and the girl withdrew her hand and rose. "It's no good," she said. "It's no good. I think you mean to be kind, but you're wasting your time. Good night."
"I have not finished," replied Paul, opening the door for her. "I am coming to see where you live before I say good night."
He followed her out, directing the man to wait and smiling grimly at the thought of his own counsel to Flamby anent giving the world cause for suspicion.
The room in which Paul found himself was on the first floor, over looking the square, and was well but conventionally furnished. A fire blazed in thegrate, and the draped mantelpiece was decorated with a number of photographs of junior officers, many of them autographed. His companion, who said her name was Kitty Chester, had discarded her raincoat and hat, and now stood before the fire arrayed in a smart plaid skirt and a white silk blouse, cut very low. She had neat ankles and a slim figure, but her hands betrayed the fact that she had done manual work at some time in her career. She was much more haggard than he had been able to discern her to be in the dim light of the cab lamp. Taking a cigarette from a box upon the table she lighted it and leaned back against the mantelpiece.
"Well," she said, "another blank day;" and obviously she was trying to throw off the spell which Paul had almost succeeded in casting upon her in the cab. "Barred the Empire, barred the Alhambra, and now the old Pav is a thing of the past, too. I never thought I should find myself blowing through the rain all dressed up and nowhere to go."
Paul watched her silently for a moment. In Kitty Chester he recognised the answer to his doubts, and because that answer was yet incomplete, his genius responded and was revivified. As of old the initiate was tested in order that he might learn the strength of his wisdom, so now a test was offered to the wielder of the sword of truth. Paul did not immediately seek to re-establish control of this wayward spirit, but talked awhile lightly and sympathetically of her life and its trials. Presently: "I suppose you are sometimes hard up?" he said.
"Sometimes!"
"But I can see that you would resent an offer of help."
"I should. Cut it out."
"I have no intention of pressing the point. But have you no ambition to lead any different life?"
"My life's my own. I'll do what I like with it.I'd have ended it long ago, but I hadn't got the pluck. Now you know."
"Yes," replied Paul—"now I know. Come and sit down here beside me."
"I won't."
"You will. Come and sit down here."
Kitty Chester met the fixed gaze of his eyes and was lost. With the ghost of a swagger in her gait she crossed to the red plush sofa upon which Paul was seated and lounged upon the end of it, one foot swinging in the air. She had a trick of rubbing the second finger of her left hand as if twisting a ring, and Paul watched her as she repeated the gesture. He rested his hand upon hers.
"Did you love your husband?" he asked.
Kitty Chester stood up slowly. Her right hand, which held the lighted cigarette, went automatically to her breast. She wore a thin gold chain about her neck. She was staring at Paul haggardly.
"You did love him," he continued. "Is he dead?"
Paul's solicitude, so obviously real, so wonderfully disinterested and so wholly free from cant, already had kindled something in the girl's heart which she had believed to be lifeless, and for ever cold. Now, his swift intuition and the grave sympathy in his beautiful voice imposed too great a test upon the weakened self-control of poor Kitty. Without even a warning quiver of the lips she burst into passionate sobs. Dropping weakly down upon the sofa she cried until her whole body shook convulsively. Paul watched her in silence for some time, and then put his arm about her bowed shoulders.
"Tell me," he said. "I understand." And punctuated by that bitter weeping the story was told. Kitty had been in the service of a county family and had married a young tradesman of excellent prospects. Two short years of married life and then the War. Her husband was orderedto France. One year of that ceaseless waiting, hoping, fearing, which war imposes upon women, and then an official telegram. Kitty returned to service—and her baby died.
"What had I done," she cried wildly. "What had I done to deserve it? I'd gone as straight as a girl can go. There was nobody else in the world for me but him. Then my baby was taken, and the parson's talk about God! What did anything matter after that! Oh, the loneliness. The loneliness! Men don't know what that loneliness is like—the loneliness of a woman. They have their friends, but nobody wants to be friends with a lonely woman. There are only two ways for her. I tried to kill myself, and I was too big a coward, so I took the easy way and thought I might forget."
"You thought you might forget. And did you think your husband would ever forget?"
"Oh, my God! don't say that!"
"You see, the name of God still means something to you," said Paul gently. "Many a soldier's wife has become a believer, and you are not the first who has shuddered to believe." He saw his course clearly, and did not hesitate to pursue it. "The parsons, as you say, talk about God without knowing of What or of Whom they speak, but I am not a parson, and I know of What I speak. Look at me. I have something to ask you."
She turned her eyes, red with weeping, and was fascinated by Paul's concentrated gaze.
"Do you ever dream of your husband?" he asked.
"Oh! you'll drive me mad!" she whispered, trembling violently. "For the first six months after ... I was afraid to close my eyes. I am frightened. I am frightened."
"You are frightened because he is here, Kitty; but he is here to guard you and not to harm you. He is here because to-night you have done with thatlife of forgetfulness which is worse than the memories of those you loved. He will always come when you call him, until the very hour that you are ready to join him again. But if you do wrong to the memory of a man who was true to you, even I cannot promise that he will ever hold you in his arms again."
"But can you promise?—Oh! you seem toknow! You seem ... Who are you? Tell me who you are——"
She stood up and retreated from Paul, the pallor of her face discernible through the tear-streaked make-up. He smiled in his charming fashion, holding out his hands.
"I am one who has studied the secrets of nature," he replied. "And I promise you that you shall live again as a woman, and be loved by those whom you think you have lost. Look at your locket before you sleep to-night and dream, but do not be afraid. Promise, now, that you will always be faithful in the future. You shall give me the names of your old friends and I shall see if all this great mistake cannot be forgotten."
Turning up the lights in his study, Paul seated himself in the great carved chair before his writing-table, and looked for a long time at a set of corrected proofs which lay there. Then, leaning back in the chair he stared about the room at the new and strange ornaments which he had collected in accordance with his system of working amid sympathetic colour. His meeting with Kitty Chester he accepted as a message of encouragement designed to restore his faith in himself and his mission. That he had accomplished her redemption he did not dare to believe, but at least he had rendered it possible. He readily recognised the symbolical significance of their meeting, and it tinged his reflections and quickened his genius, so that a new light was shedthereby upon some of the darker places of the religious past.
Close to his hand, upon an ebony pedestal, stood a squat stone figure having the head of a man with the face of a bull. It was an idol of incalculable age, from Jules Thessaly's collection, a relic of prehistoric Greece and the ancient worship of the threefold Hecate. Set in some remote Thracian valley, it had once looked down upon orgies such as few modern minds can imagine, had seen naked Bacchantes surrounded by tamed jungle beasts and having their arms enwreathed with living serpents, flinging themselves prostrate before its altar, and then amid delirious dances calling upon the Bull-faced Bacchus of whom we read in one of the Orphic hymns....
Dimly visible in a recess of the black-oak bureau was Káli, goddess of Desire, and near her, in a narrow cupboard, the light impinged upon a white, smooth piece of stone which was attached to a wooden frame. It was the emblem of Venus Urania from the oldest temple in Cyprus. These priceless relics were all lent by Thessaly, as were an imperfect statuette in wood, fossilised with age and probably of Moabite origin, representing Ashtaroth, daughter of Sin, and a wonderfully preserved ivory figure, half woman and half fish, of Derceto of Ascalon. The sacred courtesans of the past and the Kitty Chesters of the present (mused Paul) all were expressions of that mystic principle, IEVE, upon which the universe turns as a compass upon its needle, and which, reproduced in our gross bodies, has led to the creation of the Groves of Paphos. That sublime Desire which should lead us to the great Unity and final fulfilment, would seem through all the ages to have driven men ever further from it. Would a day never dawn when all that uncontrolled Force should be contained and directed harmoniously, when the pure Isis of the Egyptian mysteries should cast down the tainted Isis whoselascivious rites were celebrated in Pompeii? Scarcely perceptible was the progress of mankind. In every woman was born a spark of Bacchic fire, which leapt up sweetly at the summons of love or crimson, shameful, at the beck of lust. There were certain conditions peculiarly favourable to its evil development; loneliness, according to Kitty Chester, a loneliness beyond man's understanding....
Paul aroused himself from a reverie and remembered that he had been thinking of Flamby with a strange and lingering tenderness. The clock on the mantelpiece recorded the hour of two a.m., and he turned out the lights in the study and made his way upstairs. He had told Eustace not to wait up for him, and the house was in darkness. Before Yvonne's room Paul stopped, and gently opened the door. A faint sound of regular breathing, and the scent of jasmine came to him. He closed the door as quietly as he had opened it, and proceeded to the next, which was that of his own room.
When he retired he threw open the heavy curtains draped before the windows, and saw that the weather had cleared. White clouds were racing past the face of the moon. He fell asleep almost immediately, and the moon pursuing her mystic journey, presently shone fully in upon the sleeper. Unwittingly Paul was performing one of the rites of the old Adonis worshippers in sleeping with the moonlight upon his face, and thus sleeping he was visited by a strange dream....
Drunk with the wine of life, he ran through a grove of scented pines, flanked by thickets of giant azaleas and taunting one onward and upward to where faint silver outlines traced upon the azure sky lured to distant peaks. Etherealised shapes of haunting beauty surrounded him, and sometimes they seemed to merge into the verdure and sometimes it was a cloud of blossom that gave up an airy form as a lily gives of its sweetness, now bearing a whitenymph, now an Apollo-limbed youth, sun kissed and godlike. Gay hued, four footed creatures mingled with the flying shapes, and all pressed onward; things sleek and eager hastening through the grove, swiftly passing, hoof and pad; leaping girls and laughing youths; amid sentient flowers and trees whose life was joy. Earth's magic sap pulsed through them all and being was an orgy of worship—worship of a bountiful Mother, of Earth in her golden youth....
He passed thence to the banks of Egypt's Nile, and heard the lamentations of priests and wailing of women as a black ox, flower bedecked and wearing a collar encrusted with gems, was drowned in the turgid stream. Time and space ceased to exist for him. Through the murk of cavernous passages he paced, pausing before a pit in which reposed a sarcophagus of huge dimensions; and when the dim company and he had paid tribute to that which lay there, all ascended to a temple, lofty and awesome, its dizzy roof upheld by aisles of monstrous granite. To an accompaniment of sorrowful chanting, the doors of the altar were opened, and within upon the shrine rested a square-hewn statue. Jewelled lamps glowed and censers smoked before the image of the bull, Apis.
The sistrums called him to a shrine of Isis, wherekyphiwas burning, and priestesses, fair royal virgins, made lotus offerings to the mother of light; but magic of old Nileland might not withhold him from the Rites of Ceres when theHymn to Demeterarose within those wonder halls of Ictinus. He saw the blood of a white kid flow upon the altar of Diana at Ephesus and with his own hands laid poppy and dittany at the pearly feet of the Huntress. TheLament for Adoniswooed him to the Temple of the Moon, theHymn to Râwon him back to Egypt's god of gods. He lightedTsan Ihang, sweet perfume of Tibet, before Gautama Buddha in Canton'sTemple of Five Hundred Ginns and kissed the sacred covering of the Kaaba at Mecca.
Consciousness intruding upon sub-consciousness, the mind calling upon the spirit, he found himself questing a likeness, a memory, a furtive thought; and partly it took shape, so that it seemed to him that Apis, Isis, Orpheus and the Buddha had a common resemblance to some person living and human, known to him; whose voice he had heard, and heard again leading the Orphic hymn, chanting the Buddhist prayers and bewailing the passing of Adonis. A man it was his memory sought, and alike in granite statue and golden idol he had detected him; in the silver note of the sistrum, in the deeps of theHymn to Râ....
All blended into one insistent entreaty, voices, music, perfumes, calling upon him to return, but he forced his way through a passage, stifling, low and laden with the breath of remote mortality like those in the depths of Egypt's pyramids. He came forth into a vast cathedral and stood before the high altar. As the acolyte swung the thurible and incense floated upward to the Cross, he, too, arose seraphic and alighted upon the very top of the dome. Below him stretched a maze of tortuous streets, thronged with men and women of a thousand ages and of all the races of mankind. Minaret, pagoda, dome, propylon, arch, portico jutted up from the labyrinth like tares amid a cornfield. Then a mist crept darkly down and drew its mantle over them all. A golden crescent projected above the haze, but it was swallowed up; a slender spire for long remained but finally was lost. He looked down at the basilica upon which he stood. It had vanished. He raised his eyes, and the mist was gone, but an empty world lay where a teeming world had been; a desert wherein no living thing stirred. A voice, a familiar voice, spoke, and the words were familiar,too. They melted into the sweet melancholy of theLament for Adonis, and he awoke, dazzled, half blinded by the brilliancy of the moonlight.
Paul's book,The Gates, was published in the spring. Answering, as it did, if not completely, the question upon the solution of which the course of so many human lives depended, it was received as great works were received in the Arcadian days of Victorian literature. It silenced Paul's contemporaries as thunder silences a human orchestra. Only two critics retained sufficient composure to be flippant. No living man commanded so vast an audience as Paul Mario, and now his voice spoke in a new tone. To some it came as a balm, to some it brought disquiet; in each and everyone it wrought a change of outlook. Following a period of strife wherein all save brute force seemed to have perished, it vindicated the claims of him who said that the pen was mightier than the sword. Copies found their way to Berlin but were confiscated by the police. A Vienna firm printed an edition and their premises were raided by the authorities. To the meanest intelligence it was apparent that one had arisen who had something new to say—or something so old that the world had forgotten it. By means of sacrificing half of his usual royalty Paul had contrived thatThe Gatesshould be published at a price which placed it within reach of popular purchase. What profits still accrued to him, and these were considerable, he devoted to institutes for the wounded and to the maintenance of Hatton Towers as an officers' convalescent home.
Because he did not seek to depict a modern battlefield, knowing that Shakespeare himself must havewaxed trite upon such a theme, the hell-pit of Flanders and the agony of France were draped behind his drama like a curtain. No man had come so near to the truth in naked words. His silence was the silence of genius. The tears of the world flowed through his work, yet no weeping woman was depicted. The word of Christ and the message of Mohammed alike were respected and upheld, but priest andimámconspired to denounce him. Rebirth in the flesh he offered as a substitute for heaven and hell. Love and reunion were synonymous. Not for ages unimaginable could man hope to gain that final state which is variously known as Heaven, Paradise and Nirvana; only by the doing of such evil as rarely lies within human compass could he be judged worthy of that extinction which is Hell. No soul could sink thus low whilst another mourned it; and was there a man so vile that no woman loved him? Whilst there was love there could be no Hell, for in Hell there was no reunion. Pestilence and war on earth corresponded with undivinable upheavals on another planet. "Ere a man's body has grown cold on earth he has stirred again in the womb of his mother."
Only by means of certain perversions of natural law, of which suicide was one, could man evade rebirth, and even thus only for a time. Sorrow was not a punishment but merely a consequence. Punishment was man-made and had no place in the wider scheme, could have no place in a universe where all things were self-inflicted. Germany symbolised the culmination of materialism, "the triumph of the Bull." To Germany had been attracted all those entities, converging through the ages, whose progress had been retarded by abandonment to materialism. "Caligula and Nero defile the earth to-day, and others even mightier in evil. A Messalina and a Poppae do not survive individually, for such as these are not human in the strictest sense, in that theylack what is called a soul which is a property common to humanity. The parable of the woman of Corinth who seduced Menippus, a disciple of Apollonius, is misunderstood. We have come to regard all mortal bodies as the tenements of immortal souls. This is true of men but is not always true of women. Such women are not strictly mortal: they are feminine animals and their place in the scheme will be discussed later. To speak of their sins is to misuse the word. They are sinless, as the serpent and the upas tree are sinless...."
Paul had discovered that his vast scheme might not be compassed in a single book.The Gateswas the first drama of a trilogy. In it he outlined the universal truth of which the churches had lost sight or which they had chosen to obscure. He offered a glimpse of the shrine but laid down no doctrine nor did he seek to impose a new philosophy upon the world. In his second book he proposed to furnish proofs of the claims advanced in the first, and in his third to draw deductions from the foregoing. In this he had made Euclid his model. Upon the necessity for a hierarchy and a mystic ritual he insisted. He maintained that orthodox Christianity had lost its hold upon Europe, touched upon causes and indicated how the world upheaval was directly due to the failing power of the churches. He proposed to remodel religion upon a system earlier than but not antagonistic to that of Christ. His claim that the systems of Hermes, Krishna, Confucius, Moses, Orpheus and Christ were based upon a common primeval truth he supported by an arresting array of historical facts. All of them had taught that man is re-incarnated, and because Western thought had been diverted from this truth and the fallacies of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory substituted for simple Rebirth, Western thought had become chaotic. The figure of the Pope and the maintenance of a celibate priesthood had prolonged the life of theChurch of Rome because, in Paul's opinion, these were survivals of that mysticism upon which the remote hierarchies were builded. "No religion in the world's history has held such absolute sway over a people as that of Ancient Egypt; no figure living in the memory of man has such majesty of awe as that of the royal high-priest of Amen Râ...."
On the day thatThe Gateswas published, Yvonne came down late to breakfast, a gossamer study all filmy lace, with the morning sun in her hair. The windows were open, and a hint of spring lent zest to every joy, the loamy fragrance of nascent plant life stealing into the room from the little garden. Tulips decorated the sideboard, for Yvonne loved tulips, and a big bowl of pink roses stood upon the centre of the breakfast table. Paul, glancing up from the pages of theDaily Telegraph, became aware of something vaguely familiar yet unexpected in his wife's face. She seemed listless, even slightly pale, and he experienced a sudden pang of an indefinable nature. Looking back over the past two years, he wondered if they had been as significant, as fully crowded with reality, for Yvonne as they had been for him. In Don's manner, when speaking of Yvonne, he had more than once detected a sort of gentle reproof and had wondered why Don, who understood most things, failed to perceive that Yvonne's happiness lay in her husband's work. But, this morning, Paul was thinking more particularly about a remark of Jules Thessaly's. Thessaly had urged him, before commencing his second volume to spend a month in Devon. "You need it, Mario, and your wife needs it more than you do."
Paul did not immediately broach the subject which now became uppermost in his mind, but following some desultory conversation, he said, "I should think Devon would be delightful just now. Suppose we run down for a week or two."
"I should be glad," replied Yvonne. "I should have suggested it earlier, only I knew that you could not finishThe Gatesaway from your library." She spoke in a curiously listless way.
"Could you be ready to go on Thursday, Yvonne?"
"Yes, quite easily."
"I can work upon my notes for the autumn book in Devon better than in London."
"But," began Yvonne, and stopped, staring unseeingly at the roses in the bowl upon the table.
"But what, Yvonne?"
"I was about to propose a complete rest, Paul, but I know it would be useless if the working mood is upon you."
"You realise what it means to me, Yvonne. I should no more be justified in laying down my pen whilst there was more work to do than a soldier would be justified in laying down his sword in the heat of battle. You do not feel that this task which I have taken up has made a gulf between us?"
"It has done so in a sense," replied Yvonne, crumbling a fragment of bread between her fingers. "But I have never been so foolish as to become jealous of your work."
"I might have been in the army and stationed on the other side of the world," said Paul laughing.
"I am not complaining about your work, Paul."
"Yet you are not entirely happy."
"What makes you think so?"
"I don't know. I sometimes feel that you are not."
"I am quite happy," said Yvonne in the listless voice, and presently she went up to her room, Paul looking after her in a troubled way. He was uneasily searching his memory for a clue to the significance of that expression, vaguely familiar but unexpected, which he had noticed in Yvonne's face. He lighted his pipe and went into the study.
Paul already was at work upon the second phase of his huge task. He was seeking to prove that the arts had taken the place of the inspired prophets and sibyls of old, that they were not reflections of the soul of a nation but were expressions of the creative Will—theOdof Baron Reichenbach—and were in fact not effects but causes. Not only did he claim this for the avowed philosophers, but also, in some degree, for every writer, composer, painter or sculptor. In Russian literature he perceived a foreshadowing of the doom of Tzardom and imminent catastrophe. In the literature of France and England he sought to divine the future. The fervent imperialism of Kipling stirred his emotions, but left him spiritually cold. Patriotism was the mother of self-sacrifice, but also of murder, and Paul distrusted all forces which made for intolerance. The delicate word-painting of Pierre Loti, with its typically French genius for exalting the trivial, Paul studied carefully. He found it to resemble the art of those patient, impassive Japanese craftsmen who draw and colour some exquisite trifling design, a bird, a palm tree, and then cut the picture in half in order to fit it into a panel of some quaint little lacquered cabinet as full of unexpected cupboards and drawers as the Cretan Labyrinth was full of turnings. He studied the books of the living as Egypt's priests were wont to studyThe Book of the Dead, pondering upon Arnold Bennett, who could produce atmosphere without the use of colour, and H. G. Wells who thought aloud. In the hectic genius of D'Annunzio he sought in vain the spirit of Italy. He perceived in those glowing pages the hand of a man possessed, and should have been prepared to find his MSS. written in penmanship other than his own, like those of Madame Blavatsky'sIsis Unveiled.
"It all means something, Don," he said one day. "We have been granted an insight to the psychology of the German people, which has enabled us to tracethe thread running through their literature, art and music. Oscar Wilde, who wrote, with a style dipped in ambergris, was truly a manifestation of the German spirit which began to invade us subtly at about that time. His scented prose could not conceal this spirit from the perception of Richard Strauss. Strauss recognised it and welcomed it with the music ofnebels,kinnorsandtabors, as the misguided children of Israel welcomed the golden calf. Nietzche's 'Thou goest among women?—Take thy whip' we see now to be no mere personal expression but the voice of the soul of Germany, a black thread interwoven in their creative art. There is a similar thread, but perhaps of silver, interwoven in our own and in the French art. Where does it begin and whither does it lead?"
Yet those days throughout which Paul laboured unceasingly for the greatest cause of humanity were lotus days for many. London was raided and rationed; London swore softly, demanded a change of government, turned up its coat collar and stumped doggedly along much as usual. Men fought and women prayed, whilst Paul worked night and day to bring some ray of hope to the hearts of those in whom faith was dead. The black thread crept like an ebon stain into the woof of the carpet. The image of the Bull was set up in many a grove hitherto undefiled, and Paul worked the more feverishly because it was one of the inscrutable cosmic laws that the black should sometimes triumph over the white.
Paul's intimacy with Jules Thessaly had grown closer than he realised. Thessaly was become indispensable to him. Paul, had he essayed the task, must have found it all but impossible to disentangle his own ideas, or those due to direct inspiration, from the ideas of Thessaly or thosebased upon inquiries traceable to the astonishing data furnished by his collection. Item by item he had revealed its treasures to the man who alone had power to wield them as levers to move the world. Remote but splendid creeds, mere hazy memories of mankind, were reconstructed upon these foundations. The Izamal temples of Yucatan were looted of their secrets—the secrets of a great Red Race, mighty in knowledge and power, which had sought to look upon the face of God before the Great Pyramid was fashioned, whose fleets had ruled the vanished seas known to us as the Sahara and North Africa, whose golden capital had looked proudly out upon an empire mightier than Rome—an empire which the Atlantic Ocean had swallowed up. The story of this cataclysm which had engulfed Atlantis, brought to new lands by a few survivors, had bequeathed to men the legend of the Deluge. The riddle of The Sphinx, most ancient religious symbol in the known world, was resolved; for Paul saw it to represent man emerging from the animal and already aspiring to the spiritual state.
War, pestilence and vast geographical upheavals alike were manifestations of spiritual conflict physically reflected. Some of the German philosophers had perceived this dimly, but as one born in blindness fails to comprehend light, their vision was no more than hereditary memory of another pit of doom which had engulfed them. Those who spoke of casting down the spirit of Prussian militarism used metaphor veiling a truth profound as that which underlies the Holy Trinity, and which is symbolised by the Sphinx. As vultures swooped to carrion, as harlots flocked to Babylon, so had the unredeemed souls of the universe descended upon Germany....
Thus his concept of evil was universal, and to those who sought to fix "responsibility" for the warupon this one or that he raised a protesting hand. No man made the Deluge.
By subtle means, insidious as the breath of nard, corruption of primeval sin was spread from race to race. By like means it must be combated, Truth must be disguised if it should penetrate to enemy darkness. A naked truth is rarely acceptable, or, as Don expressed it, "Truth does not strip well." Paul discussed this aspect of the matter with Don and Thessaly one day. "We are all children," he said. "If it were not for such picturesque people as Henry VIII and Charles II we should forget our history for lack of landmarks. Carefully selected words are the writer's landmarks, and in remembering them one remembers the passage which they decorated. I can conjure up at will the entire philosophy of Buddha as epitomised in theLight of Asiaby contemplation of such a landmark; Arnold's expression for a sheep, 'woolly mother.' There are other words and phrases which the art of their users in the same way has magically endowed: 'Totem' is one of these. It is for me a Pharos instantly opening up the fairway to a great man's philosophy. 'Damascus,' too, has such properties, and the phrase 'cherry blossom in Japan' bears me upon a magical carpet to a certain street in Yokohama and there unveils to me all the secrets of Japanese mysticism."
"I quite see your point," Don replied. "In the same way I have never ceased to regret that I was not born in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. The possession of such a euphonious birthplace would have coloured all my life."
"But like the Scotsman you would have revered your home from a distance," said Thessaly. "I agree with you that it would have been an ideal birthplace if you had left it at so tender an age that you failed to recall its physical peculiarities. It is the same with women. In order that one shouldretain nothing but fairy memories of a woman—memories of some poetic name, of the perfume of roses, of beauty glimpsed through gossamer—it is important that one should not have lived with her. Herein lies the lasting glamour of the woman we have never possessed."
The world had been discussing Paul Mario's New Gospel as enunciated inThe Gatesfor three weeks or more. On a bright morning when sunbeams filtered through the dust which partially curtained the windows of Guilder's, and painted golden squares and rectangles upon the floor, Flamby stood where the light touched her elfin hair into torch-like flame, removing a very smart studio smock preparatory to departing to Regali's for lunch. There was no one else in the small painting-room, except a wondrous-hued parrakeet upon a perch, from which he contemplated his portrait in oils, head knowingly tilted to one side, with solemn disapproval for Flamby had painted his bill too red and he knew it, apparently.
"Bad," he remarked. "Damn bad."
He belonged to Crozier, the artist famed for "sun-soaked flesh," and Crozier's pupils were all too familiar with this formula. It was so often upon Crozier's lips that Lorenzo the Magnificent (the parrakeet) had acquired it perfectly.
"Quite right, Lorenzo," said Flamby, throwing her smock on to a stool. "It's blasted bad."
"Damn bad," corrected Lorenzo. "No guts."
"I don't agree with you there, Lorenzo. It's your nose that I hate."
"No sun!" screamed Lorenzo, excitedly. "The bloodsome thing never saw the sun!"
"Oh, please behave, Lorenzo, or I shall not share my sugar ration with you any more."
"Sugar?" inquired Lorenzo, head on one side again.
Flamby held up a lump of sugar upon her small pink palm, and a silence of contentment immediately descended upon Lorenzo, only broken by the sound of munching. Flamby was just going out to wash the paint from her hands, for she always contrived to get nearly as much upon her fingers as upon the canvas, when a cheery voice cried: "Ha! caught you. Thought I might be too late."
She turned, and there in the doorway stood Don. Less than three months had elapsed since his last leave and Flamby was intensely surprised to see him. She came forward with outstretched hands. "Oh, Don," she cried. "How lovely! However did you manage it?"
An exquisite blush stained her cheeks, and her eyes lighted up happily. Glad surprises made her blush, and she was very sincerely glad as well as surprised to see Don. She had not even heard him approach. She had been wondering what Devonshire was like, for Paul was in Devonshire. Now as Don took both her hands and smiled in the old joyous way she thought that he looked ill, almost cadaverous, in spite of the tan which clung to his skin.
"Craft, Flamby, guile and the subtlety of the serpent. The best men get the worst leave."
"I don't believe it," said Flamby, watching him in sudden anxiety. "You have been ill. Oh, don't think you can pretend tome; I can see you have."
"Bad," remarked Lorenzo in cordial agreement. He had finished the sugar. "Damn bad."
"What!" cried Don—"have you got old Crozier's Lorenzo down here? Hullo! let us see how you have 'percepted' him." He crossed to the easel, surveying Flamby's painting critically. "Does Hammett still talk about 'percepting the subject' and 'emerging the high-lights' and 'profunding the shadows'?"
"He does. You're mean not to tell me."
"What do you want me to tell you, Flamby?—that the drawing is magnificent and the painting brilliant except for the treatment of the bill, which istoobrilliant." He turned and met her reproachful gaze. "Perhaps Iammean, Flamby, to frighten you by not replying to your question, but really I am quite fit. I have had a touch of trench-fever or something, not enough to result in being sent home to hospital, and have now got a few days' sick-leave to pull round after a course of weak gruel."
"That's very unusual, isn't it?"
"What, Flamby?"
"To get home leave after treatment at a base hospital? I mean they might as well have sent you home in the first place."
Don stared at her long and seriously. "Flamby," he said, "you have been flirting with junior subalterns. No one above the rank of a second-lieutenant ever knew so much about King's Regulations."
"Own up, then."
Don continued the serious stare. "Flamby," he said, "your father would have been proud of you. You are a very clever girl. If art fails there is always the Bar. I am not advising you to take to drink; I refer to the law. Listen, Flamby, I was wrong to try to deceive you as well as the others. Besides, it is not necessary. You are unusual. I stopped a stray piece of shrapnel a fortnight after I went back and was sent to a hospital in Burton-on-Trent. The M.O.'s have a positive genius for sending men to spots remote from their homes and kindreds—appalling sentence. In this case it was a blessing in disguise. By some muddle or another my name was omitted from the casualty list, or rather it was printed as 'Norton,' and never corrected publicly. I accepted the kindness of the gods. Imagine my relief. I had pictured sisters and cousins and the dear old Aunt dragging themselves to Burton-on-Trent—and I am the only beer drinker in the family. I know you won't betray my gruesome secret, Flamby."
Flamby's eyes were so misty that she averted her face. "Oh, Don," she said unsteadily, "and I wrote to you only three days ago and thought you were safe."
Don unbuttoned the left breast-pocket of his tunic and flourished a letter triumphantly. "Young Conroy has been forwarding all my mail," he explained, "and I have addressed my letters from nowhere in particular and sent them to him to be posted! Now, what about the guile and subtlety of the serpent! Let us take counsel with the great Severus Regali. I am allowed a little clear soup and an omelette, now."
Don and Flamby arrived late at Regali's and were compelled to wait for a time in the little inner room. There were many familiar faces around the tables. Chauvin was there with Madame Rilette, the human geranium, and Hammett; Wildrake, editor of theQuartre d'Artsrevue and the Baronne G., Paris's smartest and most up-to-date lady novelist. The Baronne had been married four times. Her latest hobby was libel actions. Archibald Forester, renowned as an explorer of the psychic borderland, and wearing green tabs and a crown upon his shoulder-strap, discussed matters Alpine with an Italian artillery officer. On the whole the atmosphere was distinctly Savage that day. Flamby accepted a cigarette from Don and sat for awhile, pensive. With a jade-green velvet tam-o'-shanter to set off the coppery high-lights of her hair she was a picture worthy of the admiration which was discernible in Don's eyes. Presently she said, "I found you out a long time ago."
"Found me out?"
"Yes, found you out. I don't know to this dayhow much I really receive from the War Office, because Mr. Nevin won't tell me. He just muddles me up with a lot of figures——"
"You have seen him, then?"
"Of course I have seen him. But one thing I do know. I owe you over a hundred pounds, and I am going to pay it!"
"But, Flamby," said Don, a startled expression appearing upon his face, "you don't owe it to me at all. You are wrong."
Flamby studied him carefully for awhile. "I am going to send it to Mr. Nevin—I have told him so—and he can settle the matter." She laid her hand on Don's sleeve. "Don't think me silly, or an ungrateful little beast," she said, "but I can't talk about it any more; it makes me want to cry. Did you know that Chauvin got me a commission from the War Office propaganda people to do pictures of horses and mules and things?"
"Yes," replied Don, guiltily. But to his great relief Flamby did not accuse him of being concerned in the matter.
"I felt a rotten little slacker," explained Flamby; "I wrote and told you so. Did you get the letter?"
"Of course. Surely I replied?"
"I don't remember if you did, but I told Chauvin and he recommended my work to them and they said I could do twelve drawings. They accepted the first three I did, but rejected the fourth, which both Hammett and Chauvin thought the best."
"Probably it was. That was why they rejected it. But about this money——"
"Please," pleaded Flamby.
Don looked into her eyes and was silenced. He suppressed a sigh. "Have you seen Paul lately?" he asked.
"No. He is away. His book frightens me."
"Frightens you," said Don, staring curiously. "In what way?"
"I don't know that I can explain. I feel afraid forhim."
"For Paul?"
"Yes."
"Because he has seen the truth?"
Flamby hesitated. "It must be awful for a doctor who has specialised in some dreadful disease to find——"
"That he suffers from it? This is a common thing with specialists." Don spoke almost heedlessly, but had no sooner spoken than he became aware of the peculiar significance of his words. He sat staring silently at Flamby. Before he had time for further speech Regali attended in person to announce that places were vacant at one of the tables. This table Don and Flamby shared with a lady wearing her hair dressed in imitation of a yellow dahlia, and with a prominent colourist who was devoting his life to dissipating the popular delusion about trees being green. He was gradually educating the world to comprehend that trees were not green but blue. He had a very long nose and ate French mustard with his macaroni. The conversation became cubical and coloured.