"'The thoughts control that o'er thee swell and throng;They will condense within the soul and turn to purpose strong.But he who lets his feelings run in soft luxurious flow,Shrinks when hard service must be done, and faints at every blow.'
"'The thoughts control that o'er thee swell and throng;They will condense within the soul and turn to purpose strong.But he who lets his feelings run in soft luxurious flow,Shrinks when hard service must be done, and faints at every blow.'
I only quote from memory. But you look tired, dear boy; you are rather white. Have you been overworking?"
He did not answer immediately.
"No," he said slowly, "but I've been having a long talk with the vicar. We were talking about Mr. Schuabe and his influence. Helena, that man is the most active of God's enemies in England. Almost when I was mentioning his name, by some coincidence, or perhaps for some deeper, more mysterious, psychical reason which men do not yet understand, the maid announced him. He had come to see your father on business, and—don't think I am unduly fanciful—the Murillo photograph, the head of Christ, on the mantel-shelf, fell down and was broken. He is here still, I think."
"Yes," said Helena; "Mr. Schuabe is in the study with father. But, Basil dear, it's quite evident to methat you've been doing too much. Do you know that I look upon Mr. Schuabe as a reallygoodman! I have often thought about him, and even prayed that he may learn the truth; but God has many instruments. Mr. Schuabe is sincere in his unbelief. His life and all his actions are for the good of others. It is terrible—it is deplorable—to know he attacks Christianity; but he is tolerant and large-minded also. Yes, I should call him a good man. He will come to God some day. God would not have given him such power over the minds and bodies of men otherwise."
Gortre smiled a little sadly,—a rather wan smile, which sat strangely upon his strong and hearty face—, but he said no more.
He knew that his attitude was illogical, perhaps it could be called bigoted and intolerant—a harsh indictment in these easy, latitudinarian days; but his conviction was an intuition. It came from within, from something outside or beyond his reason, and would not be stifled.
"Well, dear," he said, "perhaps it is as you say. Nerves which are overwrought, and a system which is run down, certainly have their say, and a large say, too, in one's attitude towards any one. Now you must go to bed. I will go down and say good-night to the rector and Mr. Schuabe—just to show there's no ill-feeling; though, goodness knows, I oughtn't to jest about the man. Good-night, sweet one; God bless you. Remember me also in your prayers to-night."
She kissed him in her firm, brave way—a kiss so strong and loving, so pure and sweet, that he went away from that little room of books andbric-à-bracas if he had been sojourning in some shrine.
As Basil came into the study he found Mr. Byars and Schuabe in eager, animated talk. A spirit decanter hadbeen brought in during his absence, and the vicar was taking the single glass of whisky-and-water he allowed himself before going to bed. Basil, who was in a singularly alert and observant mood, noticed that a glass of plain seltzer water stood before the millionaire.
Gortre's personal acquaintance with Schuabe was of the slightest. He had met him once or twice on the platform of big meetings, and that was all. A simple curate, unless socially,—and Schuabe did not enter into the social life of Walktown, being almost always in London,—he would not be very likely to come in the way of this mammoth.
But Schuabe greeted him with marked cordiality, and he sat down to listen to the two men.
In two minutes he was fascinated, in five he realised, with a quick and unpleasant sense of inferiority, how ignorant he was beside these two. In Schuabe the vicar found a man whose knowledge was as wide and scholarship as profound as his own.
From a purely intellectual standpoint, probably Gortre and Schuabe were more nearly on a level, but in pure knowledge he was nowhere. He wondered, as he listened, if the generation immediately preceding his own had been blessed with more time for culture, if the foundation had been surer and more comprehensive, when they werealumniof the "loving mother" in the South.
They were discussing archæological questions connected with the Holy Land.
Schuabe possessed a profound and masterly knowledge of the whole Jewish background to the Gospel picture, not merely of the archæology, which in itself is a life study, but of the essential characteristics of Jewish thought and feeling, which is far more.
Of course, every now and again the conversationturned towards a direction that, pursued, would have led to controversy. But, with mutual tact, the debatable ground was avoided. That Christ was a historic fact Schuabe, of course, admitted and implied, and when the question of His Divinity seemed likely to occur he was careful and adroit to avoid any discussion.
To the young man, burning with the zeal of youth, this seemed a pity. Unconsciously, he blamed the vicar for not pressing certain points home.
What an opportunity was here! The rarity of such a visit, the obvious interest the two men were beginning to take in each other—should not a great blow for Christ be struck on such an auspicious night? Even if the protest was unavailing, the argument overthrown, was it not a duty to speak of the awful and eternal realities which lay beneath this vivid and brilliant interchange of scholarship?
His brain was on fire with passionate longing to speak. But, nevertheless, he controlled it. None knew better than he the depth and worth of the vicar's character. And he felt himself a junior; he had no right to question the decision of his superior.
"You have missed much, Mr. Byars," said Schuabe, as he arose to go at last, "in never having visited Jerusalem. One can get the knowledge of it, but never the colour. And, even to-day, the city must appear, in many respects, exactly as it did under the rule of Pilate. The Fellah women sell their vegetables, the camels come in loaded with roots for fuel, the Bedouin, the Jews with their long gowns and slippers—I wish you could see it all. I have eaten the meals of the Gospels, drunk the red wine of Saron, the spiced wine mixed with honey and black pepper, the 'wine of myrrh' mentioned in the Gospel of Mark. I have dined with Jewish tradesmen and gone through the same formalities ofhand-washing as we read of two thousand years ago; I have seen the poor ostentatiously gathered in out of the streets and the best part of the meal given them for a self-righteous show. And yet, an hour afterwards, I have sat in acaféby King David's Tower and played dice with Turkish soldiers armed with Martini rifles!"
The vicar seemed loath to let his guest go, though the hour was late, but he refused to stay longer. Mr. Byars, with a somewhat transparent eagerness, mentioned that Gortre's road home lay for part of the way in the same direction as the millionaire's. He seemed to wish the young man to accompany him, almost, so Basil thought, that the charm of his personality might rebuke him for his tirade in the early part of the evening.
Accordingly, in agreement with the vicar's evident wish, but with an inexplicable ice-cold feeling in his heart, he left the house with Schuabe and began to walk with him through the silent, lamp-lit streets.
Thetwo men strode along without speaking for some way. Their feet echoed in the empty streets.
Suddenly Schuabe turned to Basil. "Well, Mr. Gortre," he said, "I have given you your opportunity. Are you not going to speak the word in season after all?"
The young man started violently. Who was this man who had been reading his inner thoughts? How could his companion have fathomed his sternly repressed desire as he sat in the vicarage study? And why did he speak now, when he knew that some chilling influence had him in its grip, that his tongue was tied, his power weakened?
"It is late, Mr. Schuabe," he said at length, and very gravely. "My brain is tired and my enthusiasm chilled. Nor are you anxious to hear what I have to say. But your taunt is ungenerous. It almost seems as if you are not always so tolerant as men think!"
The other laughed—a cold laugh, but not an unkindly one. "Forgive me," he said, "one should not jest with conviction. But I should like to talk with you also. There are lusts of the brain just as there are lusts of the flesh, and to-night I am in the mood and humour for conversation."
They were approaching a side road which led toGortre's rooms. Schuabe's great stone house was still a quarter of a mile away up the hill.
"Do not go home yet," said Schuabe, "come to my house, see my books, and let us talk. Make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, Mr. Gortre! You are disturbed and unstrung to-night. You will not sleep. Come with me."
Gortre hesitated for a moment, and then continued with him. He was hardly conscious why he did so, but even as he accepted the invitation his nerves seemed recovered as by some powerful tonic. A strange confidence possessed him, and he strode on with the air and manner of a man who has some fixed purpose in his brain.
And as he talked casually with Schuabe, he felt towards him no longer the cold fear, the inexplicable shrinking. He regarded him rather as a vast and powerful enemy, an evil, sinister influence, indeed, but one against which he was armed with an armour not his own, with weapons forged by great and terrible hands.
So they entered the drive and walked up among the gaunt black trees towards the house.
Mount Prospect was a large, castellated modern building of stone. In a neighbourhood where architectural monstrosities abounded, perhaps it outdid them all in its almost brutal ugliness and vulgarity. It had been built by Constantine Schuabe's grandfather.
The present owner was little at Walktown. His Parliamentary and social duties bound him to London, and when he had time for recreation the newspapers announced that he had "gone abroad," and until he was actually seen again in the midst of his friends his disappearances were mysterious and complete.
In London he had a private set of rooms at one of the great hotels.
But despite his rare visits, the hideous stone palace in the smoky North held all the treasures which he himself had collected and which had been left to him by his father.
It was understood that at his death the pictures and library were to become the property of the citizens of Manchester, held in trust for them by the corporation.
Schuabe took a key from his pocket and opened the heavy door in the porch.
"I always keep the house full of servants," he said, "even when I am away, for a dismantled house and caretakers are horrible. But they will be all gone to bed now, and we must look after ourselves."
Opening an inner door, they passed through some heavy padded curtains, which fell behind them with a dull thud, and came out into the great hall.
Ugly as the shell of the great building was, the interior was very different.
Here, set like a jewel in the midst of the harsh, forbidding country, was a treasure-house of ordered beauty which had few equals in England.
Gortre drew a long, shuddering breath of pleasure as he looked round. Every æsthetic influence within him responded to what he saw. And how simple and severe it all was! Simply a great domed hall of white marble, brilliantly lit by electric light hidden high above their heads. On every side slender columns rose towards the dome, beyond them were tall archways leading to the rooms of the house; dull, formless curtains, striking no note of colour, hung from the archways.
In the centre of the vast space, exactly under the dome, was a large pool of still green water, a square basin with abrupt edges, having no fountain nor gaudy fish to break its smoothness.
And that was all, literally all. No rugs covered thetesselated floor, not a single seat stood anywhere. There was not the slightest suggestion of furniture or habitation. White, silent, and beautiful! As Gortre stood there, he knew, as if some special message had been given him, that he had come for some great hidden purpose, that it had been foreordained. His whole soul seemed filled with a holy power, unseen powers and principalities thronged round him like sweet but awful friends.
He turned inquiringly towards his host. Schuabe's face was very pale; the calm, cruel eyes seemed agitated; he was staring at the priest. "Come," he said in a voice which seemed to be without its usual confidence; "come, this place is cold—I have sometimes thought it a little too bare and fantastic—come into the library; let us eat and talk."
He turned and passed through the pillars on the right. Gortre followed him through the dark, heavy curtains which led to the library.
They found themselves in an immense low-ceilinged room. The floor was covered with a thick carpet of dull blue, and their feet made no sound as they passed over it towards the blazing fire, which glowed in an old oak framework of panelling and ingle-nook brought from an ancient manor-house in Norfolk.
At one end of the room was a small organ, cased, modern as the mechanism was, in priceless Renaissance painted panels from Florence and set in a little octagonal alcove hung with white and yellow.
The enormous writing-table of dark wood stood in front of the fireplace and was covered with books and papers. By it was a smaller circular table laid with a white cloth and shining glass and silver for a meal.
"My valet is in bed," said Schuabe; "I hate any one about me at night, and I prefer to wait on myself then. 'From the cool cisterns of the midnight air my spiritdrinks repose.' If you will wait here a few moments I will go and get some food. I know where to find some. Pray amuse yourself by looking at my books."
He left the room noiselessly, and Basil turned towards the walls. From ceiling to floor the immense room was lined with shelves of enamelled white wood, here and there carved with tiny florid bunches of fruit and flowers—Jacobean work it seemed.
A few pictures here and there in spaces between the shelves—the hectic flummery of a Whistler nocturne; a womanavec cerises, by Manet; a green silk fan, painted withfêtes gallantes, by Conder—alone broke the many-coloured monotony of the books.
Gortre had, from his earliest Oxford days, been a lover of books and a collector in a moderate, discriminating way. As a rule he was roused to a mild enthusiasm by a fine library. But as his practised eye ran over the shelves, noting the beauty and variety of the contents, he was unmoved by any special interest. His brain, still, so it seemed, under some outside and compelling instinct or influence, was singularly detached from ordinary interests and rejected the books' appeal.
Close to where he stood the shelves were covered with theological works. Müller'sLectures on the Vedanta Philosophy, Romane'sReply to Dr. Lightfoot, De la Saussaye'sManual, stood together. His hand had been wandering unconsciously over the books when it was suddenly arrested, and stopped on a familiar black binding with plain gold letters. It was an ordinary reference edition of the Holy Bible, the "pearl" edition from the Oxford University Press.
There was something familiar and homely in the little dark volume, which showed signs of constant use. A few feet away was a long shelf of Bibles of all kinds, rare editions, expensive copies bound up with famous commentaries—allthe luxuries andéditions de luxeof Holy Writ. But the book beneath his fingers was the same size and shape as the one which stood near his own bedside in his rooms—the one which his father had given him when he went to Harrow, with "Flee youthful lusts" written on the fly-leaf in faded ink. It was homelike and familiar.
He drew it out with a half smile at himself for choosing the one book he knew by heart from this new wealth of literature.
Then a swift impulse came to him.
Gortre could not be called a superstitious man. The really religious temperament, which, while not rejecting the aids of surface and symbol, has seen far below them, rarely is "superstitious" as the word has come to be understood.
The familiar touch, the pleasant sensation of the limp, rough leather on his finger-balls gave him a feeling of security. But that very fact seemed to remind him that some danger, some subtle mental danger, was near. Was this Bible sent to him? he wondered. Were his eyes and handsdirectedto it by the vibrating, invisible presences which he felt were near him? Who could say?
But he took the book in his right hand, breathed a prayer for help and guidance—if it might so be that God, who watched him, would speak a message of help—and opened it at random.
He was about to make a trial of that old mediæval practice of "searching"—that harmless trial of faith which a modern hard-headed cleric has analysed so cleverly, so completely, and so entirely unsatisfactorily.
He opened the book, with his eyes fixed in front of him, and then let them drop towards it. For a moment the small type was all blurred and indistinct, and then one text seemed to leap out at him.
It was this—
"TAKE YE HEED, WATCH AND PRAY: FOR YE KNOW NOT WHEN THE TIME IS."
"TAKE YE HEED, WATCH AND PRAY: FOR YE KNOW NOT WHEN THE TIME IS."
This, then, was his message! He was towatch, to pray, for the time was at hand when—
The curtain slid aside, and Schuabe entered with a tray. He had changed his morning coat for a long dressing-gown of camel's-hair, and wore scarlet leather slippers.
Basil slipped the Bible back into its place and turned to face him.
"I live very simply," he said, "and can offer you nothing very elaborate. But here is some cold chicken, a watercress salad, and a bottle of claret."
They sat down on opposite sides of the round table and said little. Both men were tired and hungry. After he had eaten, the clergyman bent his head for a second or two in an inaudible grace, and made the sign of the Cross before he rose from his chair.
"Symbol!" said Schuabe, with a cold smile, as he saw him.
The truce was over.
"What is that Cross to which all Christians bow?" he continued. "It was the symbol of the water-god of the Gauls, a mere piece of their iconography. The Phœnician ruin of Gigantica is built in the shape of a cross; the Druids used it in their ceremonies; it was Thor's hammer long before it became Christ's gibbet; it is used by the pagan Icelanders to this day as a magic sign in connection with storms of wind. Why, the symbol of Buddha on the reverse of a coin found at Ugain is the same cross, the 'fylfot' of Thor. The cross was carved by Brahmins a thousand years before Christ in the caves of Elephanta. I have seen it in India with my own eyes in the hands of Siva Brahma and Vishnu! Theworshipper of Vishnu attributes as many virtues to it as the pious Roman Catholic here in Salford to the Christian Cross. There is the very strongest evidence that the origin of the cross is phallic! Thecrux ansatawas the sign of Venus: it appears beside Baal and Astarte!"
"Very possibly, Mr. Schuabe," said Gortre, quietly. "Your knowledge on such points is far wider than mine; but that does not affect Christianity in the slightest."
"Of course not! Who ever said it did? But this reverence for the cross, the instrument of execution on which an excellent teacher, and, as far as we know, a really good man, suffered, angers me because it reminds me of the absurd and unreasoning superstitions which cloud the minds of so many educated men like yourself."
"Ah," said Gortre, quietly, "now we are 'gripped.' We have come to the point."
"If you choose, Mr. Gortre," Schuabe answered; "you are an intellectual man, and one intellectual man has a certain right to challenge another. I was staying with Lord Haileybury the other day, and I spent two whole mornings walking over the country with the Bishop of London, talking on these subjects. He very ably endeavoured to bring physical and psychological science into a single whole. But all he seemed to me to prove was this, crystallised into an axiom or at least a postulate.Conscious volition is the ultimate source of all force.It is his belief that behind the sensuous and phenomenal world which gives it form, existence, and activity, lies the ultimate invisible, immeasurable power of Mind, conscious Will, of Intelligence, analogous to our own; and—mark this essential corollary—that man is in communication with it, and that was positively all he could do for me! I met him there easily enough, but when he tried to prove arevelation—Christianity—he utterly broke down. We parted very good friends, and I gave him a thousandpounds for the East London poor fund. But still, say what you will to me. I am here to listen."
He looked calmly at the young man with his unsmiling eyes. He held a Russian cigarette in his fingers, and he waved it with a gentle gesture of invitation as if from an immeasurable superiority.
And as Gortre watched him he knew that here was a brain and intelligence far keener and finer than his own. But with all that certainty he felt entirely undismayed, strangely uplifted.
"I have a message for you, Mr. Schuabe," he began, and the other bowed slightly, without irony, at his words. "I have a message for you, one which I have been sent here—I firmly believe—to deliver, but it is not the message or the argument that you expect to hear."
He stopped for a short time, marshalling his mental forces, and noticing a slight but perceptible look of surprise in his host's eyes.
"I know you better than you imagine, sir," he said gravely, "and not as many other good and devout Christians see you. I tell you here to-night with absolute certainty that you are the active enemy of Christ—I sayactiveenemy."
The face opposite became slightly less tranquil, but the voice was as calm as ever.
"You speak according to your lights, Mr. Gortre," he said. "I am no Christian, but there is much good in Christianity. My words and writings may have helped to lift the veil of superstition and hereditary influences from the eyes of many men, and in that sense I am an enemy of the Christian faith, I suppose. My sincerity is my only apology—if one were needed. You speak with more harshness and less tolerance than I should have thought it your pleasure or your duty to use."
Gortre rose. "Man," he cried, with sudden sternness,"Iknow! You hate our Lord, and would work Him evil. You are as Judas was, for to-night it is given me to read far into your brain."
Schuabe rose quickly from his chair and stood facing him. His face was pallid, something looked out of his eyes which almost frightened the other.
"What do you know?" he cried as if in a swift stroke of pain. "Who—?" He stopped as if by a tremendous effort.
Some thought came to reassure him.
"Listen," he said. "I tell you, paid priest as you are, a blind man leading the blind, that a day is coming when all your boasted fabric of Christianity will disappear. It will go suddenly, and be swept utterly away. And you, you shall see it. You shall be left naked of your faith, stripped and bare, with all Christendom beside you. Your pale Nazarene shall die amid the bitter laughter of the world, die as surely as He died two thousand years ago, and no man or woman shall resurrect Him. You know nothing, but you will remember my words of to-night, until you also become as nothing and endure the inevitable fate of mankind."
He had spoken with extraordinary vehemence, hissing the words out with a venom and malice, general rather than particular, from which the Churchman shrunk, shuddering. There was such unutterableconvictionin the thin, evil voice that for a moment the pain of it was like a spasm of physical agony.
Schuabe had thrown down the mask; it was even as Gortre said, the soul of Iscariot looked out from those eyes. The man saw the clergyman's sudden shrinking.
The smile of a devil flashed over his face. Gortre had turned to him once more and he saw it. And as he watched an awful certainty grew within him, a thought so appalling that beside it all that had gone before sank into utter insignificance.
He staggered for a moment and then rose to his full height, a fearful loathing in his eyes, a scorn like a whip of fire in his voice.
Schuabe blanched before him, for he saw the truth in the priest's soul.
"As the Lord of Hosts is my witness," cried Gortre loudly, "I know you now for what you are!You know that Christ is God!"
Schuabe shrank into his chair.
"Antichrist!" pealed out the accusing voice. "You know the truth full well, and, knowing, in an awful presumption you have dared to lift your hand against God."
Then there was a dead silence in the room. Schuabe sat motionless by the dying fire.
Very slowly the colour crept back into his cheeks. Slowly the strength and light entered his eyes. He moved slightly.
At last he spoke.
"Go," he said. "Go, and never let me see your face again. You have spoken. Yet I tell you still that such a blinding blow shall descend on Christendom that——"
He rose quickly from his chair. His manner changed utterly with a marvellous swiftness.
He went to the window and pulled aside the curtain. A chill and ghostly dawn came creeping into the library.
"Let us make an end of this," he said quietly and naturally. "Of what use for you and me, atoms that we are, to wrangle and thunder through the night over an infinity in which we have neither part nor lot? Come, get you homewards and rest, as I am about to do. The night has been an unpleasant dream. Treat it as such. We differ on great matters. Let that be so and we will forget it. You shall have a friend in me if you will."
Gortre, hardly conscious of any voluntary movements,his brain in a stupor, the arteries all over his body beating like little drums, took the hat and coat the other handed to him, and stumbled out of the house.
It was about five o'clock in the morning, raw, damp, and cold.
With a white face, drawn and haggard with emotion, he strode down the hill. The keen air revived his physical powers, but his brain was whirling, whirling, till connected thought was impossible.
What was it? What was the truth about that nightmare, that long, horrid night in the warm, rich room? His powers were failing; he must see a doctor after breakfast.
When he reached the foot of the hill, and was about to turn down the road which led to his rooms, he stopped to rest for a moment.
From far behind the hill, over the dark, silhouetted houses of the wealthy people who lived upon it, a huge, formless pall of purple smoke was rising, and almost blotting out the dawn in a Titanic curtain of gloom. The feeble new-born sun flickered redly through it, the colour of blood. There was no wind that morning, and the fog and smoke from the newly lit factory chimneys in the Irwell valley could not be dispersed. It crept over the town like doom itself—menacing, vast, unconquerable.
He pulled out his latch-key with trembling hand, and turned to enter his own door.
The cloud was spreading.
"Lighten our darkness," he whispered to himself, half consciously, and then fell fainting on the door-step, where they found him soon, and carried him in to the sick-bed, where he lay sick of a brain-fever a month or more.
Lighten our darkness!
Inhis great room at the British Museum, great, that is, for the private room of an official, Robert Llwellyn sat at his writing-desk finishing the last few lines of his article on the Hebrew inscription in mosaic, which had been discovered at Kefr Kenna.
It was about four in the afternoon, growing dark with the peculiarly sordid and hopeless twilight of a winter's afternoon in central London. A reading lamp upon the desk threw a bright circle of light on the sheet of white unlined paper covered with minute writing, which lay before the keeper of Biblical antiquities in the British Museum.
The view from the tall windows was hideous and almost sinister in its ugliness. Nothing met the eye but the gloomy backs of some of the great dingy lodging-houses which surround the Museum, bedroom windows, back bedrooms with dingy curtains, vulgarly unlovely.
The room itself was official looking, but far from uncomfortable. There were many book-shelves lining the walls. Over them hung large-framed photographs and drawings of inscriptions. On a stand by itself, covered with a glass shade, was a duplicate of Dr. Schick's model of the Haram Area during the Christian occupation of Jerusalem.
A dull fire glowed in the large open fireplace.
Llwellyn wrote a final line with a sigh of relief and then leaned far back in his swivel chair. His face was gloomy, and his eyes were dull with some inward communing, apparently of a disturbing and unpleasant kind.
The door opened noiselessly (all the dwellers in the mysterious private parts of the Museum walk without noise, and seem to have caught in their voices something of that almost religious reverence emanating from surroundings out of the immemorial past), and Lambert, the assistant keeper and secretary, entered.
He drew up a chair to the writing-desk.
"The firman has been granted!" he said.
A quick interest shone on Professor Llwellyn's face.
"Ah!" he said, "it has come at last, then, after all these months of waiting. I began to despair of the Turkish Government. I never thought it would be granted. Then the Society will really begin to excavate at last in the prohibited spots! Really that is splendid news, Lambert. We shall have some startling results. Results, mind you, which will be historical, historical! I doubt but that the whole theory of the Gospel narrative will have to be reconstructed during the next few years!"
"It is quite possible," said Lambert. "But, on the other hand, it may happen that nothing whatever is found."
Llwellyn nodded. Then a sudden thought seemed to strike him. "But how do you know of this, Lambert?" he said, "and how has it happened?"
Lambert was a pleasant, open-faced fellow, young, and with a certain air of distinction. He laughed gaily, and returned his chief's look of interest with an affectionate expression in his eyes.
"Ah!" he said, "I have heard a great deal, sir, and I have some thing to tell you which I am very happy about. It is gratifying to bring you the first news. Last night Iwas dining with my uncle, Sir Michael Manichoe, you know. The Home Secretary was there, a great friend of my uncle's. You know the great interest he takes in the work of the Exploration Society, and his general interest in the Holy Land?"
"Oh, of course," said Llwellyn. "He's the leader of the uncompromising Protestant party in the House; owes his position to it, in fact. He breakfasts with the Septuagint, lunches off the Gospels, and sups with Revelations. Well?"
"It is owing to his personal interest in the work," continued Lambert, "that the Sultan has granted the firman. After dinner he took me aside, and we had a longish talk. He was very gracious, and most eager to hear of all our recent work here, and additions to the collections in our department. I was extremely pleased, as you may imagine. He spoke of you, sir, as the greatest living authority—wouldn't hear of Conrad Schick or Clermont-Ganneau in the same breath with you. He went on to say in confidence, and he hinted to me that I had his permission to tell you, though he didn't say as much in so many words, that they are going to offer you knighthood in a few days!"
A sudden flush suffused the face of the elder man. Then he laughed a little.
"Your news is certainly unexpected, my dear boy," he said, "and, for my part, knighthood is no very welcome thing personally. But it would be idle to deny that I'm pleased. It means recognition of my work, you see. In that way only, it is good news that you have brought."
"That's just it, Professor," the young man answered enthusiastically. "That's exactly it. Sir Robert Llwellyn, or Mr. Llwellyn, of course, cannot matter to you personally. But itisa fitting and graceful recognition of thework. It is a proper thing that the greatest livingauthority on the antiquities and history of Asia Minor should be officially recognised. It encourages all of us, you see, Professor."
The young man's generous excitement pleased Llwellyn. He placed his hand upon his shoulder with a kindly, affectionate gesture.
At that moment a messenger knocked and entered with a bundle of letters, which had just arrived by the half-past-four post, and, with a congratulatory shake of the hand, Lambert left his chief to his correspondence.
The great specialist, when he had left the room, rose from his chair, went towards the door with swift, cat-like steps, and locked it. Then he returned to the desk, opened a deep drawer with a key which he drew from his watch-pocket, and took a silver-mounted flask of brandy from the receptacle. He poured a small dose of brandy into the metal cup and drank it hurriedly.
Then he leaned back once more in his chair.
Professor Llwellyn's face was familiar to all readers of the illustrated press. He was one of the few famoussavantswhose name was a household word not only to his colleagues and the learned generally, but also to the great mass of the general public.
In every department of effort and work there are one or two men whose personality seems to catch the popular eye.
His large, clean-shaven face might have belonged to a popular comedian; his portly figure had still nothing of old age about it. He was sprightly and youthful in manner despite his fat. The small, merry, green eyes—eyes which had yet something furtive and "alarmed" in them at times—stood for a concrete personification of good humour. His somewhat sensual lips were always smiling and jolly on public occasions. His enormous erudition and acknowledged place among the learned ofEurope went so strangely with his appearance that the world was pleased and tickled by the paradox.
It was a fine thing to think that the spectacled Dry-as-dust was gone. That era of animated mummy was over, and when The World read of Professor Llwellyn at a first night of the Lyceum, or the guest of honour at the Savage Club, it forgot to jeer at his abstruse erudition.
Scholars admitted his scholarship, and ordinary men and women welcomed him ashomme du monde.
The Professor replaced the flask in the drawer and locked it. His hand trembled as he did so. The light which shone on the white face showed it eloquent with dread and despair. Here, in the privacy of the huge, comfortable room, was a soul in an anguish that no mortal eyes could see.
The Professor had locked the door.
The letters which the messenger had brought were many in number and various in shape and style.
Five or six of them, which bore foreign stamps and indications that they came from the Continental antiquarian societies, he put on one side to be opened and replied to on the morrow.
Then he took up an envelope addressed to him in firm black writing and turned it over. On the flap was the white, embossed oval and crown, which showed that it came from the House of Commons. His florid face became paler than before, the flesh of it turned grey, an unpleasant sight in so large and ample a countenance, as he tore it open. The letter ran as follows:
"House of Commons."Dear Llwellyn,—I am writing to you now to say that I am quite determined that the present situation shall not continue. You must understand, finally, that my patience is exhausted, and that, unless the large sumyou owe me is repaid within the next week, my solicitors have my instructions, which are quite unalterable, to proceed in bankruptcy against you without further delay."The principal and interest now total to the sum of fourteen thousand pounds. Your promises to repay, and your innumerable requests for more time in which to do so, now extend over a period of three years. I have preserved all your letters on the subject at issue between us, and I find that, so far from decreasing your indebtedness when your promises became due, you have almost invariably asked me for further sums, which, in foolish confidence, as I feel now, I have advanced to you."It would be superfluous to point out to you what bankruptcy would mean to you in your position. Ruin would be the only word. And it would be no ordinary bankruptcy. I have a by no means uncertain idea where these large sums have gone, and my knowledge can hardly fail to be shared by others in London society."I have still a chance to offer you, however, and, perhaps, you will find me by no means the tyrant you think."There are certain services which you can do me, and which, if you fall in with my views, will not only wipe off the few thousands of your indebtedness, but provide you with a capital sum which will place you above the necessity for any such financial manœuvres in the future as your—shall I sayinfatuation?—has led you to resort to in the past."If you care to lunch with me at my rooms in the Hotel Cecil, at two o'clock, the day after to-morrow—Friday—we may discuss your affairs quietly. If not, then I must refer you to my solicitors entirely."Yours sincerely,"Constantine Schuabe."
"House of Commons.
"Dear Llwellyn,—I am writing to you now to say that I am quite determined that the present situation shall not continue. You must understand, finally, that my patience is exhausted, and that, unless the large sumyou owe me is repaid within the next week, my solicitors have my instructions, which are quite unalterable, to proceed in bankruptcy against you without further delay.
"The principal and interest now total to the sum of fourteen thousand pounds. Your promises to repay, and your innumerable requests for more time in which to do so, now extend over a period of three years. I have preserved all your letters on the subject at issue between us, and I find that, so far from decreasing your indebtedness when your promises became due, you have almost invariably asked me for further sums, which, in foolish confidence, as I feel now, I have advanced to you.
"It would be superfluous to point out to you what bankruptcy would mean to you in your position. Ruin would be the only word. And it would be no ordinary bankruptcy. I have a by no means uncertain idea where these large sums have gone, and my knowledge can hardly fail to be shared by others in London society.
"I have still a chance to offer you, however, and, perhaps, you will find me by no means the tyrant you think.
"There are certain services which you can do me, and which, if you fall in with my views, will not only wipe off the few thousands of your indebtedness, but provide you with a capital sum which will place you above the necessity for any such financial manœuvres in the future as your—shall I sayinfatuation?—has led you to resort to in the past.
"If you care to lunch with me at my rooms in the Hotel Cecil, at two o'clock, the day after to-morrow—Friday—we may discuss your affairs quietly. If not, then I must refer you to my solicitors entirely.
"Yours sincerely,"Constantine Schuabe."
The big man gave a horrid groan—half snarl, halfgroan—the sound which comes from a strong animal desperate and at bay.
He crossed over to the fireplace and pushed the letter down into a glowing cavern among the coals, holding it there with the poker until it was utterly consumed and fluttered up the chimney from his sight in a sheet of ash—the very colour of his relaxed and pendulous cheeks.
He opened another letter, a small, fragile thing written on mauve paper, in a large, irregular hand—a woman's hand:—
"15 Bloomsbury Court Mansions."Dear Bob—I shall expect you at the flat to-night at eleven,without fail. You'd better come, or things which you won't like will happen."You've justgotto come.Gertrude."
"15 Bloomsbury Court Mansions.
"Dear Bob—I shall expect you at the flat to-night at eleven,without fail. You'd better come, or things which you won't like will happen.
"You've justgotto come.
Gertrude."
He put this letter into his pocket and began to walk the room in long, silent strides.
A little after five he put on a heavy fur coat and left the now silent and gloomy halls of the Museum.
The lamps of Holborn were lit and a blaze of light came from Oxford Circus, where the winking electric advertisements had just begun their work on the tops of the houses.
A policeman saluted the Professor as he passed, and was rewarded by a genial smile and jolly word of greeting, which sent a glow of pleasure through his six feet.
Llwellyn walked steadily on towards the Marble Arch and Edgeware Road. The continual roar of the traffic helped his brain. It became active and able to think, to plan once more. The steady exercise warmed his blood and exhilarated him.
There began to be almost a horrid pleasure in the stress of his position. The danger was so immediate and fell; the blow would be so utterly irreparable, that he was nearto enjoying his walk while he could still consider the thing from a detached point of view.
Throughout life that had always been his power. A strange resilience had animated him in all chances and changes of fortune.
He was that almost inhuman phenomenon, a sensualist with a soul.
For many years, while his name became great in Europe and the solid brilliancy of his work grew in lustre as he in age, he had lived two lives, finding an engrossing joy in each.
The lofty scientific world of which he was an ornament had no points of contact with that other and unspeakable half-life. Rumours had been bruited, things said in secret by envious and less distinguished men, but they had never harmed him. His colleagues hardly understood them and cared nothing. His work was all-sufficient; what did it matter if smaller people with forked tongues hissed horrors of his private life?
The other circles—the lost slaves of pleasure—knew him well and were content. He came into the night-world a welcome guest. They knew nothing of his work or fame beyond dim hintings of things too uninteresting for them to bother about.
He turned down the Edgeware Road and then into quiet Upper Berkeley Street, a big, florid, prosperous-looking man, looking as though the world used him well and he was content with all it had to offer.
His house was but a few doors down the street and he went up-stairs to dress at once. He intended to dine at home that night.
His dressing-room, out of which a small bedroom opened, was large and luxurious. A clear fire glowed upon the hearth; the carpet was soft and thick. The great dressing-table with its three-sided mirror wascovered with brushes and ivory jars, gleaming brightly in the rays of the little electric lights which framed the mirror. A huge wardrobe, full of clothes neatly folded and put away, suggested a man about town, a dandy with many sartorial interests. An arm-chair of soft green leather, stamped with red-gold pomegranates, stood by a small black table stencilled with orange-coloured bees. On the table stood a cigarette-box of finely plaited cream-coloured straw, woven over silver and cedar-wood, and with Llwellyn's initials in turquoise on one lid.
He threw off his coat and sank into the chair with a sigh of pleasure at the embracing comfort of it. Then his fingers plunged into the tea which filled the box on the table and drew out a tiny yellow cigarette.
He smoked in luxurious silence.
He had already half forgotten the menacing letter from Constantine Schuabe, the imperative summons to the flat in Bloomsbury Court Mansions. This was a moment of intense physical ease. The flavour of his saffron Salonika cigarette, a tiny glass of garnet-colouredcassiswhich he had poured out, were alike excellent. All day long he had been at work on a brilliant monograph dealing with the new Hebrew mosaics. Only two other living men could have written it. But his work also had fallen out of his brain. At that moment he was no more than a great animal, soulless, with the lusts of the flesh pouring round him, whispering evil and stinging his blood.
A timid knock fell upon the door outside. It opened and Mrs. Llwellyn came slowly in.
The Professor's wife was a tall, thin woman. Her untidy clothes hung round her body in unlovely folds. Her complexion was muddy and unwholesome; but the unsmiling, withered lips revealed a row of fair, white, even teeth. It was in her eyes that one read thesecret of this lady. They were large and blue, once beautiful, so one might have fancied. Now the light had faded from them and they were blurred and full of pain.
She came slowly up to her husband's chair, placing one hand timidly upon it.
"Oh, is that you?" he said, not brutally, but with a complete and utter indifference. "I shall want some dinner at home to-night. I shall be going out about ten to a supper engagement. See about it now, something light. And tell one of the maids to bring up some hot water."
"Yes, Robert," she said, and went out with no further word, but sighing a little as she closed the door quietly.
They had been married fifteen years. For fourteen of them he had hardly ever spoken to her except in anger at some household accident. On her own private income of six hundred a year she had to do what she could to keep the house going. Llwellyn never gave her anything of the thousand a year which was his salary at the Museum, and the greater sums he earned by his work outside it. She knew no one, the Professor went into none but official society, and indeed but few of his colleagues knew that he was a married man. He treated the house as a hotel, sleeping there occasionally, breakfasting, and dressing. His private rooms were the only habitable parts of the house. All the rest was old, faded, and without comfort. Mrs. Llwellyn spent most of her life with the two servants in the kitchen.
She always swept and tidied her husband's rooms herself. That afternoon she had built and coaxed the fire with her own hands.
She slept in a small room at the top of the house, next to the maids, for company.
This was her life.
Over the head of the little iron bedstead of her room hung a great crucifix.
That was her hope.
When Llwellyn was rioting in nameless places she prayed for him during the night. She prayed for him, for herself, and for the two servant girls, very simply—that Heaven might receive them all some day.
The maid brought up some dinner for the Professor—a little soup, a sole, and somecamembert.
He ate slowly, and smoked a short light-brown cigar with his coffee. Then he bathed, put on evening clothes, dressing himself with care and circumspection, and left the house.
In the Edgeware Road he got into a hansom and told the man to drive him to Bloomsbury Court Mansions.
Robert Llwellynpaid the cabman outside the main gateway which led into the courtyard, and dismissed him.
The Court Mansions were but a few hundred yards from the British Museum itself, though he never visited them in the day time. A huge building, like a great hotel, rose skyward in a square. In the quadrangle in the centre, which was paved with asphalt, was an ornamental fountain surrounded by evergreen plants in tubs.
The Professor strode under the archway, his feet echoing in the stillness, and passed over the open space, which was brilliantly lit with the hectic radiance of arc lamps. He entered one of the doorways, and turning to the right of the ground-floor, away from the lift which was in waiting to convey passengers to the higher storeys, he stopped at No. 15.
He took a latch-key from his pocket, opened the door, and entered. It was very warm and close inside, and very silent also. The narrow hall was lit by a crimson-globed electric lamp. It was heavily carpeted, and thick curtains of plum-coloured plush, edged with round, fluffy balls of the same colour, hung over the doors leading into it.
He hung his hat up on a peg, and stood perfectly silent for a moment in the warm, scented air. He could hear no sound but the ticking of a French clock. Theflat was obviously empty; and pulling aside one of the curtains, he went into the dining-room.
The place was full of light. Gertrude Hunt, or her maid, had, with characteristic carelessness, forgotten to turn off the switches. Llwellyn sat down and looked around him. How familiar the place was! The casual visitor would have recognised at a glance that the occupant of the room belonged to the dramatic profession.
Photographs abounded everywhere. The satinwood overmantel was crowded with them in heavy frames of chased silver. Bold enlargements hung on the crimson walls; they were upright, and stacked in disorderly heaps upon the grand piano.
All were of one woman—a dark Jewish girl with eyes full of a fixed fascination, a trained regard of allurement.
The eyes pursued him everywhere; bold and inviting, he was conscious of their multitude, and moved uneasily.
The dining-table was in a curious litter. Half-empty cups of egg-shell china stood upon a tray of Japanese lacquer inlaid with ivory and silver; a cake basket held pink and honey-coloured bon-bons, among which some cigarette ends had fallen. Two empty bottles, which had held champagne, stood side by side, cheek by jowl, with a gilt tray, on which was a miniature methyl lamp and some steel curling tongs.
The arm-chairs were upholstered in pink satin. On one of them was a long fawn-coloured tailor-made coat, hanging collar downwards over the back. A handful of silver and a tiny gun-metal cigarette case had dropped out of a pocket on to the seat of the chair.
The whole place reeked with a well-known perfume—an evil, sickly smell of ripe lilies and the acrid smoke of Egyptian tobacco. A frilled dressing jacket covered with yellowish lace lay in a tumbled heap upon the hearth-rug.
The room would have struck an ordinary visitor with a sense of nausea almost like a physical blow. There was something sordidly shameless about it. The vulgarest and most material of Circes held sway among all this gaudy and lavish disorder. The most sober-living and innocent-minded man, brought suddenly into such a place, would have known it instantly for what it was, and turned to fly as from a pestilence.
A week or two before, a picture of this den had appeared in one of the illustrated papers. Underneath the photograph had been printed—
"THE BOUDOIR OF ONE OF LONDON'S POPULAR FAVOURITES.MISS GERTRUDE HUNT AT HOME."
Below had been another picture—"Miss Hunt in her new motor-car." Robert Llwellyn had paid four hundred pounds for the machine.
The big man seemed to fit into these surroundings as a hand into a glove. In his room at the Museum, on a platform at the Royal Society, his intellect always animated his face. In such places his personality was eminent, as his work also.
Here he was changed. Silenus was twin to him; he sniffed the perfume with pleasure; he stretched himself to the heat and warmth like a great cat. He was an integral part of themise-en-scène—lost, and arrogant of his degradation.
A key clicked in the lock, there was a rustling of silk, and Gertrude Hunt swept into the room.
"So you're come to time, then," she said in a deep, musical voice, but spoilt by an unpleasing Cockney twang. "I'm dead tired. The theatre was crammed; I had tosing theCoon of Coonstwice. Get me a brandy-and-soda, Bob. There's a good boy—the decanter's in the sideboard."
She threw off her long cloak and sank into a chair. The sticky grease-paint of the theatre had hardly been removed. She looked, as she said, worn out.
They chatted for a few moments on indifferent subjects, and she lit a cigarette. When she took it from her lips, Llwellyn noticed that the end was crimsoned by the paint upon them.
"Well," she said at length, "somehow or other you must pay those bills I sent on to you. Theymustbe paid. I can't do it. I'm only getting twenty-five pounds from the theatre now, and that's just about enough to pay my drink bill!"
Llwellyn's face clouded. "I'm just about at my last gasp myself," he said. "I'm threatened with bankruptcy as it is."
"Oh, cheer up!" she cried. "Here, have a B. and S. I do hate to hear any one talk like that. It gives me the hump at once. Now look here, Bob. You know that I like you better than any one else. We've been pals for seven or eight years now, and I'd rather have you a thousand times than the others. You understand that, don't you?"
He nodded back at her. His face was pleased at her expression of affection, at the kindness of this dancing-girl to the great scholar!
"But," she continued, "you know me, and you know that I can't go on unless I have what I want all the time. And I want a lot, too. If you can't give it me, Bob, it must be some one else—that's all. Captain Parker's ready to do anything, any time. He's almost a millionaire, you know. Can't you raise any 'oof anyhow? If I'd a thousand at once, and another in a weekor two, I could manage for a bit. But Imusthave a river-house at Shepperton. That cat, Lulu Wallace, has one, and an electric launch and all. What about your German friend—the M.P.?He'sgot tons of stuff. Touch him for a bit more."
"Had a letter from him this afternoon," said Llwellyn, "with a demand for about fourteen thousand that I owe him now. Threatens to sell me up. But there was something which looked brighter at the end of the letter, though I couldn't quite make out what he was driving at."
"What was that?"
"The tone of the letter changed; it had been nasty before. He said that I could do him a service for which he would not only wipe out the old debt, but for which I could get a lot more money."
"You'll go to him at once, Bob, won't you?"
"I suppose I must. There's no way out of it. I can't think, though, how I can do him any service. He's a dabbler, an amateur in my own work, but he's not going to pay a good many thousands for any help inthat."
"Let it alone till you find out," she said, with the instinctive dislike of her class to the prolonged discussion of anything unpleasant. She got up and rang the bell for her maid and supper.
For some reason Llwellyn could eat nothing. A weight oppressed him—a presage of danger and disaster. The unspeakable mental torments that the vicious man who is highly educated undergoes—torments which assail him in the very act and article of his pleasures—have never been adequately described. "What a frail structure his honours and positions were," he thought as the woman chatted of thecoulissesand the blackguard news of thedemi-monde. His indulgent life had actedon the Professor with a dire physical effect. His nerves were unstrung and he became childishly superstitious. The slightest hint of misfortune set his brain throbbing with a horrid fear. The spectre of overwhelming disaster was always waiting, and he could not exorcise it.
The two accidental and trivial facts that the knives at his place were crossed, and that he spilt the salt as he was passing it to his mistress, set him crossing himself with nervous rapidity.
The girl laughed at him, but she was interested nevertheless. For the moment they were on an intellectual level. He explained that the sign of the Cross was said to avert misfortune, and she imitated him clumsily.
Llwellyn thought nothing of it at the time, but the meaningless travesty came back afterwards when he thought over that eventful night.
Surely the holy sign of God's pain was never so degraded as now.
Their conversation grew fitful and strained. The woman was physically tired by her work at the theatre, and the dark cloud of menace crept more rapidly into the man's brain. The hour grew late. At last Llwellyn rose to go.
"You'll get the cash somehow, dear, won't you?" she said with tired eagerness.
"Yes, yes, Gertie," he replied. "I suppose I can get it somehow. I'll get home now. If it's a clear night I shall walk home. I'm depressed—it's liver, I suppose—and I need exercise."
"Have a drink before you go?"
"No, I've had two, and I can't take spirits at this time."
He went out with a perfunctory and uninterested kiss. She came to the archway with him.
London was now quite silent in its most mysteriousand curious hour. The streets were deserted, but brilliantly lit by the long row of lamps.
They stood talking for a moment or two in the quadrangle.
"Queer!" she said; "queer, isn't it, just now? I walked back from the Covent Garden ball once at this time. Makes you feel lonesome. Well, so long, Bob. I shall have a hot bath and go to bed."
The Professor's feet echoed loudly on the flags as he approached the open space. Never had he seemed to hear the noises of his own progress so clearly before. It was disconcerting, and emphasised the fact of his sole movement in this lighted city of the dead.
On the island in the centre of the cross-roads he suddenly caught sight of a tall policeman standing motionless under a lamp. The fellow seemed a figure of metal hypnotised by the silence.
Llwellyn walked onwards, when, just as he was passing the Oxford Music Hall, he became conscious of quick footsteps behind him. He turned quickly, and a man came up. He was of middle size, with polite, watchful eyes and clean shaven.
The stranger put his hand into the pocket of his neat, unobtrusive black overcoat and drew out a letter.
"For you, sir," he said in calm, ordinary tones.
The Professor stared at him in uncontrollable surprise and took the envelope, opening it under a lamp. This was the note. He recognised the handwriting at once.
"Hotel Cecil."Dear Llwellyn,—Kindly excuse the suddenness of my request and come down to the Cecil with my valet. I have sent him to meet you. I want to settle our business to-night, and I am certain that we shall be able tomake some satisfactory arrangement. I know you do not go to bed early.—Most sincerely yours,"Constantine Schuabe."
"Hotel Cecil.
"Dear Llwellyn,—Kindly excuse the suddenness of my request and come down to the Cecil with my valet. I have sent him to meet you. I want to settle our business to-night, and I am certain that we shall be able tomake some satisfactory arrangement. I know you do not go to bed early.—Most sincerely yours,
"Constantine Schuabe."
"This is a very sudden request," he said to the servant rather doubtfully, but somewhat reassured by the friendly signature of the note. "Why, it's two o'clock in the morning!"
"Extremely sorry to trouble you, sir," replied the valet civilly, "but my master's strict orders were that I should find you and deliver the note. He told me that you would probably be visiting at Bloomsbury Court Mansions, so I waited about, hoping to meet you. I brought thecoupé, sir, in case we should not be able to get you a cab."
Following the direction of his glance, Llwellyn saw that a small rubber-tired brougham to seat two people was coming slowly down the road. The coachman touched his hat as the Professor got in, and, turning down Charing Cross Road, in a few minutes they drove rapidly into the courtyard of the hotel.
Schuabe had not been established at the Cecil for any length of time. Though he owned a house in Curzon Street, this was let for a long period to Miss Mosenthal, his aunt, and he had hitherto lived in chambers at the Albany.
But he found the life at the hotel more convenient and suited to his temperament. His suite of rooms was one of the most costly even in that great river palace of to-day, but such considerations need never enter into his life.
The utter unquestioned freedom of such a life, its entire liberation from any restraint or convention, suited him exactly.
Llwellyn had never visited Schuabe in his private apartments before at any time. As he was driven easilyto the meeting he nerved himself for it, summoning up all his resolution. He swept aside the enervating influences of the last few hours.
Schuabe was waiting in the large sitting-room with balconies upon which he could look down upon the embankment and the river. It was his favourite among all the rooms of the suite.
He looked gravely and also a little curiously at the Professor as he entered the room. There was a question in his eyes; the guest had a sensation of being measured and weighed with some definite purpose.
The greeting was cordial enough. "I am very sorry, Llwellyn, to catch you suddenly like this," Schuabe said, "but I should like to settle the business between us without delay. I have certain proposals to make you, and if we agree upon them there will be much to consider, as the thing is a big one. But before we talk of this let me offer you something to eat."
The Professor had recovered his hunger. The chill of the night air, the sudden excitement of the summons, and, though he did not realise it, the absence of patchouli odours in his nostrils, had recalled an appetite.
The space and air of the huge room, with its high roof, was soothing after Bloomsbury Court Mansions.
Supper was spread for two on a little round table by the windows. Schuabe ate little, but watched the other with keen, detective eyes, talking meanwhile of ordinary, trivial things. Nothing escaped him, the little gleam of pleasure in Llwellyn's eyes at the freshness of the caviare, the Spanish olives he took with his partridge—rejecting the smaller French variety—the impassive watchful eyes saw it all.
It was too late for coffee, Llwellyn said, when the man brought it, in a long-handled brass pan from Constantinople, but he took akümmelinstead.
The two men faced each other on each side of the table. Both were smoking. For a moment there was silence; the critical time was at hand. Then Schuabe spoke. His voice was cold and steady and very businesslike. As he talked the voice seemed to wrap round Llwellyn like steel bands. There was something relentless and inevitable about it; bars seemed rising as he spoke.
"I am going to be quite frank with you, Llwellyn," he said, "and you will find it better to be quite frank with me."
He took a paper from the pocket of his smoking jacket and referred to it occasionally.
"You owe me now about fourteen thousand pounds?"
"Yes, it is roughly that."
"Please correct me if I am wrong in any point. Your salary at the British Museum is a thousand pounds a year, and you make about fifteen hundred more."
"Yes, about that, but how do you——"
"I have made it my business to know everything, Professor. For example, they are about to offer you knighthood."
Llwellyn stirred uneasily, and the hand which stretched out for another cigarette shook a little.
"I need hardly point out to you," the cold words went on, and a certain sternness began to enforce them, "I need hardly point out that if I were to take certain steps, your position would be utterly ruined."
"Bankruptcy need not entirely ruin a man."
"It would ruin you. You seeI know where the money has gone. Your private tastes are nothing to me, and it is not my business if you choose to spend a fortune on a cocotte. But in your position, as the very mainspring and arm of the Higher Criticism of the Bible, the revelations which would most certainly be made wouldruin you irreparably. Your official posts would all go at once, your name would become a public scandal everywhere. In England one may do just what one likes if only one does not in any way, by reason of position or attainments, belong to the nation. Youdobelong to the nation. You can never defy public opinion. With the ethical point of view I have nothing personally to do. But to speak plainly, in the eyes of the great mass of English people you would be stamped as an irredeemably vicious man, if everything came out. That is what they would call you. At one blow everything—knighthood, honour, place—all would flash away. Moreover, you would have to give up the other side of your life. There would be no more suppers with Phryne or rides to Richmond in the new motor-car."
He laughed, a low, contemptuous laugh which stung. Llwellyn's face had grown pale. His large, white fingers picked uneasily at the table-cloth.
His position was very clearly shown to him, with greater horror and vividness than ever it had come to him before, even in his moments of acutest depression.
The overthrow would be indeed utter and complete. With the greedy imagination of the sensualist he saw himself living in some cheap foreign town, Bruges perhaps, or Brussels, upon his wife's small income, bereft alike of work and pleasure.
"All you say is true," he murmured as the other made an end. "I am in your power. It is best to be plain about these things. What is your alternative?"
"My alternative, if you accept it, will mean certain changes to you. First of all, it will be necessary for you to obtain a year's leave from the British Museum. I had thought of asking you to resign your position, but that will not be necessary, I think, now. This can be arranged with a specialist easily enough. Even ifyour health does not really warrant it, a word from me to Sir James Fyfe will manage that. You will have to travel. In return for your services and your absolute secrecy—though when you hear my proposals you will realise that perhaps in the whole history of the world never was secrecy so important to any man's safety—I will do as follows. I will wipe off your debt at once. I will pay you ten thousand pounds in cash this week, and during the year, as may be agreed upon between us, I will make over forty thousand pounds more to you. In all fifty thousand pounds, exclusive of your debt."
His voice had not been raised, nor did it show any excitement during this tremendous proposal. The effect on Llwellyn was very different. He rose from his chair, trembling with excitement, staring with bloodshot eyes at the beautiful chiselled face below.
"You—youmeanit?" he said huskily.
The millionaire made a single confirmatory gesture.