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The Orchard of Tears

by Sax Rohmer · English · Gutenberg #27461 · 462,046 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Orchard of Tears

Author: Sax Rohmer


        
Release date: December 9, 2008 [eBook #27461]
                Most recently updated: January 4, 2021

Language: English

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THE ORCHARD OF TEARS

BY

SAX ROHMER

AUTHOR OF "DR. FU-MANCHU"


THIRD EDITION


METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON


_First Issued in this Cheap Form (Second Edition) July 14th, 1921 Third
Edition 1921_


_This Book was First Published (Crown 8vo) October 24th, 1918_




CONTENTS


                               PAGE

PART I
AT LOWER CHARLESWOOD              1

PART II
FLAMBY IN LONDON                 85

PART III
THE KEY                         173



TO THE SLAVES OF THE POMEGRANATE, SONS OF ADAM AND DAUGHTERS OF EVE, WHO
DRINK AT THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE, THIS CHALICE IS OFFERED AS A LOVING-CUP.




THE ORCHARD OF TEARS




PART FIRST

AT LOWER CHARLESWOOD


I

It was high noon of a perfect summer's day. Beneath green sun blinds,
upon the terrace overlooking the lawns, Paul Mario, having finished his
lunch, lay back against the cushions of a white deck-chair and studied
the prospect. Sloping turf, rose-gay paths, and lichened brick steps,
hollowed with age, zigzagging leisurely down to the fir avenue, carried
the eye onward again to where the river wound its way through verdant
banks toward the distant town.

A lark wooed the day with sweet music. Higher and ever higher rose the
little sun-worshipper, pouring out his rapturous hymn to Apollo.
Swallows, who but lately had crossed the battlefields of southern
Europe, glided around Hatton Towers, describing mystic figures in the
air, whilst the high feeble chirping of the younger generation sounded
from the nests beneath the eaves. Amid the climbing roses bees were
busy, their communal labours an object-lesson for self-seeking man; and
almost at Mario's feet a company of ants swarmed over the yet writhing
body of an unfortunate caterpillar, who had dropped from an apple-tree
to fall a prey to that savage natural law of death to the weak. The
harsh voice of a sentinel crow spoke from a neighbouring cornfield, and
a cloud of dusky marauders took the air instantly, and before the sharp
crack of the farmer's fowling-piece came to confirm the warning. In the
hush of noon the tones of some haymakers at their patriarchal labours in
a meadow beyond the stream were clearly audible--and the atmosphere
constantly vibrated with remote booming of guns on the Western front.

Paul Mario was sufficiently distinguished in appearance to have been a
person of no importance. His virile, curling black hair had the
raven's-wing sheen betraying remote Italian forebears, and for that
matter there was in his entire cast of countenance and the poise of his
fine head something statuesquely Roman, Southern, exotic. His large but
deep-set eyes were of so dark a blue as very generally to pass for
"black"; and whilst in some moods they were soft and dreamy, in others,
notably in moments of enthusiasm, they burnt darkly fierce in his pale
olive face. In profile there was a certain resemblance to the Vatican
head of Julius Caesar, save for the mouth, which had more gentle curves,
and which was not unlike that of Dante; but seen full-face, and allowing
for the fact that Paul Mario was clean-shaven, the likeness of feature
to the traditional Christ was startling. This resemblance is equally
notable in the face of Shakespeare.

Rather above medium height, well but slightly proportioned, the uneasy
spirit of the man ever looking out of those arresting eyes so wholly
dominated him as to create a false impression of fragility, of a casket
too frail to confine the burning, eager soul within. His emotions were
dynamic, and in his every mannerism there was distinction. The vein of
femininity which is found in all creative artists betrayed itself in one
item of Mario's attire: a white French knot, which slightly overlay the
lapels of his well-worn Norfolk jacket.

To the world's caricaturists, when Paul Mario, at the age of
twenty-six, had swept across the literary terrain, storming line after
line, the white knot had proved a boon. _Delilah_, a lyrical drama,
written in French, and first published in Paris, achieved for this
darling of Minerva a reputation which no man is entitled to expect
during his lifetime. Within twelve months of the date of publication it
had appeared in almost every civilised language, and had been staged in
New York, where it created a furore. Of _Madame Caligula_, a novel,
which followed it, thirty-one editions were subscribed in six days!

The miracle of Paul Mario's success was perhaps to be explained by the
neutrality of his genius. A passionate, elemental sympathy with all
nature, a seeming capacity to hear the language of the flowers, the
voices of the stars and to love and understand the lowliest things that
God has made, bore him straight to the heart of England as surely as it
swept his name into the holy of holies of artistic France, spoke to
Russia's sombre soul and temporarily revolutionised the literature of
the United States. His work belonged to no "school," and its charm was
not due to "style"; therefore his books lost little in translation, for
true genius speaks to every man in his own tongue.

Sympathetic atmosphere was as necessary to Paul Mario as pure air to the
general. Deliberate ugliness hurt him, and the ugliness which is the
handiwork of God aroused within him a yearning sorrow for poor humanity
who might be of the White Company, were it not for avarice, hate and
lust. The war, even in its earlier phases, stirred the ultimate deeps of
his nature, and knowing himself, since genius cannot be blind, for what
he was, a world power, a spiritual sword, he chafed and fretted in
enforced inactivity, striving valiantly to reconcile himself to the
ugliness of military life. Courted as only poets and actors are courted,
he was offered posts and commissions in bewildering variety; but all of
them he scornfully rejected. The insane injustice of such selection
enraged him.

A severe nervous lesion freed him from the galley-bench of a
training-camp, and sent him on a weary pilgrimage through the military
hospitals to discharge--and freedom; freedom, which to that ardent
nature proved to be irksome. For whilst the very springs of his genius
were dammed by the agony of a world in travail, he found himself outside
the mighty theatre, a mere bystander having no part in the rebirth of
humanity.


II

Someone was approaching along the path consecrated by a million weary
feet and still known as the Pilgrim's Way, someone who wore the ugly
uniform of a Guards officer (which is a sort of du Maurier survival
demanding Dundreary whiskers). He seemed to hesitate ere he turned
aside, opened the gate and began to mount those hundred and twenty mossy
steps which led up to the terrace.

The newcomer, whose tunic had seen much service, was a man perhaps two
or three years Paul Mario's senior, and already the bleaching hand of
Time had brushed his temples with furtive fingers. He was dark but of
sanguine colouring, now overlaid with a deep tan, wore a short military
moustache and possessed those humorous grey eyes which seem to detect in
all creation hues roseate and pleasing; eyes made for laughter and which
no man other than a good fellow ever owned.

Gaining the terrace and raising his hand to his cap in salute, the
officer smiled, and his smile fulfilled all the promise of the grey eyes
and would have brought a ray of sunshine into the deepest and darkest
cell of the Bastille itself.

"I believe I am trespassing," he began--then, as Paul Mario rose: "By
all that's gracious and wonderful, it's Paul!"

"Don!" exclaimed the other, and sprang forward in his own impetuous
fashion, grasping the newcomer by both shoulders and staring eagerly
into the suntanned face. "Dear old Don! A thousand welcomes, boy!" And
releasing his grip on the shoulders, he seized both hands and shook them
with a vigour that was not assumed but was merely an outlet for his
brimming emotions.

"Some kindly coy dryad of the woods has guided my footsteps to this
blessed spot," declared Don. "The last inn which I passed--observe my
selection of the word, passed--known, I believe, as the 'Pig and
Something-or-other,' is fully three sunny miles behind me. From the arid
and dusty path below I observed the siphon on your table----"

"And you determined to become a trespasser?" cried Paul Mario joyously,
pushing his friend into the cane rest-chair and preparing a drink for
him. "I will build an altar to your dryad, Don; for there is certainly
something miraculous in your appearance at Hatton Towers."

"When I have suitably reduced my temperature I will explain. But I have
yet to learn what _you_ are doing here. I had always understood that
Hatton Towers----"

"My dear fellow, it's mine!" cried Paul excitedly. "My Uncle Jacques
dramatically bequeathed this wonderful place to me, altering his will on
the day that I renounced the pen and entered an officer's training
corps. He was a remarkable old bachelor, Don----"

Don raised his hand, checking Paul's speech. "My dear Paul, you cannot
possibly amplify your own description of Sir Jacques, with which you
entertained us one evening in a certain top set at Oxford. Do you
remember those rooms, Paul?"

"Do I remember them!"

"_I_ do, and I remember your account of the saintly Uncle, for your
acquaintance had begun and terminated during a week of the previous
long vacation which you had spent here at Hatton. 'Uncle Jacques,' you
informed us, 'is a delightful survival, bearing a really remarkable
resemblance to a camel. Excepting his weakness for classic statuary and
studies in the nude, his life is of _Mayflower_ purity. He made his
fortune on the Baltic Exchange, was knighted owing to a clerical error,
and built the appalling church at Mid Hatton.'"

Paul laughed boyishly. "At least we were sincere in our youthful
cynicism, Don. You may add the note to your very accurate recollections
of Sir Jacques that on the publication of _Delilah_ he instructed his
butler to say that he was abroad whenever I might call!"

Fascinated as of old by his whimsical language, the cap-and-bells which
he loved to assume, Paul watched affectionately the smiling face of
Donald Courtier. Momentarily a faint tinge of melancholy had clouded the
gaiety of Don's grey eyes; for this chance meeting had conjured up
memories of a youth already slipping from his grasp, devoured by the
all-consuming war; memories of many a careless hour treasured now as
exquisite relics are treasured, of many a good fellow who would never
again load his pipe from Paul Mario's capacious, celebrated and
hospitable tobacco jar, as he, Don, was doing; of days of sheer indolent
joy, of nights of wild and carefree gladness.

"Good old Paul," he murmured, raising his glass. "Here's to the late Sir
Jacques. So you are out of it?"

Paul Mario nodded and took from the pocket of his threadbare golf jacket
the very twin of Don's curved and blackened briar, drawing towards him
the tobacco jar upon the table--a Mycenaean vase from the tomb of Rameses
III. A short silence fell between them.

"Frankly, I envy you," said Don suddenly, breaking the spell, "although
I realise that actually you have suffered as deeply as many a man who
has spent two years in the trenches. One cannot imagine the lyre of
Apollo attuned to What's-the-name's marches."

"Two years," echoed Paul; "is it really two years since we met?"

"Two years on June the twenty-second. On June the twenty-second,
nineteen hundred and fifteen, you saw me off from Victoria of hateful
memory. I have been home six or seven times in the interval, but somehow
or other have always missed you. I was appalled when I heard you had
joined. God knows we need such brains as yours, but they would be wasted
on the Somme; and genius is too rare to be exposed to the sniper's
bullet. What are you doing?"

The sympathy between the two was so perfect that Paul Mario knew the
question to refer not to his private plans but to his part in the world
drama.

"Beyond daily descending lower in my own esteem--nothing."

"Yet you might do so much."

"I know," said Paul Mario. "But--it awes me."

If his work had not already proved him, the genius of the man must have
been rendered apparent by his entire lack of false modesty. Praise and
censure alike left him uninfluenced--although few artists can exist
without a modicum of the former: he knew himself born to sway the minds
of millions and was half fearful of his self-knowledge. "I know," he
said, and pipe in hand he gazed wistfully across the valley.

A faint breeze crept through the fir avenue, bearing with it a muffled
booming sound which was sufficient to raise the curtain of
distance--never truly opaque for such as he--and to display to that
acute inner vision a reeking battlefield. Before his shuddering soul
defiled men maimed, blind, bleeding from ghastly hurts; men long dead.
Women he saw in lowly hovels, weeping over cots fashioned from rough
boxes; women, dry-eyed, mutely tragic, surrounded by softness, luxury
and servitude, wearing love gifts of a hand for ever stilled, dreaming
of lover-words whispered in a voice for ever mute. He seemed to float
spiritually over the whole world upon that wave of sound and to find the
whole world stricken, desolate, its fairness mockery and its music a
sob.

"At the moment, no doubt," said Don, "you feel as though you had been
knocked out of the ring in the first round. But this phase will pass.
The point is, that you never had any business in the ring at all. No
quarrel ever actually begins with a blow, and no quarrel was ever
terminated by one. Genius--perverted, I'll grant you, but nevertheless
genius--started this war; and we are English enough to think that we can
end it by brute force. Pass the matches."

"You are really of opinion," asked Paul dreamily, "that I should be
doing my utmost if I stuck to my last?"

"Unquestionably. There are a thousand and one things of vital interest
to all humanity which have not been said yet, which only you can say, a
thousand and one aspects of the Deluge not yet presented to the world.
Above all, Paul, there are millions of poor bereaved souls who suffer
dumbly and vaguely wonder for what crime they are being punished."

"Would you have me tell them that their faith, their churches, are to
blame?"

"Not necessarily. The churches will receive many a hard knock without
you adding your quota. Merry England has always nourished the
'Down-wither'; we breed the 'Down-withers'; and they will raise their
slogan of 'Down with everything' soon enough. I see your part, Paul, as
that of a reconstructor rather than a 'Down-wither.' Any fool can smash
a Ming pot but no man living to-day can make one. You think that the
churches have failed?"

"On the whole, yes. If we here in England are firm in our spiritual
faith, why are the churches empty at such an hour as this and the salons
of the crystal-gazers full?"

"Because we are _not_ firm in our spiritual faith. But many of us know
and admit that. The point is, can you tell us why, and indicate a
remedy?"

Paul Mario's expression grew wrapt, and he stared out over the valley
into a land which it is given to few ever to explore. "I believe I can,"
he answered softly; "but I dare not attempt such a task without the
unshakable conviction that mine is the chosen hand."

"I am glad to hear you say it; those doubts prove to me that you
recognise the power of your pen. They are fools who hold that a ton of
high-explosive is worth all the rhetoric of Cicero. It was not Krupps
who plunged the Central Empires into the pit, Paul, but Bernhardi,
Nietzsche and What's-his-name. Wagner's music has done more to form the
German character than Bismarck's diplomacy. Shakespeare's _Henry the
Fifth_ means more to England than Magna Charta."

"I agree."

"When the last of our marshals has stuck the last of his pins in the
last war map, all the belligerents will still be of the same opinion as
before the war began. The statesman of to-day is perhaps past praying
for, but your book will help to form the statesman of to-morrow."

"You dazzle me. You would make me the spiritual father of a new Europe."

"And a new America. Why not? You have heard the call and you are not the
man to shirk it. Lesser men than you have tried--all honour to them if
they were sincere--to voice the yearnings, the questions, the doubts, of
a generation that has outgrown its spiritual garments. All the world
feels, knows, that a new voice _must_ come soon. The world is waiting
for you, Paul."


III

Flamby Duveen lay flat amid the bluebells, one hand outstretched before
her and resting lightly upon a little mound of moss. It was a small
brown hand and she held it in such a manner, knuckles upward, and
imparted to it so cunning and peculiar a movement that it assumed quite
an uncanny resemblance to a tiny and shrinking hare.

Some four feet in front of her, at the edge of a small clearing in the
bluebell forest, from a clump of ferns two long silky ears upstood,
motionless, like twin sentries, and from between the thick stalks of the
flowers which intermingled with the ferns one round bright eye regarded
the moving hand fascinatedly.

Flamby's lips were pursed up and a soft low whistle quite peculiar in
tone caused the silky ears of the watching hare to twitch sharply. But
the little animal remained otherwise motionless and continued to study
the odd billowy motions of the brown hand with that eager wonder-bright
eye. The whistling continued, and the hare ventured forth from cover,
coming fully twelve inches nearer to Flamby. Flamby constrained her
breathing as much as was consistent with maintaining the magical
whistle. Her hand wriggled insinuatingly forward, revealing a round bare
arm, brown as a nut upon its outer curves and creamy on the inner.

The hypnotised subject ventured a foot nearer. Flamby's siren song grew
almost inaudible above the bird-calls of the surrounding wood, but it
held its sway over the fascinated hare, for the animal suddenly sprang
across the space intervening between himself and the mysterious hand
and sat studying that phenomenon at close quarters.

A little finger softly caressed one furry forepaw. Up went the hare's
ears again and his whole body grew rigid. The caress was continued,
however, and the animal grew to like it. Two gentle fingers passed
lightly along his back and he was thrilled ecstatically. Now, his silky
ears were grasped, firmly, confidently; and unresisting, he allowed
himself to be couched in the crook of a soft arm. His heart was beating
rapidly, but with a kind of joyous fear hitherto unknown and to which he
resigned himself without a struggle.

Flamby wriggled up on to her knees and holding the hare in her lap
petted the wild thing as though it had been some docile kitten. "Sweet
little Silk Ears," she whispered endearingly. "What a funny tiny tail!"

Quite contentedly now, the hare crouched, rubbing its blunt nose against
her hands and peering furtively up into her face and quickly down again.
Flamby studied the little creature with an oddly critical eye.

"Your funny ears go this way and that way," she murmured, raising one
hand and drawing imaginary lines in the air to illustrate her words; "so
and so. I never noticed before those little specks in your fur, Silk
Ears. They only show in some lights but they are there right enough. Now
I am going to study your tiny toes, Silky, and you don't have to be
afraid...."

Raising one of the hare's feet, Flamby peered at it closely, at the same
time continuing to caress the perfectly happy animal. She was so engaged
when suddenly up went the long ears, and uttering a faint cry resembling
an infant's whimper the hare sprang from her lap into the sea of
bluebells and instantly disappeared. A harsh grip fastened upon Flamby's
shoulder.

Lithely as one of the wild things with whom she was half kin and who
seemed to recognise the kinship, Flamby came to her feet, shaking off
the restraining hand, turned and confronted the man who had crept up
behind her.

He was an undersized, foxy fellow, dressed as a gamekeeper and carrying
a fowling-piece under one arm. His small eyes regarded her through
narrowed lids.

"So I've caught you at last, have I," he said; "caught you red-handed."

He suddenly seized her wrist and dragged her towards him. The bright
colour fled from Flamby's cheeks leaving her evenly dusky; but her grey
eyes flashed dangerously.

"Poachin', eh?" sneered the gamekeeper. "Same as your father."

Deliberately, and with calculated intent, Flamby raised her right foot,
shod in a clumsy, thick-soled shoe, and kicked the speaker on the knee.
He uttered a half-stifled cry of pain, releasing her wrist and clenching
his fist. But she leapt back from him with all the easy agility of a
young antelope.

"You're a blasted liar!" she screamed, her oval face now flushing darkly
so that her eyes seemed supernormally bright. "I wasn't poaching. My
father may have poached, but _you_ hadn't the pluck to try and stop him.
Guy Fawkes! Why don't you go and fight like he did?"

Fawkes--for this was indeed the keeper's name--sprang at her clumsily;
his knee was badly bruised. But Flamby eluded him with ease, gliding
behind the trunk of a friendly oak and peering out at the enraged man
elfishly.

"When are they going to burn you?" she inquired.

Fawkes laid his gun upon the ground, without removing his gaze from the
flushed mocking face, and began cautiously to advance. He was a man for
whom Flamby in the ordinary way entertained a profound contempt, but
there was that in his slinking foxy manner which vaguely disturbed her.
For long enough there had been wordy warfare between them, but to-day
Flamby realised that she had aroused something within the man which had
never hitherto shown upon the surface; and into his eyes had come a
light which since she had passed her thirteenth year she had sometimes
seen and hated in the eyes of men, but had never thought to see and fear
in the eyes of Fawkes. For the first time within her memory she realised
that Bluebell Hollow was a very lonely spot.

"You daren't hit me," she said, rather breathlessly. "I'd play hell."

"I don't want to hit you," replied Fawkes, still advancing; "but you're
goin' to pay for that kick."

"I'll pay with another," snapped Flamby, her fiery nature reasserting
itself momentarily.

But despite the bravado, she was half fearful, and therefore some of her
inherent woodcraft deserted her, so much so that not noting a tuft of
ferns which uprose almost at her heels, she stepped quickly back,
stumbled, and Fawkes had his arms about her, holding her close.

"Now what can you do?" he sneered, his crafty face very close to hers.

"This," breathed Flamby, her colour departing again.

She seized his ear in her teeth and bit him savagely. Fawkes uttered a
hoarse scream of pain, and a second time released her, clapping his hand
to the wounded member.

"You damned witch cat," he said. "I could kill you."

Flamby leapt from him, panting. "You couldn't!" she taunted. "All you
can kill is rabbits!"

Through an opening in the dense greenwood a ray of sunlight spilled its
gold upon the carpet of Bluebell Hollow, and Flamby stood, defiant, head
thrown back, where the edge of the ray touched her wonderful, disordered
hair and magically turned it to sombre fire. Venomous yet, but doubtful,
Fawkes confronted her, now holding his handkerchief to his ear. And so
the pair were posed when Paul Mario and Donald Courtier came down the
steep path skirting the dell. Don grasped Paul by the arm.

"As I live," he said, "there surely is my kindly coy nymph of the
woods--now divinely visible--who led me to your doors!"

Together they stood, enchanted by the girl's wild beauty, which that
wonderful setting enhanced. But Flamby had heard their approach, and,
flinging one rapid glance in their direction, she ran off up a sloping
aisle of greenwood and was lost to view.

At the same moment Fawkes, hitherto invisible from the path, stooped to
recover his fowling-piece and turned, looking up at the intruders.
Recognising Paul Mario, he raised the peak of his cap and began to climb
the dell-side, head lowered shamefacedly.

"It's Fawkes," said Paul--"Uncle Jacques' gamekeeper. Presumably this
wood belonged to him."

"Lucky man," replied Don. "Did he also own the wood-nymphs?"

Paul laughed suddenly and boyishly, as was his wont, and nodded to
Fawkes when the latter climbed up on to the path beside them. "You are
Luke Fawkes, are you not?" he asked. "I recall seeing you yesterday with
the others."

"Yes, sir," answered Fawkes, again raising the peak of his cap.

Having so spoken Fawkes become like a man of stone, standing before
them, gaze averted, as a detected criminal. One might have supposed that
a bloody secret gnawed at the bosom of Fawkes; but his private life was
blameless and his past above reproach. His wife acted as charwoman at
the church built by Sir Jacques.

"Did you not observe a certain nymph among the bluebells, Fawkes?" asked
Don whimsically.

At the first syllable Fawkes sprang into an attitude of alert and
fearful attention, listened as to the pronouncement of a foreman juror,
and replied, "No, sir," with the relieved air of a man surprised to find
himself still living. "I see Flamby Duveen, I did," he continued, in his
reedy voice--"poachin', same as her father...."

"Poachin'--same as her father," came a weird echo from the wood.

Paul and Don stared at one another questioningly, but Fawkes' sandy
countenance assumed a deeper hue.

"She's the worst character in these parts," he went on hastily. "Bad as
her father, she is."

"Father, she is," mocked the echo.

"She'll come to a bad end," declared the now scarlet Fawkes.

"A bad end," concurred the magical echo, its accent and intonation
eerily reproducing those of the gamekeeper. Then: "Whose wife stole the
key of the poor-box?" inquired the spirit voice, and finally: "When are
they going to burn you?"

At that Don succumbed to uncontrollable laughter, and Paul had much ado
to preserve his gravity.

"She appears to be very young, Fawkes," he said gently; "little more
than a child. High spirits are proper and natural after all; but, of
course I appreciate the difficulties of your position. Good day."

"Good day, sir," said Fawkes, again momentarily relieved apparently from
the sense of impending harm. "Good day, sir." He raised the peak of his
cap, turned and resumed his slinking progress.

"A strange coincidence," commented Don, taking Paul's arm.

"You are pursuing your fancy about the nymph visible and invisible?"

"Not entirely, Paul. But you may remember, if the incident has not
banished the fact from your mind, that you are at present conducting me,
at my request, to Something-or-other Cottage, which I had failed to find
unassisted."

"Quite so. We are almost there. Yonder is Babylon Lane, which I
understand is part of my legacy. Dovelands Cottage, I believe, is
situated about half-way along it."

"Babylon Lane," mused Don. "Why so named?"

"That I cannot tell you. The name of Babylon invariably conjures up
strange pictures of pagan feasts, don't you find? The mere sound of the
word is sufficient to transport us to the great temple of Ishtar, and to
dazzle our imagination with processions of flower-crowned priestesses.
Heaven alone knows by what odd freak this peaceful lane was named after
the city of Semiramis. But you were speaking of a coincidence."

"Yes, it is the mother of the nymph, Flamby, that I am going to visit;
the Widow Duveen."

"Then this girl with the siren hair is she of whom you spoke?"

"Evidently none other. I told you, Paul, that I bore a message from her
father, given to me under pledge of secrecy as he lay dying, to her
mother. Paul, the man's life was a romance--a tragic romance. I cannot
divulge his secrets, but his name was not Duveen; he was a cadet of one
of the oldest families in Ireland."

"You interest me intensely. He seems to have been a wild fellow."

"Wild, indeed; and drink was his ruin. But he was a man, and by birth a
gentleman. I am anxious to meet his widow."

"Of course, she knows of his death?"

"Oh, you need fear no distressing scenes, Paul. I remember how the grief
of others affects you. He died six months ago."

"It affects me, Don, when I can do nothing to lessen it. Before helpless
grief I find myself abashed, afraid, as before a great mystery--which it
is. Only one day last week, passing through a poor quarter of South
London, my cab was delayed almost beside a solitary funeral coach which
followed a hearse. The coffin bore one poor humble little wreath. In the
coach sat a woman, a young woman, alone--and hers was the wreath upon
the coffin, her husband's coffin. He had died after discharge from a
military hospital; so much I learned from the cabman, who had known the
couple. She sat there dry-eyed and staring straight before her. No one
took the slightest notice of the hearse, or of the lonely mourner. Don,
that woman's face still haunts me. Perhaps he had been a blackguard--I
gathered that he had; but he was her man, and she had lost him, and the
world was empty for her. No pompous state funeral could have embodied
such tragedy as that solitary figure following the spectre of her
vanished joy."

Don turned impulsively to the speaker. "You dear old sentimentalist," he
said; "do you really continue to believe in the faith of woman?"

Paul glanced aside at him. "Had I ever doubted it, Yvonne would have
reassured me. Wait until you meet a Yvonne, old man; then _I_ shall ask
_you_ if you really continue to believe in the faith of woman. Here we
are."


IV

A trellis-covered path canopied with roses led up to the door of
Dovelands Cottage. On the left was a low lichened wall, and on the right
a bed of flowers bordering a trimly kept lawn, which faced the rustic
porch. Dovelands Cottage was entirely screened from the view of anyone
passing along Babylon Lane by a high and dense privet hedge, which
carried on its unbroken barrier to the end of the tiny orchard and
kitchen-garden flanking the bungalow building on the left.

As Paul opened the white gate a cattle-bell attached to it jangled
warningly, and out into the porch Mrs. Duveen came to meet them. She was
a tiny woman, having a complexion like a shrivelled pippin, and the
general appearance of a Zingari, for she wore huge ear-rings and
possessed shrewd eyes of Oriental shape and colour. There was a bluish
tinge about her lips, and she had a trick of pressing one labour-gnarled
hand to her breast. She curtsied quaintly.

Paul greeted her with the charming courtesy which he observed towards
everyone.

"Mrs. Duveen, I believe? I am Paul Mario, and this is Captain Courtier,
who has a message to give to you. I fear we may have come at an awkward
hour, but Captain Courtier's time is unfortunately limited."

Mrs. Duveen repeated the curtsey. "Will it please you to step in, sirs,"
she said, her eyes fixed upon Don's face in a sort of eager scrutiny.
"It is surely kind of you to come, sir"--to Don.

They entered a small living room, stuffy because of the
characteristically closed windows, but marked by a neatness of its
appointments for which the gipsy appearance of Mrs. Duveen had not
prepared them. There were several unframed drawings in pastel and
water-colour, of birds and animals, upon the walls, and above the little
mantelshelf hung a gleaming German helmet, surmounted by a golden eagle.
On the mantelshelf itself were fuses, bombs and shell-cases, a china
clock under a glass dome, and a cabinet photograph of a handsome man in
the uniform of a sergeant of Irish Guards. Before the clock, and resting
against it so as to occupy the place of honour, was a silver cigarette
case.

Don's eyes, as his gaze fell on this last ornament, grew unaccountably
misty, and he turned aside, staring out of the low window. Mrs. Duveen,
who throughout the time that she had been placing chairs for her
visitors (first dusting the seats with her apron) had watched the
captain constantly, at the same moment burst into tears.

"God bless you for coming, sir," she sobbed. "Michael loved the ground
you walked on, and he'd have been a happy man to-day to have seen you
here in his own house."

Don made no reply, continuing to stare out of the window, and Mrs.
Duveen cried, silently now. Presently Paul caught his friend's eye and
mutely conveying warning of his intention, rose.

"Your grief does you honour, Mrs. Duveen," he said. "Your husband was
one I should have been proud to call my friend, and I envy Captain
Courtier the memory of such a comrade. There are confidences upon which
it is not proper that I should intrude; therefore, with your permission,
I am going to admire your charming garden until you wish me to rejoin
you."

Bareheaded, he stepped out through the porch and on to the trim lawn,
noting in passing that the home-made bookshelf beside the door bore
copies of Shakespeare, Homer, Horace and other volumes rarely found in a
workman's abode. Lempriere's _Classical Dictionary_ was there, and
Kipling's _Jungle Book_, Darwin's _Origin of Species_, and Selous'
_Romance of Insect Life_. Assuredly, Sergeant Duveen had been a strange
man.

       *       *       *       *       *

Some twenty minutes later the widow came out, followed by Don. Mrs.
Duveen's eyes were red, but she had recovered her composure, and now
held in her hand the silver cigarette case from the mantelpiece.

"May I show you this, sir," she said, repeating her quaint curtsey to
Paul. "Michael valued it more than anything he possessed."

Paul took the case from her hand and examined the inscription:

  To Sergeant Michael Duveen,
  -- Company, Irish Guards,
  from Captain Donald Courtier,
  in memory of February 9th, 1916.

Opening the case, he found it to contain a photograph of Don. The
latter, who was watching him, spoke:

"My affairs would have terminated on February the ninth, Paul, if Duveen
had not been there. He was pipped twice."

"His honour doesn't tell you, sir," added Mrs. Duveen, "that he brought
Michael in on his back with the bullets thick around him."

"Oh! oh!" cried Don gaily. "So that's the story, is it! Well, never
mind, Mrs. Duveen; it was all in the day's work. What the Sergeant did
deserved the V.C., and he'd have had it if I could have got it for him.
What I did was no more than the duty of a stretcher-bearer."

Mrs. Duveen shook her head, smiling wanly, the thin hand pressed to her
breast. "I'm sorry you couldn't meet Flamby, sir," she said. "She should
have been home before this."

"No matter," replied Don. "I shall look forward to meeting her on my
next visit."

They took their departure, Mrs. Duveen accompanying them to the gate and
watching Don as long as he remained in sight.

"Did you observe the drawings on the wall?" he asked Paul, as they
pursued their way along Babylon Lane.

"I did. They were original and seemed to be interesting."

"Remarkably so; and they are the work of our wood nymph."

"Really! Where can she have acquired her art?"

"From her father, I gather. Paul, I am keenly disappointed to have
missed Flamby. The child of such singularly ill-assorted parents could
not well fail to be unusual. I wonder if the girl suspects that her
father was not what he seemed? Mrs. Duveen has always taken the fact for
granted that her husband was a nobleman in disguise! It may account for
her adoration of a man who seems to have led her a hell of a life. I
have placed in her hands a certain locket which Duveen wore attached to
a chain about his neck; I believe that it contains evidence of his real
identity, but he clearly intended his wife to remain in perpetual
ignorance of this, for the locket is never to be opened except by
Flamby, and only by Flamby on the day of her wedding. I fear this
popular-novel theme will offend your aesthetic sensibilities, Paul!"

"My dear fellow, I am rapidly approaching the conclusion that life is
made up more of melodrama than of psychological hair-splitting and that
the penmen dear to the servants' hall more truly portray it than Henry
James ever hoped to do or Meredith attempted. The art of to-day is the
art of deliberate avoidance of the violent, and many critics persist in
confusing it with truth. There is nothing precious about selfish,
covetous, lustful humanity; therefore, good literature creates a refined
humanity of its own, which converses in polished periods and never comes
to blows."

"What of _Madame Caligula_? And what of the critics who hailed
_Francesca of the Lilies_ as a tragedy worthy to name with _Othello_!"

"Primitive passions are acceptable if clothed in doublet and hose, Don.
My quarrel with to-day is that it pretends to have lived them down."

"Let us give credit where credit is due. Prussia has not hesitated to
proclaim her sympathy with the primitive. Did you observe an
eagle-crowned helmet above Mrs. Duveen's fireplace?"

"Yes; you know its history?"

"Some part of its history. It was worn by a huge Prussian officer, who,
together with his staff, was surprised and captured during the
operations of March 1st, 1916; a delightful little coup. I believe I
told you that Sergeant Duveen had been degraded, but had afterwards
recovered his stripes?"

"You did, yes."

"It was this incident which led to his losing them. He was taking
particulars of rank and so forth of the prisoners, and this imposing
fellow with the golden helmet stood in front of all the others, arms
folded, head aloft, disdainfully surveying his surroundings. He spoke
perfect English and when Duveen asked him his name and rank and
requested him to hand over the sword he was wearing, he bluntly refused
to have any dealings whatever with a 'damned common sergeant.' Those
were his own words.

"Duveen very patiently pointed out that he was merely performing a duty
for which he had been detailed and added that he resented the Prussian's
language and should have resented it from one of his own officers. He
then repeated the request. The Prussian replied that if he had him in
his own lines he would tie him to a gun and flog him to death.

"Duveen stood up and walked around the empty case which was doing
service as a table. He stepped up to take the sword which the other had
refused to surrender; whereupon the Prussian very promptly and skilfully
knocked him down. Immediately some of the boys made a rush, but Duveen,
staggering to his feet, waved them back. He deliberately unbuttoned his
tunic, took off his cap and unhitching his braces, fastened his belt
around his waist. To everybody's surprise the lordly Prussian did
likewise. A ring was formed and a fight began that would have brought
in the roof of the National Sporting Club!

"Feeling ran high against the Prussian, but he was a bigger man than
Duveen and a magnificent boxer. Excited betting was in full swing when I
appeared on the scene. Of course my duty was plain. But I had young
Conroy with me and he pulled me aside before the men saw us.

"'Five to one in fivers on the sergeant!' he said.

"I declined the bet, for I knew something of Duveen's form; but I did
not interrupt the fight! And, by gad! it was a splendid fight! It lasted
for seventeen minutes without an interval, and Duveen could never have
stayed another two, I'll swear, when the Prussian made the mistake of
closing with him. I knew it was finished then. Duveen got in his pet
hook with the right and fairly lifted his opponent out of the sentient
world.

"I felt like cheering; but before I could retire Duveen turned, a bloody
sight, and looked at me, out of puffy eyes. He sprang to attention, and
'I am your prisoner, sir,' said he.

"That left me no way out, and I had to put him under arrest. Just as he
was staggering off between his guards the Prussian recovered
consciousness and managed to get upon his feet. His gaze falling on
Duveen, he held out one huge hand to him--"

"Good! he was a sportsman after all!"

"Duveen took it--and the Prussian, grasping that dangerous right of the
sergeant's in his iron grip, struck him under the ear with his left and
knocked him insensible across the improvised table!"

Paul pulled up in the roadway, his dark eyes flashing: "The swine!" he
exclaimed--"the--ee swine!"

"I had all my work cut out then to keep the men off the fellow. But
finally a car came for him he was the Grand Duke of Something or
other--and he was driven back to the base. He had resumed his golden
helmet, and he sat, in spite of his bloody face, scornfully glancing at
the hostile group about the car, like a conquering pagan emperor. Then
the car moved off out of the heap of rubbish, once a village, amid which
the incident had taken place. At the same moment, a brick, accurately
thrown, sent the golden helmet spinning into the road!

"Search was made for it, but the helmet was never found. I don't _know_
who threw the brick, Paul (Duveen was under arrest at the time), but
that is the helmet above his widow's mantelpiece! The men who have
witnessed incidents of this kind will no longer continue to believe in
the veneer of modern life, for they will know that the true savage lies
hidden somewhere underneath."

       *       *       *       *       *

They were come to the end of Babylon Lane and stood now upon the London
road. Above the cornfield on the right hovered a sweet-voiced lark and
the wild hedges were astir with active bird life. Velvet bees droned on
their way and the air was laden with the fragrance of an English summer.
Along the road flashed a motor bicycle, bearing a khaki-clad messenger
and above the distant town flew a Farman biplane gleaming in the
sunlight. The remote strains of a military band were audible.

"The Roman road," mused Don, "constructed in the misty unimaginable
past, for war, and used by us to-day--for war. Oh, lud! in a week I
shall be in the thick of it again. Babylon Hall? Who resides at that
imposing mansion, Paul?"

They stood before the open gates of a fine Georgian building, lying far
back from the road amid neatly striped lawns and well-kept gardens.

"The celebrated Jules Thessaly, I believe," replied Paul; "but I have
never met him."

"Jules Thessaly! Really? I met him only three months ago near Bethune
(a neighbourhood which I always associate with Milady and the headsman
in _The Three Musketeers_)."

"What was he doing in Bethune?"

"What does he do anywhere? He was visiting the French and British
fronts, accompanied by an imposing array of 'Staffs.' He has tremendous
influence of some kind--financial probably."

"An interesting character. I hope we may meet. By the way, do you manage
to do much work nowadays? I rarely see your name."

"It is impossible to do anything but war stuff, Paul, when one is in the
middle of it. You saw the set of drawings I did for _The Courier_?"

"Yes; I thought them fine. I have them in album form. They were
excellently noticed throughout the press."

Don's face assumed an expression of whimsical disgust. "There is a
certain type of critic," he said "who properly ought to have been a
wardrobe dealer: he is eternally reaching down the 'mantle' of somebody
or other and assuring the victim of his kindness that it fits him like a
glove. Now no man can make a show in a second-hand outfit, and an artist
is lost when folks begin to talk about the 'mantle' of somebody or other
having 'fallen upon him.' A critic can do nothing so unkind as to brand
a poor poet 'The Australian Kipling,' a painter 'The Welsh Whistler,' or
a comedian 'The George Robey of South Africa.' The man is doomed."

"And what particular offender has inspired this outburst?"

"Some silly ass who has dubbed me 'the Dana Gibson of the trenches'!
It's a miserable outrage; my work isn't a scrap like Gibson's; it's not
so well drawn, for one thing, and it doesn't even remotely resemble his
in form. But never mind. When I come back I'll show 'em! What I
particularly want to ask you, Paul, is to get in touch with Duveen's
girl; she has really remarkable talent. I have never seen such an
insight into wild life as is exhibited in her rough drawings. I fear I
shall be unable to come down here again. There are hosts of sisters,
cousins and aunts, all of whom expect to be taken to the latest musical
play or for a week-end to Brighton: that's how we victimised bachelors
spend our hard-earned leave! But I promised Duveen I would do all in my
power for his daughter. It would be intolerable for a girl of that kind
to be left to run wild here, and I am fortunately well placed to help
her as she chances to be a fellow-painter. Will you find out all about
her, Paul, and let me know if we can arrange for her to study properly?"

"You really consider that she has talent?"

"My dear fellow! go and inspect her work for yourself. Considering her
limited opportunities, it is wonderful."

"Rely upon me, Don. She shall have her chance."

Don grasped his arm. "Tell Mrs. Duveen that she will receive a special
allowance on account of her husband's services," he said, bending
towards Paul. "Don't worry about expenses. You understand?"

"My dear Don, of course I understand. But I insist upon sharing this
protegee with you. Oh, I shall take no refusal. My gratitude to the man
who saved my best pal _must_ find an outlet! So say no more. Do you
return to London to-night?"

"Unfortunately, yes. But you must arrange to spend a day, or at any rate
an evening, with me in town before my leave expires. Are you thinking of
taking up your residence at Hatton Towers?"

Paul made a gesture of indecision. "It is a lovely old place," he said;
"but I feel that I need to be in touch with the pulse of life, if I am
to diagnose its ailments. Latterly London has become distasteful to me;
it seems like a huge mirror reflecting all the horrors, the shams, the
vices of the poor scarred world. To retire to Hatton in the
companionship of Yvonne would be delightful, but would also be
desertion. No idle chance brought us together to-day, Don; it was that
Kismet to which the Arab ascribes every act of life. I was hesitating on
a brink; you pushed me over; and at this very hour I am falling into the
arms of Fate. I believe it is my appointed task to sow the seed of
truth; a mighty task, but because at last I realise its dimensions I
begin to have confidence that I may succeed."

Don stood still in the road, facing Paul. "Choose your seed with care,
Paul, for generations yet unborn will eat of its fruit."


V

Paul Mario dined alone in the small breakfast-room overlooking the
sloping lawns, waited upon by Davison, the late Sir Jacques' butler, a
useful but melancholy servant, having the demeanour of a churchwarden
and a habit of glancing rapidly under tables and chairs as though he had
mislaid a cassock or a Book of Common Prayer. The huge, gloomy
dining-room oppressed the new owner of Hatton Towers, being laden with
the atmosphere of a Primitive Methodist Sunday School.

Sir Jacques had been Paul's maternal uncle, and Paul had often wondered
if there could have been anything in common between his mother--whom he
had never known--and this smug Pharisee. His father, who had died whilst
Paul was at Oxford, had rarely spoken of Paul's mother; but Paul had
chanced to overhear an old clubman refer to her as having possessed "the
most fascinating ankles in London." The remark had confirmed his earlier
impression that his mother had been a joyous butterfly. For his father,
a profound but sombre scholar, he cherished a reverence which was almost
Roman in its character. His portrait in oils occupied the place of
honour in Paul's study, and figuratively it was a shrine before which
there ever burned the fires of a deathless love and admiration.

       *       *       *       *       *

Paul's acute response to environment rendered him ill at ease in Hatton
Towers. The legacy embarrassed him. He hated to be so deeply indebted to
a man he could never repay and from whom he would not willingly have
accepted the lightest favour. It has been truly said that the
concupiscence of the eye outlives desire. Tiberius succumbed to
premature senility (and was strangled by Macro) in a bedchamber
decorated with figures from the works of Elephantis; and Sir Jacques'
secret library, which he had omitted to destroy or disperse, bore
evidence to the whited sepulchre of his intellectual life.

This atmosphere was disturbing. Paul could have worked at Hatton Towers,
but not upon the mighty human theme with which at that hour his mind was
pregnant. For his intellect was like a sensitive plate upon which the
thoughts of those who had lived and longed and died in whatever spot he
might find himself, were reproduced eerily, almost clairvoyantly. It was
necessary that he should work amid sympathetic colour--that he should
appropriately set the stage for the play; and Fame having coming to him,
not empty-handed but laden with gold, he made those settings opulent.

He did spontaneously the things that lesser men do at behest of their
press-agents. The passionate mediaeval tragedy _Francesca of the
Lilies_, destined to enshrine his name in the temple of the masters, he
wrote at the haunted Palazzo Concini in Tuscany, where, behind tomb-like
doors, iron-studded and ominous, he worked in a low-beamed windowless
room at a table which had belonged to Gilles de Rais, and by light of
three bronze lamps found in the ruins of the Mamertine dungeons.

For company he had undying memories of sins so black that only the
silent Vatican archives held record of them; memories of unholy loves,
of deaths whose manner may not be written, of births whereat the angels
shuddered. Torch-scarred walls and worm-tunnelled furniture whispered
their secrets to him, rusty daggers confessed their bloody histories,
and a vial still bearing ghastly frost of Borgian _contarella_ spoke of
a virgin martyr and of a princely cardinal whose deeds were forgotten by
all save Mother Church. Paul's genius was absorbent, fructiferous,
prolific of golden dreams.

But the atmosphere of Hatton Towers stifled inspiration, was definitely
antagonistic. The portrait of the late Sir Jacques, in the dining-room,
seemed to dominate the house, as St. Peter's dominates Rome, or even as
the Pyramids dominate Lower Egypt. The scanty beard and small eyes; the
flat, fleshy nose; the indeterminable, mask-like expression; all were
faithfully reproduced by the celebrated academician--and humorist--who
had executed the painting. Soft black hat, flat black tie, and
ill-fitting frock coat might readily have been identified by the
respectable but unfashionable tradesmen patronised by Sir Jacques.

Paul, pipe in mouth, confronting the likeness after dinner, recalled,
and smiled at the recollection, a saying of Don's: "Never trust a
whiskered man who wears a soft black felt hat and a black frock coat.
The hat conceals the horns; the coat hides the tail!"

From room to room he rambled, and even up into the octagonal turret
chambers in the tower. Here he seemed to be rid of the aura of the
dining-room portrait and in a rarefied atmosphere of Tudor turbulence.
In one of the turret chambers, that overlooking the orchard, he found
himself surveying the distant parkland with the eyes of a captive and
longing for the coming of one who ever tarried yet was ever expected.
The long narrow gallery over the main entrance, with its six mullioned
windows and fine collection of paintings, retained, as a jar that has
held musk retains its scent, a faint perfume of Jacobean gallantry. But
the pictures, many of them undraped studies collected by Sir Jacques,
which now held the place once sacred to ancestors, cast upon the gallery
a vague shadow of the soft black hat.

From a tiny cabinet at one end of the gallery a stair led down to my
lady's garden where bushes masqueraded as birds, a sundial questioned
the smiling moon and a gathering of young frogs leapt hastily from the
stone fountain at sound of Paul's footsteps. Monkish herbs and
sweet-smelling old-world flowers grew modestly in this domain once
sacred to the chatelaine of Hatton; and Paul kept ghostly tryst with a
white-shouldered lady whose hair was dressed high upon her head, and
powdered withal, and to whose bewitching red lips the amorous glance was
drawn by a patch cunningly placed beside a dimple. My lady's garden was
a reliquary of soft whispers, and Paul by the magic of his genius
reclaimed them all and was at once the lover and the mistress.

In the depths of the house he found a delightful dungeon. More modern
occupiers of Hatton had used the dungeon as a wine-cellar and Sir
Jacques had converted it to the purposes of a dark-room, for he had been
a skilful and enthusiastic amateur of photography; but that it had at
some period of its history served other ends, Paul's uncanny instinct
told him. A sense of chill, not physical, indeed almost impersonal,
attacked him as he entered, hurricane-lantern aloft. For the poet that
informed his lightest action dictated that the ray of a lantern and not
the glare of a modern electric appliance should illuminate that
memory-haunted spot.

Gyves fastened up his limbs and dread of some cruel doom struck at his
heart as he stooped to enter the place. Here again the powerful
influence of Sir Jacques was imperceptible; the dungeon lay under the
spell of a stronger and darker personality; and as he curiously examined
its structure and form, to learn that it was older than the oldest part
of the house above, he knew himself to be in a survival of some
forgotten stronghold upon whose ashes a Tudor mansion had been reared.
Searing irons glared before his eyes; in a dim, arched corner a brazier
glowed dully; ropes creaked.

Returning to the library, he found himself again within the aura of his
departed uncle. It was in this book-lined apartment that Sir Jacques had
transacted the affairs of the ugly little church at Mid Hatton and the
volumes burdening the leather-edged shelves were of a character meet for
the eye of an elder. The smaller erotic collection in the locked bureau
in the study presumably had companioned Sir Jacques' more leisured
hours.

Paul sank into a deep, padded arm-chair. The library of Hatton Towers
was in the south-east wing, and now because of the night's stillness dim
booming of distant guns was audible. A mood of reflection claimed him,
and from it he sank into sleep, to dream of the portrait of Sir Jacques
which seemed to have become transparent, so that the camel-like head now
appeared, as in those monstrous postcard caricatures which at one time
flooded the Paris shops, to be composed of writhing nudities cunningly
intertwined, of wanton arms, and floating locks and leering woman-faces.


VI

Through the sun-gay gardens, wet with dew, Paul made his way on the
following morning. The songs of the birds delighted him and the homely
voices of cattle in the meadows were musical because the skies were
blue. A beetle crawled laboriously across the gravel path before him,
and he stepped aside to avoid crushing it; a ladybird discovered on the
brim of his hat had to be safely deposited on a rose bush, nor in
performing this act of charity did he disturb the web of a small spider
who resided hard by. Because the flame of life burnt high within him, he
loved all life to-day.

The world grew blind in its old age, reverencing a man-hewn symbol, a
fragment of wood, a sacerdotal ring, when the emblem of creation, of
being, the very glory of God made manifest, hung resplendent in the
heavens! Men scoffed at miracles, and the greatest miracle of all rose
daily before their eyes; questioned the source of life, and every blade
of grass pointed upward to it, every flower raised its face adoring it;
doubted eternity whilst the eternal flames that ever were, are and ever
shall be, burned above their heads! Those nameless priests of a vanished
creed who made Stonehenge, drew nearer perhaps to the Divine mystery
than modern dogma recognised.

So ran his thoughts, for on a sunny morning, although perhaps
sub-consciously, every man becomes a fire-worshipper. Then came the dim
booming--and a new train of reflection. Beneath the joyous heavens men
moiled and sweated at the task of slaying. Doubting souls, great
companies of them, even now were being loosed upon their mystic journey.
Man slew man, beast slew beast, and insect devoured insect. The tiny red
beetle that he had placed upon the rose bush existed only by the death
of the aphides which were its prey; the spider, too, preyed. But man was
the master slayer. It was jungle law--the law of the wilderness
miscalled life; which really was not life but a striving after life.

Realising, anew, how wildly astray from simple truth the world had
wandered, how ridiculous were the bickerings which passed for religious
thought, how puerile, inadequate, the dogmas that men named creeds, he
trembled spiritually before the magnitude of his task. He doubted his
strength and the purity of his motives. "Any fool can smash a Ming pot,
but no man living to-day can make one." Dear old Don had a way of
saying quaint things that meant much. The world was very fair to look
upon; but for some odd reason a mental picture of Damascus seen from the
Lebanon Mountains arose before him. Perhaps that was how the world
looked to the gods--until they sought to live in it.

       *       *       *       *       *

Coming out into the narrow winding lane beyond the lodge gates, Paul saw
ahead of him a shambling downcast figure, proceeding up the slope.

"Good morning, Fawkes," he called.

Fawkes stopped as suddenly as Lot's wife, but unlike Lot's wife without
looking around, and stood in the road as rigid as she. Paul came up to
his side, and the gamekeeper guiltily raised the peak of his cap and
remained standing there silent and downcast.

"A glorious morning, Fawkes," said Paul, cheerily.

"Yes, sir," agreed Fawkes, his breath bated.

"I want to tell you," continued Paul, "whilst I remember, that Mrs.
Duveen's daughter, Flamby, is to be allowed to come and go as she likes
anywhere about the place. She does no harm, Fawkes; she is a student of
wild life and should be encouraged."

Fawkes' face assumed an expression of complete bewilderment. "Yes, sir,"
he said, his reedy voice unsteady; "as you wish, sir. But I don't know
about not doing no harm. She spoils all the shootin', alarms the birds
and throws things at the beaters, she does; and this year she stopped
the hounds, she did."

"Stopped the hounds, Fawkes?"

"Yes, sir. The fox he ran to cover down Babylon Lane, and right into
Dovelands Cottage. The hounds come through the hedge hard after him,
they did, and all the pack jumped the gate and streamed into the garden.
Colonel Wycherley and Lady James and old John Darbey, the huntsman, they
was close on the pack, and they all three took the gate above Coates'
Farm and come up in a bunch, you might say."

Fawkes paused, glanced guiltily at Paul's face, and, reassured, lowered
his head again and raced through the remainder of his story
breathlessly.

"Flamby, she was peelin' potatoes in the porch, and she jumps up and
runs down to the gate all on fire. The hounds was bayin' all round her
as fierce as tigers, and she took no more notice of 'em than if they'd
been flies. She see old John first, and she calls to him to get the pack
out of the garden, in a way it isn't for me to say...."

"On the contrary, Fawkes, I take an interest in Flamby Duveen, and I
wish to hear exactly what she said."

"Well, sir, if you please, sir, she hollers: 'Call your blasted dogs out
of my garden, John Darbey!'

"'The fox is a-hiding somewhere here,' says John.

"'To hell with the fox and you, too!' shouts Flamby, and pickin' up a
big stick that's lyin' on the ground, she slips into them dogs like a
mad thing. I'm told everybody was sure they'd attack her; but would you
believe it, sir, she chased 'em out like a flock of sheep. She don't hit
like a girl, Flamby don't; she means it."

"She loves animals, Fawkes, and knows them; therefore she has great
influence over them. I don't suppose one of them was hurt."

"Anyway, sir, she got 'em all out in the lane and stood lookin' over the
gate. John Darbey he was speechless in his saddle, like, but Lady James
she told Flamby what she thought about her."

Fawkes paused for breath and darted a second furtive glance at Paul.

"Proceed, Fawkes," directed the latter. "What was the end of the
episode?"

"Well, sir, Flamby answered her back, but it's not for me to repeat what
she said...."

"Since the story is evidently known to the whole countryside, you need
have no scruples about the matter, Fawkes. What did Lady James say to
Flamby?"

"She says, 'You're a low, vulgar creature!' And Flamby says, 'Perhaps I
am,' she says, 'but I ain't afraid to tell anybody where I spend my
week-ends!'"

"Ah," interrupted Paul, hurriedly, "you should not have repeated that,
Fawkes; but I am to blame. See to it that you are more discreet in
future."

"Yes, sir," said Fawkes, all downcast immediately. "Shall I tell you
what happened to the fox, sir?"

"Yes, you might tell me what happened to the fox."

"Flamby had him locked in the tool-shed, sir!"

He uttered the words as a final, crushing indictment, and ventured a
swift look at Paul in order to note its effect. Paul's face was
expressionless, however, as a result of the effort to retain his
composure.

"An awful character, Fawkes!" he said. "Good morning."

"Good morning, sir," said Fawkes, raising the peak of his cap with that
queer air of relief.

       *       *       *       *       *

Paul set off along the lane, now smiling unrestrainedly, came to the
stile where the footpath through the big apple orchard began, crossed it
and stood for a moment watching a litter of tiny and alarmed pigs
scampering wildly after their mother. One lost his way and went racing
along distant aisles of apple trees in quest of a roundabout route of
his own. Paul, who symbolised everything, found food for reflection in
the incident.

He lingered in the fragrant orchard looking at a flock of sheep who
grazed there, and admiring the frolics of the lambs. In the beauty of
nature he always found cause for sorrow, because every living thing is
born to pain. Animals knew this law instinctively and received it as a
condition of their being, but men shut their eyes to so harsh a truth,
and cried out upon heaven when it came home to them. He thought of
Yvonne and his happiness frightened him. Gautama Buddha had left a
lovely bride, to question the solitude and the sorrows of humanity
respecting truth; he, Paul Mario, dared to believe that the light had
come without the sacrifice. This mood bore him company to Babylon Lane,
but the sight of the white gate of Dovelands Cottage terminated a train
of thought. Here it was that the story related by Fawkes had had its
setting.

No one responded to the ringing of the cattle-bell, and the door of the
cottage was closed. In the absence of a knocker Paul rapped with his
stick, and having satisfied himself that Mrs. Duveen and her daughter
were not at home turned away disappointed. He had counted upon an
intimate chat with Flamby, which should enable him to form some personal
impression of her true character.

He returned slowly along Babylon Lane, and passing the path through the
orchard, he chose that which would lead him through the fringe of the
wood wherein he and Don had first seen Flamby. Evidently the wood was a
favourite haunt of the girl's, for as he crossed the adjoining meadow he
saw her in front of him, lying flat upon a carpet of wild flowers, now
shadowed by the trees, her chin resting in one palm and her elbow upon
the ground. In her right hand she held a brush, which now and again she
applied with apparent carelessness to a drawing lying on the grass
before her, but without perceptibly changing her pose.

The morning was steamy and still, giving promise of another tropically
hot day, but Paul approached so quietly that he came within a few yards
of Flamby without disturbing her. There he stopped, watching and
admiring. She was making a water-colour drawing of a tiny lamb which
lay quite contentedly within reach of her hand, sometimes looking up
into her face confidently and sometimes glancing at the woolly mother
who grazed near the fringe of the trees. Flamby was so absorbed in her
work that she noted nothing of Paul's approach, but the mother sheep
looked up, startled, and the lamb made a sudden move in her direction.

"Be good, Woolly," said Flamby, and her voice had that rare vibrant note
which belongs to the Celtic tongue; "I have nearly finished now."

But the lamb's courage had failed, and not even the siren voice could
restore it. With the uncertain steps of extreme youth it sought its
mother's side, and the two moved away towards the flock which grazed in
a distant corner of the meadow.

"I fear I have disturbed you."

The effect of Paul's words was singular. Flamby dropped her brush and
seemed to shrink as from a threatened blow, drawing up her shoulders and
slowly turning her head to see who had spoken. As her face came into
view, Paul saw that it was blanched with fear.

"Please forgive me," he said with concern; "but I did not mean to
frighten you."

"Oh," moaned Flamby, "but you did. I thought----" She rose to her knees
and then to her feet, the quick colour returning in a hot blush.

"What did you think?" asked Paul gently.

"I thought you were Sir Jacques."

She uttered the words impulsively and seemed to regret them as soon as
spoken, standing before Paul with shyly lowered eyes. The attitude
surprised him. From what he had seen and heard of Flamby he had not
anticipated diffidence, and he regarded her silently for a moment,
smiling in his charming way. She had evidently made some attempt this
morning to arrange her rebellious hair, for it had been parted and
brushed over to one side so that the rippling waves gleamed like minted
copper where the sun kissed them. Flamby had remarkable hair, nut-brown
in its shadows, and in the light glowing redly like embers or a newly
extinguished torch.

Her face was a perfect oval, and she had the most beautifully chiselled
straight little nose imaginable. Her face and as much of her neck as was
exposed by a white jumper were tanned to gipsy hue; so that when, shyly
raising her eyes, she responded to Paul's smile, the whiteness of her
teeth was extraordinary. A harsh critic might have said that her mouth
was too large; but no man of flesh and blood would have quarrelled with
such lips as Flamby's. She was below medium height, but shaped like a
sylph and had the airy grace of one. As Paul stood regarding her he
found wonder to be growing in his mind, for such wild roses as Flamby
are rare enough in the countryside, as every artist knows.

"Why," he asked, "should you be so afraid of Sir Jacques?"

"He's dead!" replied Flamby, an elfin light of mischief kindling in her
eyes; yet she was by no means at her ease.

"And what made you mistake me for him?"

"Your voice."

"Ah," said Paul, to whom others had remarked on this resemblance; "but
you had no cause to fear him?--alive, I mean."

"No," replied Flamby, stooping to pick up her sketching materials.

Her monosyllabic reply was not satisfactory; but recognising that if she
did not wish to talk about the late Sir Jacques he must merely defeat
his own purpose by endeavouring to make her do so, he abandoned the
topic.

"My name is Paul Mario," he said, "and I came to see you this morning."

Flamby stood up, paint-box, brushes and sketch in hand. "To see _me_?"

"Yes! why not?"

Flamby confronted him, her natural self-confidence restored, and studied
him with grave grey eyes. "What did you want to see me about?" she
asked; and in the tone of the question there was a restrained anxiety
which Paul could not understand. Also there was a faint and fascinating
suggestion of brogue in her accent.

"About yourself, of course," he replied, and wondered more and more
because of the knowledge--borne to him by that acute, almost feminine,
intuition which was his--that the girl was fencing with him, and because
of her strangeness and her beauty as she stood before him, hair flaming
in the sunlight, and her eyes watching him observantly.

Now, her expression changed, and her pupils growing momentarily larger,
he knew that her thoughts were in the past--and that they had brought
relief from some secret anxiety which had been with her.

"Of course!" she said, and laughed with a sudden joyousness that was in
harmony with the morning; "you came yesterday with Captain Courtier. I
understand, now."

Swiftly as her laughter had come, it vanished, and her eyes grew dim
with tears. Such tempestuous emotions must have nonplussed the average
man, but to Paul Mario her moods read clearly as a printed page, so that
almost as the image arose in Flamby's mind, it arose also in his; and he
saw before him one who wore the uniform of a sergeant of Irish Guards.
Hotly pursuing the tears came brave smiles. Flamby shook her curls back
from her brow, gave Paul a glance which was half apologetic and wholly
appealing, then laughed again and swept him a mocking curtsey.

"I am your honour's servant," she said; "what would you with me?"

The elfin light danced in her eyes again, and in this country damsel
who used the language of an obsolete vassalage he saw one who mocked at
his manorial rights and cared naught for king or commoner. Beyond doubt,
Sergeant Duveen had been a strange man, and strangely had he trained his
daughter.

"May I see your drawing?"

Flamby hesitated. "Are you really interested?" she said wistfully, "or
are you just trying to be kind?"

Paul was tempted to laugh outright, but his delicate sensibilities told
him that laughter would give offence. "I am really interested," he
assured her earnestly, "Captain Courtier is of opinion that you have a
remarkable gift for portraying wild life."

He selected his words deliberately with the design of reassuring her
respecting the sincerity of his interest. He was aware of a vague fear
that some ill-chosen remark would send Flamby flying from him, the coy
wood-nymph to whom Don had likened her, and that she would disappear as
she had done from Bluebell Hollow. But still she hesitated.

"You look as though you mean it," she conceded, furtively glancing down
at the sketching-board in her hand. "But it's a rotter."

"I'm afraid I am to blame. I spoiled it."

"No you didn't. It was a mess before you came." She glanced at him
doubtfully, keeping the drawing turned away. "You see," she continued,
"the shadowy part of a lamb on a sunny morning is quite blue--_quite_
blue. Did you know that?"

"Well," replied Paul, musingly, shielding his eyes and looking toward
the distant flock, "now that you have drawn my attention to the fact I
perceive it to be so--yes."

"But when you haven't got many colours," explained Flamby, "it's not so
easy to paint. I've made my lamb too blue for anything!" She displayed
the drawing, her eyes dancing with laughter. "No man ever saw a blue
lamb," she said--"while he was sober!"

The words shed a sidelight upon the domestic habits of the late Sergeant
Duveen, as Paul did not fail to note; and in the masculinity of Flamby's
jesting he glimpsed something of the closeness of the intimacy which had
existed between father and daughter. But, taking the drawing from her
hands, he was astonished at the skill which it displayed and which
surpassed that of any work he had seen outside the best exhibitions. It
possessed none of the graceful insipidity of the water colours which
young ladies are taught to produce at all good boarding-schools and
convents, but was characterised by the same vigour which informed
Flamby's conversation. Furthermore, it represented a living animal, soft
of fleece and inviting a caress and was drawn with almost insolent ease.
Paul looked into the girl's watching eyes.

"You are an artist, Flamby," he said; "and like all artists you are
unduly critical of your work."

A rich colour glowed through the tan upon Flamby's cheeks and she was
aware of a delicious little nervous thrill. Paul Mario's fascinating
voice had laid its thrall upon her and his eyes were far more beautiful
even than she had supposed, when, confronting Fawkes in Bluebell Hollow,
she had suddenly looked up to find Paul watching her. That easy
self-possession which she had learned from her father and which deserted
her rarely enough, threatened to desert her now; also, a poisonous doubt
touched her joy. With its coming came a return of confidence and Flamby
laid her hand confidingly upon Paul's arm.

"You really do mean what you say, don't you?" she asked wistfully.

"My dear little girl, why are you so doubtful of my honesty?"

Flamby lowered her fiery head. "Except father," she said, "I never knew
anybody who really thought I could paint. Some pretended to think so;
and Miss Kingsbury at High Fielding, who ought to know, laughed at
me--after she had asked me to go and see her--and told me to 'try and
find a nice domestic situation.'"

The mimicry in the concluding words was delightfully funny, but Paul
nodded sympathetically. A mental picture of Miss Kingsbury arose before
him, and it was in vain that he sought to consider her and her kind
without rancour. Beauty is a dangerous gift for any girl, making
countless enemies amongst her own sex and often debarring her from
harmless pleasures open to her plainer sisters. But the Miss Kingsburys
of the smaller county towns are an especial menace to such as Flamby,
although charity rarely assumes the dimensions of a vice among any of
the natives of England's southern shires.

"And your father had intended that you should become a painter?"

Unconsciously, he found himself speaking of the late Michael Duveen as
of one belonging to his own station in life, nor did the wild appearance
and sometimes uncouth language of Flamby serve wholly to disguise the
blue streak in her blood.

"When he was sober," she replied, and suddenly bursting into gay
laughter she snatched the drawing and turned away, waving her hand to
Paul. "Goodbye, Mr. Mario," she cried. "I like you heaps better than
your uncle!"

Her impudence was delicious, and Paul detained her. "You must not run
away like that," he said. "Captain Courtier made me promise that I would
arrange for you to pursue your art studies----"

Flamby shook her head. "How can I do that?" she asked, in a gust of
scorn. Then, as suddenly, her gaze grew wrapt and her face flushed. "But
how I would love to!" she whispered.

"You shall. It is all arranged," declared Paul earnestly. "The--special
pension which your mother will receive and which Captain Courtier is
arranging will be sufficient to cover all costs."

Flamby looked up at him, her eyes aglow with excitement. "Oh, Mr.
Mario," she said, "please don't think me ungrateful and a little beast;
but--is it true?"

"Why should I mislead you in the matter, Flamby?"

"I don't know; but--if you knew how I've longed and longed to be able to
go to London, among people who understand; to get away from these men
and women who are really half vegetables!"

Paul laughed gaily. "But you love the country?"

"I could not live long away from it. But the people! And I love the
birds and the animals, and--oh!"--her voice rose excitedly--"don't kill
it!"

A wasp was humming dangerously about Paul's head, and although his love
of all things that had life was as strong as Flamby's, the
self-protective instinct had led him to endeavour to knock the wasp
away. Now, Flamby extending one motionless hand, the gaudily-striped
insect alighted upon her finger and began busily to march from thence to
the rosy tip of the next, and so on until it reached Flamby's little
curved thumb. Holding the thumb upright, so that the wasp stood upon a
miniature tower, she pursed her lips entrancingly and blew the insect
upon its way as gently as if borne upon a summer zephyr.

"They only sting if you hurt them," she explained; "and so would you!"

"But," said Paul, who had watched the incident wonderingly, "if all
insects were permitted to live unmolested, and all animals for that
matter, the world would become uninhabitable for man."

"I know," replied Flamby pensively--"and I cannot understand why nature
is so cruel."

Paul studied the piquant, sun-kissed face with a new interest. "Flamby,"
he said earnestly, "one day you will be a great artist."

She looked into his eyes, but only for a moment, turned and fled. There
were a hundred things he had wanted to say to her, a hundred questions
he had wanted to ask. But off she ran along the margin of the wood, and
where a giant elm stood, a forest outpost at a salient, paused and waved
her hand to him.


VII

For all the exquisite sympathy of his nature and intuitive understanding
of others, there was a certain trait in the character of Paul Mario not
infrequently found in men of genius. From vanity he was delightfully
free, nor had adulation spoiled him; but his interest in the world was
strangely abstract, and his outlook almost cosmic. He dreamed of
building a ladder of stars for all earth-bound humanity, and thought not
in units, but in multitudes. Picturesque distress excited his emotions
keenly, and sometimes formed ineffaceable memories, but memories oddly
impersonal, little more than appreciations of sorrow as a factor in that
mystic equation to the solving of which he had bent all his intellect.

On the other hand he was fired by a passionate desire to aid; nor when
occasion had arisen had he hesitated to sacrifice self for another's
good. But such altruism was born of impulse and never considered. The
spectacle of the universe absorbed him, and listening for the
Pythagorean music of the spheres he sometimes became deaf to the voices
of those puny lives about him. His attention being called to them,
however, his solicitude was sweet and sincere, but once removed from his
purview they were also dismissed from his mind; and because of his
irresistible charm there were some who wept to be so soon forgotten. His
intellect was patrician--almost deiform in the old Roman sense.
Probably all great masters have been similarly endowed, for if in order
that one shall successfully conduct a military campaign he must think in
armies and not in squads, so, if another would aspire to guide Thought,
presumably must he think in continents. It does not follow that he shall
lack genius for love and friendship, but merely that he cannot distract
his mind in seeking out individual sorrows. The physician tends the
hurts of the body, the priest ministers to the ills of the spirit; Paul
Mario yearned to heal the wounds of a stricken world.

But Flamby interested him keenly, and therefore he draped her in a
mantle of poesy, obscuring those shades displeasing to his
sensibilities; as, an occasional coarseness due to association with her
father; and enhancing her charms and accomplishments. Her beauty and
spirit delighted the aesthete, and her mystery enthralled the poet. She
had feared Sir Jacques. Why? Paul toyed with the question in his own
fashion and made of Hatton Towers a feudal keep and of his deceased
uncle a baron of unsavoury repute. The maid Flamby, so called because
men had likened the glory of her hair to a waving flambeau, he caused to
reside in a tiny cottage beneath the very shadow of Sir Jacques'
frowning fortress; and the men-at-arms looking down from battlement and
bartizan marvelled when the morning wove a halo around the head of the
witch's daughter. (In the poem-picture which grew thus in his mind as he
swung along towards Hatton, Mrs. Duveen had become even more shrivelled
than nature had made her; her eyes had grown brighter and her earrings
longer).

Word of the maid's marvellous comeliness reaching Sir Jacques, he won
entrance to the cottage crouching against his outer walls, disguised as
a woodman; for the mighty weald had reclaimed its own in the period
visited by Paul's unfettered spirit and foresters roamed the greenwood.
He wooed maid Flamby, employing many an evil wile, but she was obdurate
and repulsed him shrewdly. Whereupon he caused Dame Duveen to be seized
as a weaver of spells and one who had danced before Asmodeus at the
Witches' Sabbath to music of the magic pipe. To serve his end Sir
Jacques invoked inhuman papal witch-law; the stake was set, each faggot
laid. But by stratagem of a humble cowherd who loved her with a fidelity
staunch unto death, Flamby secured the Dame's escape and the two fled
together covertly, through the forest and by night....


VIII

A few paces beyond the giant elm, Flamby paused, breathless, looking
down at the drawing which she held in her hand. Then turning, she
retraced her steps until she could peep around the great trunk of the
tree. Thus peeping she stood and watched Paul Mario until, coming to the
stile at the end of the meadow, he climbed over and was hidden by the
high hedgerow.

Flamby looked at the sketch again, seized it as if to tear the board
across; then changed her mind, studied the drawing attentively, smiled,
and looked straight before her, but not at anything really visible. She
was dreaming, as many another had dreamed who had heard Paul Mario's
voice and looked into Paul Mario's eyes. From these maiden dreams, which
may not be set down because they are formless, like all spiritual
things, her mind drifted into a channel of reflection.

The memory of Paul's voice came back again and thrilled her as though he
had but just spoken. She grew angry because she had imagined his voice
to resemble that of Sir Jacques. Poor little Flamby, the very name of
Sir Jacques was sufficient to make her shudder, to cast black shadows
upon the sunny fields of her dream-world. She dared not believe that
Paul's interest was sincere and disinterested--yet her heart believed
it.

Almost the earliest recollection of her young womanhood was of a man's
interest in her welfare; that was at the big racing stables in Yorkshire
where her father had trained for Lord Loamhurst. Flamby was thirteen,
then, and already her beauty, later to develop into that elfin
loveliness which had excited the wonder of Don, was unusual. The man in
question was his lordship's nephew, and his interest had grown so marked
that Michael Duveen had spoken to him, had received an insolent reply
and had struck down the noble youth with one blow of his formidable
fist. The episode had terminated Duveen's career as a trainer.

Thereafter had begun the nomadic life, with its recurrent phases of
brawls, drunken debauches by her father, occasional brief intervals of
prosperity and longer ones of abject poverty. Lower Charleswood had
seemed as an oasis in the wilderness and the employment offered by Sir
Jacques too bountiful to be real. Nevertheless, it was real enough, and
all went well for a season. Michael Duveen gave the bottle a go-by, and
the first real home that Flamby had known established its altars in
Dovelands Cottage. The understanding between father and daughter was
complete and was rendered more perfect by the necessity for
companionship experienced by both. Poor Mrs. Duveen possessed the
personality of a chameleon, readily toning with any background; but
intellectually she was never present. Why Michael Duveen had selected
such a mate was a mystery which Flamby, who loved her mother the more
dearly for her helplessness, could never solve. It was a mystery to
which Duveen, in his darker moods, devoted himself cruelly, and many
were the nights that Flamby had sobbed herself to sleep, striving to
deafen her ears to the hateful insults and merciless taunts which Duveen
would hurl at his wife.

Following such an outburst, Michael Duveen would exhibit penitence
which was almost as shocking as his brutality--but it was always to
Flamby that he came for forgiveness, bringing some love-gift which he
would proffer shamefacedly, tears trembling in his eyes.

"Ask your mother to come into town with me, Flamby asthore; I've seen a
fine coat at Dale's that'll make her heart glad."

It was invariably the same, and never was the olive branch rejected for
a moment by his long-suffering wife. Hers was the dog-like fidelity
which men of Duveen's pattern have the gift of inspiring in women, and
had he been haled to the felon's dock she would gladly and proudly have
stood beside her man. So the years stole by, and Flamby crept nearer to
womanhood and closer to her father's heart. The drinking-bouts grew less
frequent and only once again did Duveen offer violence to his wife. It
was on the occasion of a house-party at Hatton Towers, and a racy young
French commercial man who was one of Sir Jacques' guests fell to the
lure of Flamby's ever increasing charms.

Flamby, who now was wise with a wisdom possessed by few women, and who
could confound a gallant with the wit of Propertius, or damn his eyes
like any trooper, amused herself with the overdressed youth, and ate
many expensive chocolates. Mistaking the situation, and used to the
complaisance of the French peasant, M. le Petit-Maitre presented himself
at Dovelands Cottage and made certain overtures of a financial nature to
Mrs. Duveen. Between his imperfect English, his delicate mode of
expressing the indelicate, and his great charm, poor Mrs. Duveen found
confusion, brewed tea and reported the conversation to her husband.

Michael Duveen grew black with wrath, and, taking up a heavy dish from
the table, he hurled it at the poor, foolish woman. As he did so the
door opened and Flamby came in. The dish, crashing against the edge of
the door, was shattered and a fragment struck Flamby's bare arm,
inflicting a deep wound.

Like a cloak discarded, Duveen's wrath fell from him at sight of the
blood on that soft round arm. He was a man suddenly sick with remorse;
and, to the last, the faint scar which the wound left was as a crucifix
before which he abased himself. He did not even thrash the Frenchman,
but was content with sending to that astonished gallant an
acknowledgment of his offer couched in such pure and scathing French
prose that it stung more surely than any lash.

Duveen's was a strange nature, and to Flamby, as her powers of
observation grew keener, he presented a study at once fascinating and
mournful. He had deeper scholarship than many a man who holds a
university chair; he knew the classics as lesser men know their party
politics; and the woodlands, fields and brooks, with their countless
inhabitants, held no mysteries for him. Yet he was content to be as
Flamby had always known him--a manual labourer. The larder of Dovelands
Cottage was well stocked, winter and summer alike, and Mrs. Duveen, who
accepted what the gods offered unquestioningly, never troubled to
inquire how folks so poor as they could procure game and fish at all
proper seasons. Fawkes could have enlightened her; but there was no man
in Lower Charleswood, or for that matter in the county, of a hardihood
to cross Michael Duveen. Furthermore, Sir Jacques, who was a Justice of
the Peace, would hear no ill of him. Finally, one bitter winter's
morning in the first year of the war, Flamby learned why.

Sir Jacques, for the first time since the Duveens had resided there,
crossed the threshold of Dovelands Cottage, bringing a letter which he
had received from Duveen, then newly arrived in Flanders. That
memorable visit was the first of many; and the diabolical patience with
which Sir Jacques for over two years had awaited his opportunity was
further exemplified in his conduct of the affair now that he was truly
entered upon it.

At his first word of greeting, Flamby read his secret and her soul rose
up in arms; by the time that he took his departure she doubted her
woman's intuition--and wondered. Such was the magic of the silver voice,
the Christian humility expressed in the bearing of that black figure.
And when he had come again, and yet again, the first, true image began
to fade more and more, and she listened with less and less misgiving to
the words of encouragement which he bestowed upon her drawings. Her
father, although himself no draughtsman, understood art as he understood
all that was beautiful, and had taught her the laws of perspective and
the tricks of the pencil as he had taught her the ways of the woodland
and of the creatures who dwelt there. On her sixteenth birthday he had
presented Flamby with a complete water-colour outfit, together with a
number of text books; and many a golden morning had they spent together
in solving the problem of why, although all shadows look black, some are
really purple and others blue, together with kindred mysteries of the
painter's craft.

Now came Sir Jacques, a trained critic and collector, with helpful
suggestion and inspiring praise. He made no mistakes; his suggestions
held no covert significance, his praise was never extravagant. Miss
Kingsbury, of High Fielding, the local Lady Butler, hearing of Sir
Jacques' protegee, as she heard of everything else in the county, sent a
message of honeyed sweetness to Flamby, desiring her to call and bring
some of her work. Flamby had never forgotten the visit. The honey of
Miss Kingsbury was honey of Trebizond, and it poisoned poor Flamby's
happiness for many a day. Strange is the paradox of a woman's heart;
for Flamby, well knowing that this spinster's venom was a product of
jealousy--jealousy of talent, super-jealousy of youth and beauty--yet
took hurt from it and hugged the sting of cruel criticism to her breast.
In this, for all her engrafted wisdom, she showed herself a true limb of
Eve.

It was Sir Jacques who restored her confidence, and Sir Jacques who
seized the opportunity to invite her to study the works in his
collection. The original image of the master of Hatton Towers (which had
possessed pointed ears and the hoofs of a goat) was faded by this time,
and was supplanted by that of a courtly and benevolent patron. Flamby
went to Hatton Towers, and meeting with nothing but kindness at the
hands of Sir Jacques, went again many times. With the art of a Duc de
Richelieu, Sir Jacques directed her studies, familiarising her mind with
that "broad" outlook which is essential to the artist. It was done so
cleverly that even Flamby the wise failed to recognise whither the
rose-strewn path was tending, and might have pursued it to the end but
that Fate--or Pan, god of the greenwood, jealous of trespass--intervened
and unmasked the presumptuous Silenus.

Like one of those nymphs to whom Don had detected her resemblance,
Flamby, throughout the genial months, often betook herself at early
morning to a certain woodland stream far from all beaten tracks and
inaccessible from the highroads. Narcissi carpeted the sloping banks
above a pool like a crystal mirror, into which the tiny rivulet purled
through forest ways sacred to the wild things and rarely profaned by
foot of man. In their shy, brief hour, violets lent their sweetness to
the spot, and at dusk came quiet creatures afoot and awing timidly to
slake their thirst at the magic fountain. A verdant awning, fanlike,
swayed above, and perhaps in some forgotten day an altar had stood in
the shady groves which protected all approaches to this pool whereby
Keats might have dreamed his wonder dreams.

One morning as she stepped out like Psyche from her bath, and stood for
a moment where an ardent sunbeam entering slyly through the bower above
wrapped her in golden embrace, upon that sylvan mystery intruded a sound
which blanched the roses on Flamby's cheeks and seemed to turn her body
to marble. It was a very slight sound, no more than a metallic click;
but like the glance of Gyges it stilled her heart's beating. She had
never known such helpless fear; for, without daring, or having power, to
turn her head, she divined who hid beside the pool and the purpose of
his coming.

In great leaps her heart resumed its throbbing, and Flamby, trembling
and breathless, sprang into the undergrowth upon that side of the pool
farthest from the high bank which masked the intruder and there crouched
pitifully, watching. Another than she might have failed to discern him,
so craftily did he crawl away; but Flamby, daughter of the woods, saw
the wriggling figure, and knew it; moreover she knew, by the familiarity
with the pathway which he displayed, that this was not the first time
Sir Jacques had visited the spot.

She returned to the cottage, her courage restored and a cold anger in
her breast, to find her mother alternately laughing and sobbing--because
Michael Duveen would be home that day on leave. Whatever plan Flamby had
cherished she now resigned, recognising that only by silence could she
avert a tragedy. But from that morning the invisible guardians of the
pool lamented a nymph who came no more, and the old joy of the woods was
gone for Flamby. At one moment she felt that she could never again
suffer the presence of Sir Jacques, at another that if she must remain
in Lower Charleswood and not die of shame she must pretend that she did
not suspect him to have been the intruder. The subterfuge, ostrich-like,
woman-like, finally was adopted; and meeting Sir Jacques in Babylon Lane
she managed to greet him civilly, employing her mother's poor state of
health as an excuse for discontinuing her visits to Hatton Towers. But
if Flamby's passionate spirit had had its way Sir Jacques that day must
have met the fate of Candaules at the hands of this modern Nyssia.

       *       *       *       *       *

Standing there beneath the giant elm, Flamby lived again through the
sunshine and the shadows of the past, her thoughts dwelling bitterly
upon the memory of Sir Jacques and of his tireless persecution, which,
from the time that she ceased her visits to Hatton Towers, became more
overt and pursued her almost to the day of Sir Jacques' death. Finally,
and inevitably, she thought again of Paul Mario, and still thinking of
him returned to Dovelands Cottage.

Mrs. Duveen had gone into the town, an expedition which would detain her
for the greater part of the day, since she walked slowly, and the road
was hilly. Therefore Flamby proceeded to set the house in order. A
little red-breasted robin hopped in at the porch, peeped around the
sitting-room and up at the gleaming helmet above the mantelpiece, then
finding the apartment empty hopped on into the kitchen to watch Flamby
at work. Sunlight gladdened the garden and the orchard where blackbirds
were pecking the cherries; a skylark rose from the meadow opposite the
cottage, singing rapturously of love and youth--so that presently, the
while she worked, Flamby began to sing, too.


IX

It was late on the following afternoon when the solicitors left Hatton
Towers, and Paul, who detested business of every description, heaved a
great sigh of relief as he watched the dust resettle in the fir avenue
behind the car which was to bear the two legal gentlemen to the station.
The adviser of the late Sir Jacques had urged him to keep up Hatton
Towers, "in the interests of the county," even if he lived there only
occasionally, and his own solicitor seemed to agree with his colleague
that it would be a pity to sell so fine a property. A yearning for
solitude and meditation was strong upon Paul, and taking a stout ash
stick he went out on to the terrace at the rear of the house, crossed
the lawns and made his way down to the winding path which always, now,
he associated with Don.

An hour's walk brought him to the brink of the hilly crescent which
holds the heathland of the county as a giant claw grasping a platter.
Below him lay mile upon mile of England, the emerald meadows sharply
outlined by their hedges, cornfields pale patches of gold, roofs of
farms deep specks of grateful red, and the roads blending the whole into
an intricate pattern like that of some vast Persian carpet. Upon its
lighter tones the heat created a mirage of running water.

Human activity was represented by faint wisps of smoke, and by specks
which one might only determine to be men by dint of close scrutiny,
until a train crept out from the tunnel away to the left and crossed the
prospect like a hurried caterpillar, leaving little balls of woolly
vapour to float away idly upon the tideless air. A tang of the heather
rose even to that height, and mingled its scent with the perfume of the
many wildflowers cloaking the hillside. The humming of bees and odd
chirping of grasshoppers spoke the language of summer, and remotely
below childish voices and laughter joined in the gladness.

Paul began to descend the slope. In the joyous beauty of English summer
there was something at variance with his theme, and he found himself
farther than ever from the task which he had taken up. Almost he was
tempted to revise his estimate of the worth of things worldly and of
the value of traditional beliefs. His imagination lingered delightedly
over a tiny hamlet nestling about a Norman church as the brood about the
mother. He pictured the knight of the Cross kneeling before the hidden
altar and laying his sword and his life at the feet of the Man of
Sorrows. He saw, as it is granted to poets to see, the plumed Cavalier
leading his lady to that same altar and saw the priest bless them in the
holy name. Almost he could read the inscriptions upon the tombs which
told of generations of country gentlemen who had worshipped at the
simple shrine, unquestioning, undoubting. The Roundheads dour, with
their pitiless creed, had failed to destroy its fragrant sanctity, which
lingered in those foot-worn aisles like the memory of incense, the echo
of a monkish prayer. Was it all a great delusion?--or were our fathers
wise in their simplicity? In the past men had died for every faith;
to-day it would be hard to find men having any faith to die for.

A shadow crept over his mind, and although in his preoccupation he
failed to observe the fact, it corresponded with the coming of an
ominous cloud over the hill crest above and behind him; for we are but
human lutes upon which nature plays at will, now softly and gently, now
sounding chords of gladness, now touching to deep melancholy and the
grandeur of despair. The promise of those days of tropical heat was
about to be fulfilled, and already, three miles behind, black banks
lowered over the countryside turning its smile to a frown.

But even the remote booming of thunder failed to awaken Paul to the
reality of the brewing tempest; it reached him in his daydream, but as a
message not of the wrath of heaven but of the wrath of man. He mistook
it for the ceaseless voice of the guns and weaved it into his brooding
as Wagner wove the Valkyrie theme into the score of the _Nibeluengen_. A
faint breeze whispered through the tree-tops.

Paul came to the foot of the slope; and below him ran a continuous gully
roofed over by stunted trees and conforming to the hillside as a brim
conforms to a hat. Entrance might be made through any one of several
gaps, and Paul, scrambling down, found himself in a dark tunnel, its
brown, leafy floor patched at irregular intervals by grey light
reflected from the creeping thunder cloud. Right and left it went, this
silent gallery, and although he was unaware of the fact, it joined other
like galleries which encircled the slopes and met and intercrossed so
that one might wander for hours along these mystic aisles of the hills.
Below again, beyond a sloping woody thicket, lay the meadows and
farmlands sweeping smoothly onward to the heath. Now, the shadow of the
storm had draped hillside and valley and was touching the bloom of the
heather with the edge of its sable robe. Bird voices were still and all
life was hushed before the coming of the tempest. The ghostly trees
bending low above the aisles whispered fearfully one to another, and
about Paul was a darkness like that of a crypt. The earth and her
children shrank as from an impending blow.

Several large raindrops, heralds of the torrent to come, fell through an
opening above and pattered upon the dusty carpet at Paul's feet. He
glanced upward at the darkening pall which seemed to rest upon the hill
top. Its oppressive blackness suggested weight, so that one trembled for
the stability of the chalky scarp which must uphold that ebon canopy.
Paul moved further along the aisle to a spot where the foliage was
unbroken, as rain began a rapid tattoo upon the leafy roof. In the
following instant the hillside was illuminated wildly as lightning wrote
its message in angular characters across the curtain of darkness. Life
cowered affrighted to the bosom of mother earth. The raindrops ceased,
awaiting the crashing word of the thunder. It came, deafening, awesome;
buffeting this bluff and that rebounding, rebounding again and
muttering down the valleys and the aisles of the hills. Then burst the
rain, torrential, tropical.

In the emotional vision of Paul, horror rode the tempest. Man,
discarding the emblem of the Cross and prostrating himself at the feet
of strange idols, now was chained to a planet deserted by God, doomed
and left to the mercy of monstrous earth spirits revitalised by homage
and made potent again. To this gruesome fancy he resigned himself with
the spiritual abandonment whereof he was capable and his capacity for
which had made his work what it was: he grovelled before a nameless
power which dwelt in primeval caverns of the underworld and spoke with
the voice of the storm. Fear touched him, because the Divine face was
turned from man. Awe wrapped him about, because the Word had failed to
redeem, and a new message must be given. The Prince of Darkness became a
real figure--and seemed to be very near him. As if the lightning had
been a holy fire, with it enlightenment burst upon his mind, and he saw
himself no longer unwanted, flotsam, a thing supine, but a buckler--a
shield--one chosen and elected to a mighty task. The words of Don had
first raised the curtain; now it was rent as the Temple veil and his
eyes were dazzled. The Gate of Tophet had opened and Something had crept
out upon the world; it was for him to cast It back into the Pit!

He seemed to grow physically cold. Again the lightning blazed; and Paul,
starting as one rudely awakened from sleep, saw that a man was standing
close beside him.


X

That inclination to the marvellous which belongs to creative
temperaments led Paul to invest the stranger with the attributes of an
apparition; he seemed to be a materialisation of the darkness which
cloaked the modern world, a menace and a challenge; to stand for
Lucifer. He was a man above average height, having a vast depth of chest
and weight of limb, a strong, massive man. His suit of blue serge
displayed his statuesque proportions to full advantage, and Paul's
all-embracing glance did not fail to take note of the delicacy of hand
and foot which redeemed the great frame from any suggestion of
grossness. The stranger's head was bare, for he held in one gloved hand
a hard black felt hat, flat topped and narrow of brim; and his small
head, with close tight curls, set upon a neck like that of a gladiator,
was markedly Neronian. The hue of this virile curling hair was a most
uncompromising and fiery red, and equally red were the short moustaches
and close-cut curling beard. It was a remarkable head, the head of a
pagan emperor, rendered even more statuesque by an unusual ivory pallid
skin and by large and somewhat prominent eyes of limpid golden brown.

He was staring at Paul, as Paul was staring at him; and, out of the
darkness which instantly fell again, as the booming of thunder went
rolling, demoniac, along the valleys, he spoke. His voice was rich and
cultured.

"I fear I startled you--and you certainly startled me. I did not observe
your approach."

Paul laughed. "Nor I yours. But I believe I was preoccupied, for I
failed to notice the gathering storm until the rain attracted my
attention."

"I can guess at the nature of your preoccupation," continued the deep
voice. "Unless the illustrated press has deceived me I have the pleasure
of sharing this shelter with Mr. Paul Mario."

"That is my name. May I ask if you are one of my neighbours?"

"I am called Jules Thessaly, and I have made Babylon Hall locally
unpopular for some time past."

"A stormy meeting but none the less a welcome one, Mr. Thessaly. We
have several mutual friends. Captain Courtier spoke of you to me only
yesterday."

"Captain 'Don' Courtier?--a clever artist and I believe a useful
officer. I should have appreciated an opportunity of meeting him again.
He has leave?"

"A few days; but the usual demands upon his time, poor fellow. You were
also, I think, a friend of my late uncle?"

"I was acquainted with Sir Jacques--yes. Mr. Mario, our present meeting
is more gratifying to me than I can hope to express. I may say that I
had designed to call upon you had Fate not taken a hand."

"Your visit would have been very welcome. I have been so busy with
unavoidable affairs since my arrival, that I fear I have quite neglected
social duties. With one or two exceptions I know nothing of my
neighbours. May I count upon the pleasure of your company at dinner
to-night?"

"You forestall me, Mr. Mario. I was about to ask you to come over to me.
Apart from my natural interest in yourself there is a matter which I
particularly desire to discuss with you. I trust you will excuse my
apparent rudeness, but indeed I know you will. Social dogma is the
armour of the parvenu."

Paul laughed again; Jules Thessaly was a welcome stimulant. "Clearly we
have many things in common," he said. "I shall be more than glad to join
you. Fascinating rumours are afloat concerning your collection of
Eastern wonders. May I hope that it is housed at Babylon Hall?"

A blaze of lightning came, illuminating the two figures, showing Paul
Mario's fine face turned expectantly toward Jules Thessaly, and alive
with an eagerness almost boyish; showing the Neronian countenance of the
other, softened by a smile which revealed small, strong teeth beneath
the crisp red moustache.

"Rumour is a lying jade, Mr. Mario. My collection I admit is a good
one, but there are at least three others in Europe and two in America
which are better. It is unique in one particular: the section containing
religious objects, totems, and gods of all ages is more complete than
that of any other collector, or of any museum. The bulk of it
unfortunately is at my house in London."

"In these days of air raids would it not be safer at Babylon Hall?"

"If all the gods to whom man has offered prayer cannot protect their
images in Park Lane, they cannot protect them in Lower Charleswood."

"Diogenes speaks from his tub!"

"The truth is often cynical."

"I fear that life has not a single illusion left for you."

"All men work like rebels, Mr. Mario, to win freedom from youth's
sweetest mistress--illusion, and spend the twilight of old age groping
for what they have lost."

"Yours must be a barren outlook. If I thought all the world a mere dream
of some wanton god I should lay down my pen--for I should have nothing
to say."

"There can be nothing really new to say until man climbs up to another
planet or until creatures of another planet climb down to this one."

"A doctrine of despair."

"Not at all--unless for the materialist."

"How is that?"

"Would you trammel the soul with the shackles of the flesh?"

"You mean that literature and art persistently look in the gutter for
subjects when they would be more worthily employed in questioning the
stars?"

"I mean that if literature and art were not trades, inspiration might
have a chance."

"And you regard inspiration as a spiritual journey?"

"Certainly; and imagination as the memory of the soul. There is no such
thing as intellectual creation. We are instruments only. John Newman did
not invent _The Dream of Gerontius_; he remembered it. There is a strain
in the music of _Samson et Dalila_ which was sung in the temples of
Nineveh, where it must have been heard by Saint Saens. The wooing of
Tarone in your _Francesca of the Lilies_ is a faithful account of a
scene enacted in Florence during the feuds between the Amidei and
Buondelmonti."

Paul Mario fell silent. The storm was passing, and now raged over the
remote hills which looked out upon the sea; but the darkness prevailed,
and he became aware of a vague disquiet which stirred within him. The
conversation of Jules Thessaly impressed him strangely, not because of
its hard brilliance, but because of a masterful certainty in that quiet
voice. His words concerning Newman and Saint Saens were spoken as though
he meant them to be accepted literally--and there was something
terrifying in the idea. For he averred that which many have suspected,
but which few have claimed to know. Presently Paul found speech again.

"You believe, as I believe, that our 'instincts' are the lessons of
earlier incarnations. Perhaps you are a disciple of Pythagoras, Mr.
Thessaly?"

"I am, in one sense. I am a disciple of his Master."

"Do you refer to Orpheus?"

Jules Thessaly hesitated, but the pause was scarcely perceptible. "The
Orphic traditions certainly embody at least one cosmic truth."

"And it is?"

"That for every man there is a perfect maid, and for every maid a
perfect lover; that their union will be eternal, but that until it is
accomplished each must remain incomplete--a work in two volumes of which
one is missing."

"Would you then revive the Eleusinian Mysteries?"

"Why not?"

"You would scandalise society!"

"In other words become the pet of the petty. You care as little for the
institution called 'Society' as I do, Mr. Mario. Moreover, there is no
Society nowadays. Murray's has taken its place."

Again the lightning flashed--less vividly; and in the glimpse thus
afforded him of the speaker's face Paul derived the impression that
Jules Thessaly was laughing, but of this he could not be sure. The
thunder when it came spoke with a muted voice, for the storm was
speeding coastward, and a light cool breeze stole through the aisles of
the hills. A grey eerie light began to spread ghostly along the gallery.
The ebon cloud was breaking, but torrents of rain continued to descend.
Paul's keen intuition told him that Jules Thessaly was indisposed to
pursue the Orphic discussion further at the moment, but he realised that
the owner of Babylon Hall was no ordinary man, but one who had delved
deeply into lore which had engaged much of his own attention. He found
himself looking forward with impatient curiosity to his visit to the
home of this new acquaintance.

"You are comparatively a new-comer in Lower Charleswood, Mr. Thessaly?"

"Yes, Babylon Hall had been vacant for some years, having formerly
belonged to a certain Major Rushin, a retired Anglo-Indian of
sixty-five, with a nutmeg liver and a penchant for juvenile society. He
was drowned one morning in the lake which lies beyond the house, whilst
bathing with three young ladies who were guests of his at the time. He
was one of the pillars of the late Sir Jacques' church."

Paul laughed outright. "Do you quarrel with the whole of humanity, Mr.
Thessaly?"

"Not at all. I love every creature that has life; I share the very
tremors of the sheep driven to the slaughter-house. Human sorrow affects
me even more profoundly."

"But you are hotly intolerant of human hypocrisy? So am I."

"Yet it may be one of the principles of nature. Witness the leaf
insect."

"You don't believe it to be, though. You probably regard it as a hateful
disguise imposed upon man by a moral code contrary to that of nature."

"Mr. Mario, your words contain the germ of a law upon the acceptance of
which I believe humanity's spiritual survival to depend."

The elfin light was growing brighter by perceptible degrees; and Paul,
looking toward the speaker, now was able to discern him as a shadowy
bulk, without definite outline, but impressive, pagan--as a granite god,
or one of those broken pillars of Medinet Habu. Either because Jules
Thessaly had moved nearer to him, or by reason of an optical delusion
produced by the half-light, the space between them seemed to have grown
less--not only physically, but spiritually. The curves of their astral
selves were sweeping inward to a point of contact which Paul knew
subconsciously would be electric, odic, illuminating. He felt the
driving force of Jules Thessaly's personality, and it struck from the
lyre of his genius strange harmonious chords. He knew, as some of the
ancients knew, that the very insect we crush beneath our feet is crushed
not by accident, but in accordance with a design vast beyond human
conception; and he wondered what part in his life this strange, powerful
man was cast to play. His thoughts found expression.

"There is no such thing as chance," he said dreamily.

"No," answered Jules Thessaly. "There is no such thing in the universe.
Our meeting to-day was an appointment."


XI

Jules Thessaly, like the Indian rope trick, was a kind of phenomenon
twice removed. In every capital throughout the world one heard of him;
of his wealth, of his art collection, of his financial interests; but
one rarely met a man who actually claimed to know him although every
second man one met knew another who did.

When he acquired Babylon Hall, for so long vacant, the county was
stirred from end to end. Lower Charleswood, which lacked a celebrity,
felt assured at last of its place in history and ceased to cast envious
glances toward that coy hamlet of the hills which enshrined the cottage
of George Meredith. The Vicar of High Fielding, who contributed
occasional "Turn-overs" to the _Globe_, investigated the published
genealogy of the great man, and caused it to be known that Jules
Thessaly was a French Levantine who had studied at Oxford and Goettingen,
a millionaire, an accomplished musician, and an amateur of art who had
exhibited a picture in the Paris Salon. He was a member (according to
this authority) of five clubs, had other country seats, as well as a
house in Park Lane, was director of numberless companies--and was
unmarried. Miss Kingsbury called upon the reverend gentleman for further
particulars.

But when at last Jules Thessaly actually arrived, Lower Charleswood
experienced a grievous disappointment. He brought no "introductions," he
paid no courtesy calls, and those who sought him at Babylon Hall almost
invariably were informed that Mr. Thessaly was abroad. When he
entertained, his guests arrived from whence no one knew, but usually in
opulent cars, and thereby departed no one knew whither. Lower
Charleswood was patient, for great men are eccentric; but in time Lower
Charleswood to its intense astonishment and mortification realised that
Jules Thessaly was not interested in "the county." Lower Charleswood
beheld itself snubbed, but preferred to hide its wounds from the world,
and therefore sent Jules Thessaly ceremoniously to Coventry. He was
voted a vulgar plutocrat and utterly impossible. When it leaked out that
Lady James knew him well and that Sir Jacques frequently dined at
Babylon Hall, Miss Kingsbury said, "Lady _James_? Well, of course"--And
Sir Jacques, as the only eligible substitute for a real notability, was
permitted a certain license. He was "peculiar," no doubt, but he had
built a charming church and was a bachelor.

Urged to the task by Miss Kingsbury, the Vicar of High Fielding made
further and exhaustive enquiries. He discovered that it was impossible
to trace Jules Thessaly's year at Oxford for the same reason that it was
impossible to trace anything else in his history. One man knew another
man whose brother was at Oriel with Thessaly; a second man had heard of
a third man who distinctly remembered him at Magdalen. The vicar's
cousin, a stockbroker, said that Thessaly's father had been a Greek
adventurer. Miss Kingsbury's agent--who sometimes succeeded in disposing
of her pictures--assured Miss Kingsbury that Jules Thessaly was a Jew.
When war began all the county whispered that Jules Thessaly was a big
shareholder in Krupps.

The constitution of his establishment at Babylon Hall was attacked in
the local press. Babylon Hall was full of dangerous aliens. Strains of
music had been heard proceeding from the Hall at most unseemly hours--by
the village innkeeper. Orgies were held there. But Jules Thessaly
remained silent, unmoved, invisible. So that at the time of Sir Jacques'
death Lower Charleswood had passed through three phases: pique, wonder,
apathy. One or two folks had met Thessaly--but always by accident; had
acclaimed him a wonderful man possessing the reserve of true genius.
Finally, Miss Kingsbury had met him--in Lower Charleswood post office,
and by noon of the following day, all "the county" knew that he was "a
charming recluse with the soul of a poet."

And this was the man with whom Paul Mario paced along the green aisles
toward the point where they crossed that Pilgrim's Way which linking
town to village, village to hamlet, lies upon the hills like a rosary on
a nun's bosom.

"My car is waiting below," said Jules Thessaly. "You will probably
prefer to drive back?"

Paul assented. He was breathing deeply of the sweet humid air, pungent
with a thousand fresh scents and the intoxicating fragrance of
rain-kissed loam. The sound of greedily drinking plant things arose from
the hillside. Beyond the purple heath hung the midnight curtain,
embroidered fitfully with silver, and he removed his hat that the cool
breeze might touch him. Hatless he was magnificently picturesque;
Antinoeus spared to maturity; the nature-worshipper within him stirred to
quickness by magic perfumes arising from the breast of Mother Earth, he
resembled that wonderful statue of the Bithynian which shows him as
Dionysus the Twice-born, son of the raincloud, lover of the verdure.

"The world," said Jules Thessaly, "is waiting for you."

Through his abstract Orphic dreams the words reached Paul's mind; and
they were oddly familiar. Who had spoken them--now, and once before? He
awoke, and remembered. Don had said that the world awaited him. He
turned and glanced at his companion. Jules Thessaly was regarding him
fixedly.

"You spoke," said Paul. "Pardon my abstraction; but what did you say?"

"I said that when Nature endows a man at once with the genius of Dante
and the appearance of a Greek god, that man holds the world in the
hollow of his hand. He was born with a purpose. He _dares_ not seek to
evade his destiny."

Paul met the glance of the golden, prominent eyes, and it held him
enthralled. "I do not seek to evade it," he replied slowly. "I accept
it; but I am afraid."

A low-pitched powerful French car stood at the foot of the slope, the
chauffeur in his seat and a footman standing beside the open door.
Poised ethereally betwixt solid earth and some sphere remote peopled by
Greek nature-myths, Paul found himself beside Jules Thessaly, and being
borne swiftly, strongly upward to the hills. At the gap beyond the
toll-gate, where one may view a prospect unique in all the county, the
car stopped, perhaps in obedience to a summons of the master. From the
open window Paul looked out over the valley; and a rainbow linked the
crescent of the hills, point to point. Backed by the murk of the moving
storm, Babylon Hall looked like a giant sarcophagus behind which Titan
hands had draped a sable curtain; and it seemed to Paul as he looked,
wondering, that the arc of heaven-born colours which no brush may
reproduce, rested upon the hidden roof of Dovelands Cottage, crossed
Babylon Hall, and swept down to the rain mist of the horizon, down to
the distant sea. The palette of the gods began to fade from view, and
Paul turned impulsively to his companion.

Jules Thessaly, his elbows resting upon his knees, was staring down,
apparently at the flat-crowned black hat which he held in his hands. The
car had resumed its smooth progress.

"An omen!" cried Paul. "The world is _not_ past redemption!"

He spoke wildly, emotionally, not choosing his words, scarce knowing
what he desired to convey. Jules Thessaly glanced aside at him.

"The world _desires_ redemption," he said. "It is for you to gratify the
world's desire."


XII

The mystery which steals out from the woods, creeps down from the hills,
and lurks beneath the shadowed hedgerows at beckoning of dusk, was
abroad and potent when Paul Mario that evening walked up Babylon Lane
towards the Hall. Elemental forces, which the ancients clothed in
semi-human shape and named and feared, moved beside him and breathed
strange counsels in his ear. The storm had released uneasy spirits from
their bondage in crannies of primeval hills, and it was on such a night
as this that many a child has glimpsed the Folk tripping lightly around
those fairy-rings which science would have us believe due to other
causes than the mystic dance. The Pipes of Pan were calling, and up in
the aisles of the hills moonbeams slyly sought and found bare-limbed
dryads darting from the eagerness of wooing fauns. Progress has banished
those Pandean spirits from the woodlands, but the moon is the mother of
magic, and her children steal out, furtive, half fearful, when she
raises her lamp as of old.

Between prescience and imagination the borderline is ill defined.
Although Dovelands Cottage was seemingly sleeping, or deserted, Paul
pictured Flamby standing by the stile beyond, where the orchard path
began. And when, nearing it, he paused, looking to the right, there was
she, a figure belonging to the elfin world of which he dreamed, and
seemingly on the point of climbing over the stile.

"Flamby!" he cried.

She turned, descended, and came forward slowly, a wild-haired nymph; and
that odd shyness which sat so ill upon her was manifest in her manner.
She had expected Paul; had really been waiting for him--and she felt
that he knew it.

"Were you dreaming in the twilight?" he asked, merrily.

Flamby stood a little apart from him, staring down at the dusty road.
"No," she replied. "I was scared, so I came out."

"Scared? Of what?"

"Don't know. Just scared. Mother is over at Mrs. Fawkes', and it's not
likely I was going with her."

"Why not?"

"She hates me," explained Flamby, with brief simplicity.

"But why should she hate you?"

"Don't know," said Flamby, busily burrowing a little hole in the road
with the heel of her left shoe. Her shoes were new ones, and boasted
impudently high heels. She had been proud of her arched instep when
first she had worn the new shoes, and had been anxious that Paul, who
hitherto had seen her shod in the clumsy boots which she called her
"workers," should learn that she possessed small feet and slim ankles.
Now, perceiving his glance to be attracted to the burrowing operation,
she flushed from brow to neck, convinced that he believed her to have
worn the shoes for his particular admiration--which was true; and to
have deliberately drawn his attention to them--which was untrue. She had
been longing to hear Paul's voice again, and now that he stood before
her she told herself that he must be comparing her with the hundreds of
really pretty girls known to him, and thinking what an odd-looking,
ignorant little fool she was. Gladly would Flamby have fled, but she
lacked the courage to do so.

"So you were afraid," said Paul, smiling; "but not, on this occasion, of
my late uncle, I hope?"

Flamby had half expected the question, but nevertheless it startled her.
A Latin tag entered her mind immediately. "_O_," she began--and her
strange shyness overwhelming her anew, said no more.

Paul assumed that he had misunderstood her. "Pardon me," he prompted,
"but I'm afraid I failed to catch what you said."

"I said '_no_,'" declared Flamby untruthfully, and silently blessed the
dusk which veiled her flaming cheeks. Paul Mario abashed her. She
delighted to be with him, and, with him, longed to run away. She had
been conscious of her imperfections from the very moment that she had
seen him in Bluebell Hollow, had hesitated to speak, doubting her
command of English, had ceased to joy in her beauty, and had wondered if
she appeared to Paul as a weird little gnome. Now, she was resolved
never to see him again--to hide away from him, to forget him--or to try.

"You are a true artist, Flamby," he said; "a creature of moods. Perhaps
to-night the fairy gates have opened for you as they have opened for me.
Titania has summoned you out into the woods, and you are half afraid.
But the artist lives very near to Nature, and has nothing to fear from
her. Surely you love these nights of the early moon?"

And as he spoke Flamby's resolution became as naught, and she knew that
to hear him and to share his dreams was worth any sacrifice of
self-esteem. Never since her father's death had she had a confidant to
whom she might speak of her imaginings, from whom she might hope for
sympathy and understanding. She forgot her shyness, forgot her new
shoes.

"I have always loved the moon," she confessed. "Perhaps I thought of her
as Isis once long ago."

Now it was Paul who hesitated and wondered, his respect for Flamby and
for the complex personality who had tutored her growing apace.

"But in London they must hate the moon," she added, and the tone
betokened one of her swift changes of mood.

"Yes," said Paul, raising his eyes, "the old goddess of the Nile seems
to have transferred her allegiance to the Rhine." He glanced at the
luminous disc of his watch. "I fear I am late. I shall call upon your
mother to-morrow, if I may, and see if we can arrange something definite
about your studies."

"Oh!" cried Flamby--"what time will you come?"

"May I come in the morning?"

"Of course."

"In the morning, then, about eleven o'clock. I must hurry, or Mr.
Thessaly will be waiting. What do you think of your new and wonderful
neighbour?"

"I have heard that he is a clever man and very rich; but I have never
seen him."

"Never seen him? And Babylon Hall is only a few hundred yards away."

"I know. But I have never seen Mr. Thessaly."

"How very queer," said Paul. "Well, good night, Flamby."

He took off his soft grey hat and extended his hand. All Flamby's
shyness descended upon her like the golden shower on Danae, and barely
touching the outstretched hand she whispered, "Good night, Mr. Mario,"
turned and very resolutely walked away, never once looking back.

At the gate of the cottage she began to limp, and upon the instant of
entering the sitting-room, where Mrs. Duveen, returned from her visit,
was lighting a large brass table lamp, Flamby dropped cross-legged upon
the floor and tenderly removed her left shoe. Having got it free of her
foot, she hurled it violently into the kitchen.

"Hell!" she said, succinctly.

"Flamby!" cried her mother, in a tone of mild reproval. "How can you
swear like that!"

Flamby began to remove her stocking. "_You'd_ swear if you had a damn
great nail sticking in your heel!" she retorted.


XIII

Paul arrived at Babylon Hall exactly eight minutes late for his
appointment. In the wonderful dusk unknown to the tropics, when sun
contests with moon, disputing the reign of night, he walked up the long
avenue past the silent lodge, and was shown into a small room adjoining
the entrance hall. Of the latter he derived no very definite impression,
except that it was queerly furnished. Wherein this queerness was
manifested he found himself unable to decide on subsequent reflection.
But the ante-room was markedly Eastern, having Arabesque mosaics, rugs
and low tables of the Orient, and being lighted by a brass mosque-lamp.
The footman who had opened the door for him was a foreigner of some
kind, apparently a Greek.

He wondered at his reception; for the servant merely bowed and departed,
without relieving him of hat and coat. Indeterminate, he stood, vaguely
conscious of misgiving and questioning the stillness of the great house.
But almost immediately a young man entered whose face expressed the
utmost concern. He was clean-shaven, except for those frustrated
whiskers once sacred to stage butlers, but latterly adopted as the sigil
of the New Bohemia. He had pleasing dark brown hair, and if nature had
not determined otherwise, might have been counted a handsome brunette.
His morning-dress was worthy of Vesta Tilley's tailor. Paul detected the
secretary even before the new arrival proclaimed his office.

"You have missed Mr. Thessaly by less than three minutes," he said,
glancing at his watch. "I am his secretary, and upon me devolves the
very delicate task of explaining his departure. In the absence of a
hostess--this is a bachelor establishment--the position is peculiarly
unfortunate--"

"Pray say no more, Mr.----"

"My name is Caspar."

"I beg you to offer no apologies, Mr. Caspar. Believe me, I quite
understand and sympathise. Mr. Thessaly has been called away at the last
moment by affairs of urgent importance."

"Exactly. I am indebted to you, Mr. Mario. The news--of a distressing
nature--only reached us over the telephone five minutes ago. A groom was
despatched immediately to Hatton Towers, but he seems to have missed
you."

"Nothing of a family nature, I trust."

"Not exactly, Mr. Mario; but a matter of such urgency that there was no
time for hesitation. Mr. Thessaly is already upon his way to London. He
will write you a full explanation, and for that purpose took writing
materials in the car. His letter should reach you by the first post in
the morning. You will readily understand that the hospitality of Babylon
Hall----"

Paul interrupted him. "My dear Mr. Caspar, I could not think of
intruding at a time of such distress and uncertainty. I can return to
Hatton Towers in less than twenty minutes and the larder is quite
capable of satisfying my modest requirements. Please say no more.
Directly you are able to communicate with him express to Mr. Thessaly my
sincere condolence."

"A car is at your service, Mr. Mario."

"I appreciate the kindness fully, but I should much prefer to walk.
Please banish from your mind any idea that you have inconvenienced me.
Good night, Mr. Caspar."

The several extraordinary features of the incident he did not come to
consider until later, but as he walked contemplative along Babylon Lane
he detected sounds of distant gunfire, distinct from the more remote
rumbling which was the voice of the battle front. He stood
still--listening. An air raid on London was in progress.

"Thank God that Yvonne is out of it," he said earnestly--"and may He be
with every poor soul to-night who needs Him."

Jules Thessaly and Babylon Hall were banished from his mind, although
the raid on London might very well prove to be the explanation of
Thessaly's sudden departure. From the stricken area his imagination
recoiled, and in spirit he stood in a quaintly rambling village street
of Devon before a rose-smothered cottage, looking up to an open casement
window. It was there that Yvonne was, perhaps already sleeping--Yvonne,
his wife. And all the old fear visited him as he contemplated their
happiness, their immunity from the horrors, the sacrifices of an
anguished world. Why was he spared when others, seemingly more worthy,
suffered? True, he had suffered in spirit, which is the keenest torture
of all; but he had emerged to a greater happiness, to a reunion with
Yvonne which had been like a second and sweeter honeymoon. It could only
be that he was spared for a great purpose, that he might perform a giant
task. He was permitted, untrammelled, to view the conflict, the sorrow
and the agony of mankind from an Olympic height, serene and personally
untouched, only in order that he might heal the wounds laid bare before
him. "The world is waiting for you," Don had said. Paul silently prayed
that the world might not wait in vain.

"Master of Destiny, inscrutable God, grant me light that I may see to
perform the duty laid upon me. Use me, mould me, make of me an
instrument. Millions have offered all and lost all. Guide my steps. If
death lies upon the path I will not shrink, but suffer me to be of some
little use to thy scarred and bleeding world. Amen."

The ominous gunfire had ceased when he retired to his room that night
after a lonely dinner, and even the more distant booming to which he was
growing accustomed was not audible. The lantern of the moon hung above
such a serene countryside that thoughts of war were all but impossible,
and Paul likened the heavens to the jewelled dome of some vast mosque
wherein were gathered together all the clashing creeds of mankind, their
differences forgotten in a universal love.


XIV

The summer days slipped by, each morning bringing a letter from Yvonne,
each night a longing that it might be the last of their separation. But
the affairs of the late Sir Jacques' estate were not easily dismissed,
and Paul, eager with the ardent eagerness of a poet to set to work upon
his task, yet found himself chained to Lower Charleswood. The place
itself enchanted his imagination, and had his mind been free (and if Sir
Jacques had never occupied Hatton Towers and impressed his individuality
upon the house) Paul might have been content to stay--with Yvonne for a
companion. But London called him urgently and inaction grew irksome.

Flamby Duveen he never tired of studying; she fascinated him like some
rare palimpsest or Pythagorean problem. But Flamby was going to London
as soon as arrangements could be made for her mother and herself to
leave Dovelands Cottage. Mrs. Duveen had raised no objection to the
proposed change; Mrs. Duveen had never raised an objection to anything
throughout the whole of her docile career; and already Paul was weaving
this oddly assorted pair into the scheme of that book which he projected
as a challenge to the latent good in man.

Some of his neighbours he met, willy nilly, but they took no place in
his mental record of things, save perhaps the place of punctuation
marks, commas and semicolons for the most part, rarely rising to the
definite degree of a full point and never approaching the dramatic
significance of an exclamation mark. Already he floated above the common
world, looking down upon its tortured contours and half-defaced
frontiers--for the true poet is a fakir who quits his physical body at
the beck of inspiration, to return laden with strange secrets.

Jules Thessaly's letter explaining his extraordinary breach of good
behaviour had been characteristic of the man. For whilst it was couched
in more or less conventional terms of apology, the writer obviously
regarded his action as justified and assumed in Paul an understanding
which rendered pique impossible. Paul's theory regarding Thessaly's
sudden departure had been correct.

"The gods are all dead," ran one passage in the letter. "A shell, one of
our own, fortunately imperfect, entered the upper storey of my house and
rudely forced a passage through one floor and the outer wall. Some
slight damage has been done to my collection"--etc.

       *       *       *       *       *

The tangled details of Paul's legacy became disentangled at last, and he
fixed a definite date for his departure. That same evening the weather
broke and grey clouds veiled the stars. He was keenly susceptible to
climatic changes, and this abrupt interruption of summer plunged him
into a dark mood. Gone were the fairies from the meadows, gone the
dryads from the woods. The birds grew mute and roses drooped their
heads. He found himself alone facing a sorrowful world and sharing its
sorrows. The shadow of the black hat in the dining-room portrait lay
darkly on Hatton Towers.

When such a mood was upon him he would resign himself to it with all
that spiritual and intellectual abandon of which he was capable,
savagely goading himself to blacker despair and contemplating his own
condition with the critical faculty of his mind, which at these times
remained undisturbed. Whilst the rain beat upon the windows and
draperies billowed eerily in the draught, he passed from the library
into the study and unlocked that high black oak bureau which concealed
the private collection of works artistic and literary which had informed
him of the true character of his late uncle. He had caused a huge fire
to be made up in the old open hearth in the dining-room and he proposed
to spend the evening in building a pyre which should consume the memory
of the secret Sir Jacques.

The books, many of them in handsome bindings, he glanced at, in order
that no one worthy of life should be destroyed. The verdict pronounced
he either laid the book aside or broke it up and threw it on to the
great fire in the adjoining room. He worked for an hour, eagerly,
savagely, his coat stripped off and his shirt sleeves rolled above the
elbow. The collection, though valuable, was small, and within the hour
the bulk of it was ashes. Paul the iconoclast then turned his attention
to the portfolios of water-colours, etchings and photographs which
occupied the lower and deeper shelves of the bureau.

Here he found exquisite reproductions of Pompeiian frescoes,
illustrations in line and colour to divers works, as Pierre Louys'
_Aphrodite_, the _Satyricon_ of Petronius, and Ovid's _Amours_. The
crowning horror of the thing was the artistic skill which had been
prostituted to such ends. Technically, many of the pictures were above
criticism; morally all were beyond. He consigned the entire heap of them
to the flames.

Only the photographs remained, and a glance at the first of these
resulted in a journey to the dining-room with laden arms. By impish
chance two large and tastefully mounted panels both representing a
sun-kissed nymph posed beside a pool slipped from the bundle and fell at
his feet. Kicking the ash-stifled fire into a blaze, he stooped to
recover them. So stooping he remained, staring down at the pictures on
the floor. Then slowly, dazedly, he took them up, one in either hand.
They were photographs of Flamby.

       *       *       *       *       *

The fire roared up the brick chimney, the wind fought for entrance from
above, rain beat dismally upon the high windows. The fire died down
again, seeming to retire into the mound of grey ashes which it had
created; and the photographs fell from Paul's grasp.

A wrought-iron poker hung from a rack in the hearth, and, his face set
like a mask, Paul took the crude weapon in his hand, and slowly raised
his head until he was looking up at the oil-painting above the
mantelpiece. The sound of a dry and discreet cough close behind him drew
his attention to the presence of Davison. He turned, a strange figure,
something very menacing in his eyes. Davison glanced furtively under the
gate-legged table.

"Mr. Thessaly has called, sir," he said, and held out a salver upon
which lay a visiting-card.

"Where is he?"

"He is in the library, sir."

"Very good. I will join him there in a few moments."

The portrait of Sir Jacques had been spared to posterity by that
admirable tradition which denies an English gentleman any display of
emotion in the presence of a servant.


XV

"I have seized the first opportunity," said Thessaly, as Paul, composure
restored, entered the library, "of offering a personal explanation of my
behaviour."

Paul took his extended hand, waiving the proferred explanation. "Except
as regards the damage done to your property, I am not interested. Had
your disappearance been dictated by nothing more than a sudden desire
for solitude I should have understood. If I should ever be called upon
to act as you did on that occasion I should know that a friend would
understand. If he misunderstood he would not be a friend. I fear I am
somewhat dusty. I have been destroying a portion of my legacy."

Jules Thessaly, dropping back into the padded arm-chair in which he had
been seated, stared hard at Paul.

"Not the illustrations to that portion of Scheherazade's narrative
invariably expunged from all respectable editions of the _Thousand and
One Nights_?"

Paul nodded, pushing a box of cigars across the table. "You know them?"

"I know that Sir Jacques possessed such pictures."

"I have destroyed them."

"Why?"

Paul selected a cigar ere looking up to meet the faintly amused glance
of Thessaly. "They bore witness to a phase of his life which he chose to
conceal from the world. I could do no less."

"You speak with contempt."

"The hypocrite is contemptible. A frank libertine may be an amusing
fellow. If we do not think so, we can avoid him."

"I agree with you up to a point. But in justice remember that every man
has pages in his history which are never displayed to the world."

"Very likely. But every man does not pose as a saint. Those who seek the
company of a professed rake do so at their own peril. But the disguised
satyr is a menace to the innocent."

"I would suggest that some specific 'innocent' occurs to your mind?"

"The adder does not bite itself. Were there no stories?"

"A few. But Sir Jacques was a model of discretion; as an under-secretary
he would have glittered in the political firmament. There was a pretty
village girl who promised at one time to provide the district with
agreeable table-talk, but unfortunately for Miss Kingsbury and company
the affair apparently fell through."

"He was, as you say, a model of discretion."

"Ah. There are records? Well, you were justified in destroying them."

"It is hard to understand."

"To understand whom--Sir Jacques or the girl? You cannot mean the girl.
A man who reaches the age of thirty without understanding women is like
a bluebottle who devotes a summer morning to an endeavour to fly through
a pane of glass."

"You speak like an early Roman."

"What more admirable model? Consider the Roman institutions; perfect
sanitation and slavery. We abolish one and adopt the other, with the
result that a healthy democracy has swallowed us up. The early Romans
were sages."

"You have no sympathy for Sir Jacques' victims?"

"Except where the chivalrous warriors of Prussia are concerned, and with
other rare exceptions, I never think of women as victims, Mr. Mario."

"Not even in the case of an aged hypocrite who probably posed as the
Platonic friend?"

"Platonic friendship is impossible up to sixty-five. The most ignorant
girl knows it to be so, for every woman has hereditary memory."

"Your creed is a harsh one. You take no count of snares and pitfalls."

"Snares and pitfalls cannot be set upon the highroad."

"And how should you define this highroad?"

"As the path selected by our unspoiled instincts. It is ignorance posing
as education that first blunts those instincts, dogma disguised as
religion and hypocrisy misnamed 'good behaviour.'"

"You would allow instinct to go unfettered?"

"Provided it remains unspoiled. But first I would sweep the world of
lies."

"Then you think the world ready for the truth?"

"I know that the world waits for it."

"Do you think the world will recognise it?"

"In part the world has already recognised it. We lived in an age which
was eternally demanding 'proofs'--and which rejected them when they were
offered. But the great catastrophe which has overwhelmed us has adjusted
our perspective. Few of us to-day _dare_ to doubt the immortality of the
soul. We failed to recognise joy as a proof of our survival after death,
but we cannot reject the teaching of sorrow."

"Love and friendship, of course, are proofs not only of immortality, but
of pre-existence and the survival of the individual."

"And can you make the disciples of the clap-trap which passes for
religion believe this, Mr. Mario?"

"I propose to try. But the task is hard. There are pieces difficult to
fit into the scheme."

"You agree with me that the war, which was born of ignorance, will bear
the fruit of truth?"

"I agree that it will bear the fruit of truth, but I do not agree that
it was born of ignorance. Men did not cause the war. It is a visitation
from higher powers, and therefore has a grand purpose. There are no
accidents in the scheme of the universe."

"You think those higher powers are powers of good?"

"Wherever the powers of darkness walk the Powers of Light stand arrayed
before them."

There was a muffled crash in the adjoining room, which brought Paul,
startled, to his feet. He crossed the library and entered the panelled
dining-room. The portrait of Sir Jacques had fallen from its place above
the mantelpiece, breaking a number of ornaments as it fell. Davison was
already on the spot and stood surveying the wreckage.

"The 'eat of the extraordinary fire, no doubt, sir," he said. "The 'ook
is loosened, as you observe."

Paul stared at the man with unseeing eyes; he was striving to grasp the
symbolic significance of the incident, but it eluded him, and presently
he returned to the library, where Jules Thessaly was glancing at a book
which he had taken from a shelf apparently at random.

"An accident?"

"Yes. A picture has fallen. Nothing serious."

"Ah. Do you know this war-writer?" Thessaly held up the book in his
hand--"Rudolf Kjellen."

"By name," replied Paul, absently. "Does he understand?"

"Up to a point. His thesis is that a great and inevitable world-drama is
being played and that he who seeks its cause in mere human plotting and
diplomacy is a fool. States are superhuman but living biological
personalities, dynamic, and moving toward inevitable ends beyond human
control."

"He is mad. All the German propagandists are mad. The insanity of
Germany is part of the scheme of the world-change through which we are
passing. He recognises the superhuman forces at work and in the same
breath babbles of 'states.' There is only one earthly State and to that
State all humanity belongs."

Jules Thessaly returned Kjellen's work to its place. "If I do not
misunderstand you," he said, fixing his gaze upon Paul, "you contemplate
telling the world that the churches have misinterpreted Revelation and
that Christ as well as the other Masters actually revealed reincarnation
as the secret of heaven and hell?"

"That is my intention."

"Your audience is a vast one, Mr. Mario. No man for many generations has
been granted the power to sway thought, which nature has bestowed upon
you. Your word may well prevail against all things--even in time against
Rome. You recognise that you are about to take up a mighty weapon?"

"I do. Publicity is the lever of which Archimedes dreamed; and I confess
that I tremble. You think the churches will oppose me?"

"Can you doubt it?"

"I fear you are right, yet they should be my allies, not my enemies. In
the spectacle of a world in arms the churches must surely recognise the
evidence of failure. If they would survive they must open their doors to
reform."

"And what is the nature of the reform you would suggest?"

"Conversion from nineteen centuries of error to the simple creed of
their Founder."

"Impossible. Churches, like Russian securities, may be destroyed but
never converted."

"Yet in their secret hearts millions of professed churchmen believe as I
believe----"

"----That heaven and hell are within every man's own soul and that the
state in which he is born is the state for which he has fitted himself
by the acts of his pre-existence?"

Paul inclined his head. "No other belief is possible to-day."

"There are higher planets than Earth, perhaps lower. The ultimate deep
is Hell, the ultimate height Heaven. The universe is a ladder which
every soul must climb."

From a catechism Jules Thessaly's words had developed into a profession
of faith, and Paul, who stood watching the speaker, grew suddenly
aware--a phenomenon which all have experienced--that such a profession
had been made to him before, that he had stood thus on some other
occasion and had heard the same words spoken. He knew what Jules
Thessaly was about to say.

"The knowledge which is yours is innate knowledge beyond human power to
acquire in one short span of life; it is the result of many lives
devoted to study. For the task you are about to take up you have been
preparing since the world was young. All is ordained, even your presence
in this room to-night--and mine. Where last did we meet--where first?
Perhaps in Rome, perhaps Atlantis; but assuredly we met and we meet
again to fulfil a compact made in the dawn of time. I, too, am a student
of the recondite, and it may be that some of the fragments of truth
which I have collected will help you to force recognition of the light
from a world plunged in darkness."

"In utter darkness," murmured Paul. And clearly before him--so clearly
as almost to constitute hallucination---arose a vision of Flamby Duveen
as she appeared in the secret photographs.

"You have definitely set your hand to the plough?"

"Definitely."

Jules Thessaly advanced, leaning forward across the table. He stared
fixedly at Paul. "To-night," he said, "a new Star is born in the West
and an hour will come when the eyes of all men must be raised to it."




PART SECOND

FLAMBY IN LONDON


I

On a raw winter's morning some six months later Don Courtier walked
briskly out of St. Pancras station, valise in hand, and surveyed a misty
yellow London with friendly eyes. A taxi-driver, hitherto plunged in
unfathomable gloom, met this genial glance and recovered courage. He
volunteered almost cheerfully to drive Don to any spot which he might
desire to visit, an offer which Don accepted in an equally cordial
spirit.

Depositing his valise at the Services Club in Stratford Place, his
modest abode when on leave in London, Don directed the cabman to drive
him to Paul Mario's house in Chelsea.

"Go a long way round," he said; "through Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar
Square and up the Mall. I want to see the sights of London Town."

Lying back in the cab he lighted a cigarette and resigned himself to
those pleasant reflections which belong to the holiday mood. For the
Capital of a threatened empire, London looked disappointingly ordinary,
he thought. There seemed to be thousands of pretty women, exquisitely
dressed, thronging the West End thoroughfares; but Don had learned from
experience that this delusion was a symptom associated with leave. Long
absence from feminine society blunts a man's critical faculties, and
Robinson Crusoe must have thought all women beautiful.

There were not so many posters on the hoardings, which deprived the
streets of a characteristic note of colour, but there were conspicuous
encomiums of economy displayed at Oxford Circus which the shopping
crowds along Oxford Street and Regent Street seemed nevertheless to have
overlooked. A large majority of the male population appeared to be in
khaki. The negligible minority not in khaki appeared to be in extremis
or second childhood. Don had heard much of "slackers" but the spectacle
afforded by the street of shops set him wondering where they were all
hiding. With the exception of a number of octogenarians and cripples,
the men in Regent Street wore uniform. They were all accompanied by
lovely women; it was extraordinary, but Don knew that it would wear off.
At Piccadilly Circus he found the usual congestion of traffic and more
than the usual gala atmosphere for which this spot is peculiar.

People at Piccadilly Circus never appear to be there on business. They
are either _au rendezvous_ or bound for a restaurant or going shopping
or booking theatre seats; and although Don had every reason for
believing that a war was in progress, Piccadilly Circus brazenly refused
to care. The doors of the London Pavilion were opened hospitably and
even at that early hour the tables in Scott's windows were occupied by
lobster fanciers. A newsboy armed with copies of an evening paper (which
oddly enough came out in the morning) was shouting at the top of his
voice that there had been a naval engagement in the Channel, but he did
not succeed in attracting anything like the same attention as that
freely bestowed upon a well known actress who was standing outside the
Criterion and not shouting at all. It was very restful after the worry
at the front. In Derbyshire, too, people had talked about nothing but
the war.

There were attractive posters upon the plinth of Nelson's Monument, and
the Square seemed to be full of Colonial troops. The reputation of
Trafalgar Square ranks next to that of the Strand in the British
Colonies. A party of Grenadier Guards, led by a band and accompanied by
policemen and small boys, marched along the Mall. A phrase of the march
haunted Don all the way to Chelsea.

       *       *       *       *       *

Yvonne Mario in white decollete blouse and simple blue skirt, made a
very charming picture indeed. Her beauty was that of exquisite colouring
and freshness; her hair seemed to have captured and retained the summer
sunlight, and her eyes were of that violet hue which so rarely survives
childhood. Patrician languor revealed itself in every movement of her
slim figure. Don's smile betrayed his admiration.

"Do you know, Yvonne," he said, "I have been thinking coming along that
there were thousands of pretty girls in London. I see now that I was
wrong."

"You are making me blush!" said Yvonne, which was not true, for her
graceful composure seldom deserted her. "I shall tell Paul that you have
been paying me compliments."

"I wish you would. I don't believe he thinks I appreciate you as highly
as I do."

"He does," replied Yvonne naively; "he regards you as a connoisseur of
good looks!"

"Oh!" cried Don. "Oh! listen to her! Yvonne, you are growing vain."

"A woman without vanity is not appreciated."

"A woman without vanity is not human."

"If you are going to say cynical things I won't talk to you. You want a
whisky-and-soda."

"I don't."

"You do. The first thing to offer a man on leave is whisky-and-soda."

"It is a ritual, then?"

"It is the law. Sit down there and resign yourself to it. Do you really
mean to tell me that you did not know Paul was in France?"

"It must be a dreadful blow to your self-esteem, Yvonne, but I really
came here expecting to see him. When does he return?"

Yvonne rose as a maid entered with a tray bearing decanter and syphon.
"On Tuesday morning if the Channel is clear. Will you help yourself or
shall I pour out until you say 'When'?"

"Please help me. You cannot imagine how delightful it is to be waited
upon by a nice girl after grubbing over there."

"When do you have to go back, Don?"

"I have a clear week yet. When! How is Paul progressing with the book,
Yvonne?"

"He has been collecting material for months, and of course his present
visit to France is for material, too. I think he has practically
completed the first part, but I have no idea what form it is finally to
take."

"His article in the _Review_ made a stir."

"Wasn't it extraordinary!" cried Yvonne, seating herself beside Don on
the low window-seat and pressing the cushions with her hands. "We were
simply snowed under with letters from all sorts of people, and quite a
number of them called in person, even after Paul had left London."

"Did you let them in?"

"No; some of them quite frightened me. There was one old clergyman who
seemed very suspicious when Eustace told him that Paul was abroad. He
stood outside the house for quite a long time, banging his stick on the
pavement and coughing in a nasty barking fashion. I was watching him
through the curtains of an upstairs window. He left a tract behind
called _The Path is Straight but Narrow_."

"Did he wear whiskers?"

"Yes; long ones."

"A soft black hat, a polo collar and a ready-for-use black tie?"

"I believe he did."

"I am glad you did not let him in."

Through the narrow-panelled windows of the charming morning-room Don
could see the old sundial. He remembered that in the summer the
miniature rock-garden endued a mantle of simple flowers, and that sweet
scents were borne into the room by every passing breeze. A great
Victorian painter had lived in this house, which now was destined to
figure again in history as the home of the greater Paul Mario. He
glanced around the cosy room, in which there were many bowls and vases
holding tulips, those chalices of tears beloved of Hafiz, and he
suppressed a little sigh.

"May I light a pipe before I go, Yvonne?" he asked. "I am one of those
depraved beings who promenade the streets smoking huge briars, to the
delight of Continental comic artists."

"I know you are. But you are not going to promenade the streets until
you have had lunch."

"Really, Yvonne, thanks all the same, but I must go. Honestly, I have an
appointment."

Yvonne smiled in his face and her violet eyes held a query.

"No," replied Don--"no such luck. The Pauls are the lucky dogs. All the
nice girls are married. I am going to lunch with a solicitor!"

"Oh, how unromantic! And you are on leave!"

"Painful, I admit, but I am a stodgy old fogey. When the war is over I
am going to buy a velvet coat and a little red pork-pie cap, with a
green tassel. Is that old Odin I can hear barking?"

"Yes. He has heard your voice."

"I must really say 'How d'you do' to Odin. When I have lighted my pipe
may I go out?"

"Of course. Odin would never forgive you if you didn't. Let me strike a
match for you."

"You are spoiling me, Yvonne."

Don, his pipe well alight, stood up and went out into the garden where a
wolf-hound was making an excited demonstration in the little yard before
the door of his kennel.

"Hullo, Odin!" cried Don, as the great hound leapt at him joyfully,
resting both paws upon his shoulders. "How is old Odin? Not looking
forward to compulsory rationing, I dare swear."

He pulled the dog's ears affectionately and scratched his shapely head
in that manner which is so gratifying to the canine species. Then from
the pocket of his "British-warm" he produced a large sweet biscuit,
whereupon Odin immediately assumed a correct mendicant posture and sat
with drooping forepaws and upraised eyes. Don balanced the big biscuit
upon the dog's nose. "When I say 'Three,' Odin. One!" Odin did not stir.
"Two!" Odin remained still as a dog of stone. "_Three!_" The biscuit
disappeared, and Don laughed as loudly as though the familiar
performance had been an entire novelty. "Good morning, old fellow," he
said, and returned to the house.

Yvonne was awaiting him in the hall. "What time shall you come on
Tuesday?" she asked. "Paul should be home to lunch."

"You will want Paul all to yourself for awhile, Yvonne. I shall look in
later in the afternoon." He shook hands with his pretty hostess, put on
his cap and set off for the offices of Messrs. Nevin & Nevin.

       *       *       *       *       *

The offices of Messrs. Nevin & Nevin were of that dusty, gloomy and
obsolete fashion which inspires such confidence in the would-be
litigant. Large and raggedly bound volumes, which apparently had been
acquired from the twopenny boxes outside second-hand bookshops, lined
the shelves of the outer office, and the chairs were of an
early-Victorian horsehair variety. Respectability had run to seed in
those chambers. Mr. Jacob Nevin, the senior partner, to whose decorous
sanctum Don presently penetrated, also had a second-hand appearance. Don
had always suspected him of secret snuff-taking.

"Ah, Captain Courtier," he said; "very sad about Miss Duveen's second
bereavement, very sad."

"Yes. Fate has dealt unkindly with the poor girl. I understand that Mrs.
Duveen died more than two months ago; but I only learned of her death
quite recently. I wrote to Miss Duveen directly I knew that I was coming
to England, and I was horrified to hear of her mother's death. You have
got the affairs well in hand now?"

"Since receiving your instructions, Captain Courtier, I have pushed the
matter on with every possible expedition--every expedition possible. The
absence of Mr. Paul Mario in France had somewhat tied my hands, you
see."

"I will consult Mrs. Chumley, my aunt, and arrange, if possible, for
Miss Duveen to live at The Hostel. I have already written to her upon
the subject. If it can be managed I shall 'phone you later to-day, and
perhaps you would be good enough to wire to Miss Duveen requesting her
to come to London immediately. Don't mention my name, you understand?
But let me know at the Club by what train she is arriving and I shall
endeavour to meet her. We cannot expect Mario to attend to these
details; he has a duty to the world, which only a man of his genius
could perform."

Mr. Nevin adjusted his pince-nez. "Very remarkable, Captain Courtier,"
he said gravely; "a very strange and strong personality--Mr. Paul Mario.
As my client his wishes are mine, but as a staunch churchman I find
myself in disagreement with much of his paper, _Le Bateleur_--in
disagreement, but remarkable, very."

Don laughed. "You are not alone in this respect, Mr. Nevin. He is
destined to divide the civilised world into two camps, and already I,
who encouraged him to the task, begin to tremble for its outcome."


II

Flamby arrived at London Bridge Station in a profoundly dejected
condition. However happy one may be, London Bridge Station possesses the
qualities of a sovereign joy-killer, and would have inclined the
thoughts of Mark Tapley toward the darker things of life; but to Flamby,
alone in a world which she did not expect to find sympathetic, it seemed
a particularly hopeless place. She was dressed in black, and black did
not suit her, and all the wisdom of your old philosophers must fail to
solace a woman who knows that she is not looking her best.

Her worldly belongings were contained in a split-cane grip and the
wraith of a cabin-trunk, whose substance had belonged to her father; her
available capital was stuffed in a small leather purse. When the train
with a final weary snort ceased its struggles and rested beside the
platform, that murk so characteristic of London draped the grimy
structure of the station, and a fine drizzle was falling. London had
endued no holiday garments to greet Flamby, but, homely fashion, had
elected to receive her in its everyday winter guise. A pathetic little
figure, she stepped out of the carriage. Something in the contrast
between this joyless gloom and the sun-gay hills she had known and loved
brought a sudden mist before Flamby's eyes, so that she remained unaware
of the presence of a certain genial officer until a voice which was
vaguely familiar said: "Your train was late, Miss Duveen."

Flamby started, stared, and found Donald Courtier standing smiling at
her. Although she had seen him only once before she knew him immediately
because she had often studied the photograph which was inside the famous
silver cigarette-case. The mistiness of vision troubled her anew as she
held out her black-gloved hand. "Oh," she said huskily, "how good of
you."

The last word was almost inaudible, and whilst Don grasped her hand
between both his own and pressed it reassuringly, Flamby stared through
the mist at three golden stars on the left shoulder of his topcoat.

"Now," cried Don cheerily, "what about our baggage?"

"There's only one old trunk," said Flamby, "except this funny thing."

"Give me the funny thing," replied Don briskly, "and here is a comic
porter who will dig out the trunk. Porter!"

Linking his left arm in Flamby's right, Don, taking up the cane grip,
moved along the platform in the direction of the guard's van, which was
apparently laden with an incredible number of empty and resonant milk
cans. The porter whom he had hailed, a morbid spirit who might suitably
have posed for Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, approached regretfully.

"'Ow many?" he inquired. "Got the ticket?"

He did not disguise his hopes that it might prove to be lost, but they
were shattered when the luggage ticket was produced from Flamby's black
glove, and in due course the antique cabin-trunk made its appearance.
That it was an authentic relic of Duveen's earlier days was testified by
the faded labels, which still clung to it and which presented an
illustrated itinerary of travels extending from Paris to New Orleans,
Moscow to Shanghai. The new label, "London Bridge," offered a shocking
anti-climax. Trundled by the regretful porter the grip and the trunk
were borne out into the drizzle, Don and Flamby following; a taxi-cab
was found, and Don gave the address of The Hostel. Then, allowing Flamby
no time for comment, he began talking at once about the place for which
they were bound.

"Mr. Nevin selected The Hostel as an ideal spot," he said, "where you
would be free from interference and able to live your own life. He was
influenced, too, by the fact that I have an aunt living there, a Mrs.
Chumley, one of the most delightful old souls you could wish to meet."

Flamby was watching him all the time, and presently she spoke. "Are you
quite sure, Captain Courtier, that the money from the War Office will be
enough to pay for all this?"

Don waved his hand carelessly. "Ample," he declared. "The idea of The
Hostel, which was founded by Lady Something-or-other, is to afford a
residence for folks placed just as you are; not overburdened with
means--you see? Of course, some of the tenants are queer fish, and as
respectable as those dear old ladies who live amongst the ghosts at
Hampton Court. But there are a number of women writers and students, and
so forth: you will be quite at home in no time."

Flamby glanced down at the black dress, which she had made, and had made
tastefully and well, but which to its critical creator looked painfully
unfinished. "I feel a freak," she said. "Dad didn't believe in mourning,
but they would have burned me alive at Lower Charleswood if I hadn't
gone into black. Do you believe in mourning?"

"Well," replied Don, "to me it seems essentially a concession to popular
opinion. I must admit that it strikes me as an advertisement of grief
and about on a par with the wailing of the East. I don't see why we
should go about inviting the world to weep. Our sorrows are our own
affairs, after all, like our joys. We might quite as reasonably dress in
white when a son and heir is born to us."

"Oh, I'm so glad you think so," said Flamby, and her voice was rather
tremulous. "I loved mother more than anything in the world, but I hate
to be reminded that she is dead by everybody who looks at me."

Don grasped her hand and tucked it confidently under his arm. "Your
father was a wise man. Never be ashamed of following his advice, Flamby.
May I call you Flamby? You seem so very grown-up, with your hair all
tucked away under that black hat."

"I'm nearly eighteen, but I should hate you to call me Miss Duveen.
Nobody ever calls me Miss Duveen, except people who don't like me."

"They must be very few."

"Not so few," said Flamby thoughtfully. "I think it's my hair that does
it."

"That makes people dislike you?"

"Yes. Other women hate my hair."

"That is a compliment, Flamby."

"But isn't it horrible? Women are nasty. I wish I were a man."

Don laughed loudly, squeezing Flamby's hand more firmly under his arm.
"You would have made a deuce of a boy," he said. "I wonder if we should
have been friends."

"I don't think so," replied Flamby pensively.

"Eh!" cried Don, turning to her--"why not?"

"Well you treat women so kindly, and if I were a man I should treat them
so differently."

"How do you know that I treat women kindly?"

"You are very kind to me."

"Ha!" laughed Don. "You call yourself a woman? Why you are only a kid!"

"But I'm a wise kid," replied Flamby saucily, the old elfin light in her
eyes. "I know what beasts women are to one another, and I often hate
myself because I'm a little beast, too."

"I don't believe it."

"That's because you are one of those nice men who deserve to know
better."

Don leaned back in the cab and laughed until tears came to his eyes. He
had encouraged this conversation with the purpose of diverting Flamby's
mind from her sorrow, and he was glad to have succeeded so well. "Do men
hate you, too," he asked.

"No, I get on much better with men. There are some fearful rotters, of
course, but most men are honest enough if you are honest with them."

"_Honi soit qui mal y pense_," murmured Don, slowly recovering from his
fit of laughter.

"_Ipsissima verba_," said Flamby.

Don, who was drying his eyes, turned slowly and regarded her. Flamby
blushed rosily.

"What did you say?" asked Don.

"Nothing. I was thinking out loud."

"Do you habitually think in Latin?"

"No. It was just a trick of dad's. I wish you could have heard him swear
in Latin."

Don's eyes began to sparkle again. "No doubt I should have found the
experience of great educational value," he said; "but did he often swear
in Latin?"

"Not often; only when he was _very_ drunk."

"What was his favourite tongue when he was merely moderately so?"

Flamby's expression underwent a faint change, and looking down she bit
her under-lip. Instantly Don saw that he had wounded her, and he cursed
the clumsiness, of which Paul could never have been guilty, that had led
him to touch this girl's acute sensibilities. She was bewildering, of
course, and he realised that he must step warily in future. He reached
across and grasped her other hand hard. "Please forgive me," he said.
"No man had better reason for loving your father than I."

Flamby looked up at him doubtfully, read sincerity in the grey eyes, and
smiled again at once. "_He_ wouldn't have minded a bit," she explained,
"but I'm only a woman after all, and women are daft."

"I cannot allow you to be a woman yet, Flamby. You are only a girl, and
I want you to think of me----"

Flamby's pretty lips assumed a mischievous curve and a tiny dimple
appeared in her cheek. "Don't say as a big brother," she cried, "or you
will make me feel like a penny novelette!"

"I cannot believe that you ever read a penny novelette."

"No; I didn't. But mother read them, and dad used to tear pages out to
light his pipe before mother had finished. Then she would explain the
plot to me up to the torn pages, and we would try to work out what had
happened to the girl in the missing parts."

"A delightful literary exercise. And was the principal character always
a girl?"

"Always a girl--yes; a poor girl cast upon the world; very often a poor
governess."

"And she had two suitors."

"Yes. Sometimes three. She seemed inclined to marry the wrong one, but
mother always read the end first to make sure it came out all right. I
never knew one that didn't."

"No; it would have been too daring for publication. So your mother read
these stories? Romance is indeed a hardy shrub."

The cab drew up before the door of The Hostel, a low, half-timbered
building upon Jacobean lines which closely resembled an old coaching
inn. The windows looking out upon the flower-bordered lawn had leaded
panes, the gabled roof was red-tiled, and over the arched entrance
admitting one to the rectangular courtyard around which The Hostel was
constructed hung a wrought-iron lamp of delightfully mediaeval
appearance.

Don opened the gate and walked beside Flamby under the arch and into the
courtyard. Here the resemblance to an inn grew even more marked. A
gallery surrounded the courtyard and upon it opened the doors of
numerous suites situated upon the upper floor. There was a tiny rock
garden, too, and altogether the place had a charming old-world
atmosphere that was attractive and homely. The brasswork of the many
doors was brightly polished and all the visible appointments of the
miniature suites spoke of refined good taste.

"It's very quiet," said Flamby.

"Yes. You see most of the people who live here are out during the day."

"Please where do I live?"

"This way," cried Don cheerily, conducting her up the tiled steps to the
gallery. "Number twenty-three."

His good cheer was infectious, and Flamby found herself to be succumbing
to a sort of pleasant excitement as she passed along by the rows of
well-groomed doors, each of which bore a number and a neat name-plate.
Some of the quaint leaded lattices were open, revealing vases of flowers
upon the ledges within, and the tiny casement curtains afforded an index
to the characters of the various occupants, which made quite fascinating
study. There was Mrs. Lawrence Pooney whose curtains were wedgwood blue
with a cream border; Miss Hook, whose curtains were plain dark green;
Miss Aldrington Beech, whose curtains were lemon coloured with a Chinese
pattern; and Mrs. Marion de Lisle, whose curtains were of the hue of the
passion flower.

The door of Number 23 proved to be open, and Flamby, passing in, stood
looking around her and trying to realise that this was the stage upon
which the next act of her life story should be played. She found herself
in a rather small rectangular room, lighted by one large casement window
and a smaller latticed one, both of them overlooking the courtyard. The
woodwork was oaken and the walls were distempered a discreet and restful
shade of blue. There were a central electric fitting and another for a
reading-lamp, a fireplace of the latest slow-combustion pattern and a
door communicating with an inner chamber.

"Oh!" cried Flamby. "What a dear little place!"

Don, who had been watching her anxiously, saw that she was really
delighted and he entered into the spirit of the thing immediately. "I
think it is simply terrific," he said. "I have often envied the Aunt her
abode and wished I were an eligible spinster or widow. You have not seen
the inner sanctuary yet; it is delightfully like a state-room."

Flamby passed through the doorway into the bedroom, which indeed was not
much larger than a steamer cabin and was fitted with all those
space-saving devices which one finds at sea; a bureau that was really a
wash-basin, and a hidden wardrobe.

"There is a communal kitchen," explained Don, "with up-to-date
appointments, also a general laundry, and there are bathrooms on both
floors. I don't mean perpendicular bathrooms, so I should perhaps have
said on either floor. In that cunning little alcove in the sitting-room
is a small gas-stove, so that you will have no occasion to visit the
kitchen unless you are preparing a banquet. You enjoy the use of the
telephone, which is in the reading-room over the main entrance--and what
more could one desire?"

"It's just great," declared Flamby, "and I can never hope to thank you
for being so good to me. But I am wondering how I am going to afford
it."

"My dear Flamby, the rent of this retreat is astoundingly modest. You
will use very little coal, electric and gas meters are of the
penny-in-the-slot variety immortalised in song and story by Little Tich,
and there you are."

"I was thinking about the furniture," said Flamby.

"Eh!" cried Don--"furniture? Yes, of course; upon more mature
consideration I perceive distinctly that some few items of that kind
will be indispensable. Furniture. Quite so."

"You hadn't thought of that?"

"No--I admit it had slipped my memory. The question of furniture does
not bulk largely in the mind of one used to billeting troops, but of
course it must be attended to. Now, how about the furniture of
What's-the-name Cottage?"

Flamby shook her head. "We had hardly any. Dad used to make things out
of orange boxes; he was very clever at it. He didn't like real
furniture. As fast as poor mother saved up and bought some he broke it,
so after a while she stopped. I've brought the clock."

"Ah!" cried Don gaily--"the clock. Good. That's a start. You will at
least know at what time to rise in the morning."

"I shall," agreed Flamby--"from the floor!"

The fascinating dimple reappeared in her cheek and she burst into peals
of most musical laughter. Don laughed, too; so that presently they
became quite breathless but perfectly happy.


III

"I vote," said Don, "that we consult the Aunt. She resides at Number
Nineteen on this floor, and her guidance in such a matter as furnishing
would be experienced and reliable."

"Right-oh," replied Flamby buoyantly. "I have a little money saved up."

"Don't worry about money. The pension has been finally settled between
Mr. Nevin and the Government people, and it dates from the time----"

"Of dad's death? But mother used to draw that."

"I am speaking of the special pension," explained Don hurriedly, as they
walked along the gallery, "which Mr. Nevin has been trying to arrange.
This ante-dates, and the first sum will be quite a substantial one;
ample for the purpose of furnishing. Here is the Aunt's."

Pausing before a door numbered 19, and bearing a brass plate inscribed
"Mrs. Chumley," Don pressed the bell. Whilst they waited, Flamby studied
the Aunt's curtains (which were snowy white) with critical eyes and
tried to make up her mind whether she liked or disliked the sound of
"Mrs. Chumley."

"The Aunt is apparently not at home," said Don, as no one responded to
the ringing. "Let us return to Number 23 and summon Reuben, who will
possibly know where she has gone."

Accordingly they returned to the empty suite and rang a bell which
summoned the janitor. Following a brief interval came a sound resembling
that of a drinking horse and there entered a red-whiskered old man with
a neatly pimpled nose, introducing an odour of rum. He was a small man,
but he wore a large green apron, and he touched the brim of his bowler
hat very respectfully.

"Excuse me breathin' 'eavy, sir," he said, "but it's the _hahsma_. The
place is hall ready for the young madam, sir, to move 'er furniture in,
and Mrs. Chumley she's in the readin'-room."

"Ah, very good, Reuben," replied Don. "Will you get the trunk and basket
in from the taxi, and you might pay the man. The fare was four and
something-or-other. Here are two half-crowns and sixpence."

"Yes, sir," responded Reuben; "and what time am I to expect the other
things?"

"Miss Duveen is not quite sure, Reuben, when they will arrive. As a
matter of fact, she has several purchases to make. But probably the bulk
of it will arrive to-morrow afternoon."

"Yes, sir," said Reuben, and departed respiring noisily. As he made his
exit Flamby carefully closed the door, and--"Oh," she cried, "what a
funny old man! Whatever did he mean by _hahsma_?"

"I have been struggling with the same problem," declared Don, "and I
have come to the conclusion that he referred to asthma."

"Oh," said Flamby breathlessly. "I hope he won't mind me laughing at
him."

"I am sure he won't. He is a genial soul and generally liked in spite of
his spirituous aroma. Now for the Aunt."

They walked around two angles of the gallery and entered a large room
the windows of which overlooked the front lawn. It was furnished cosily
as a library, and a cheerful fire burned in the big open grate. From the
centre window an excellent view might be obtained of Reuben struggling
with the cabin-trunk, which the placid taxi-driver had unstrapped and
lowered on to the janitor's shoulders without vacating his seat.

"I hope he won't break the clock," said Flamby, _sotto voce_. She turned
as Don went up to a little table at which a round old lady, the only
occupant of the room, was seated writing. This old lady had a very round
red face and very round wide-open surprised blue eyes. Her figure was
round, too; she was quite remarkably circular.

"Ha, the Aunt!" cried Don, placing his hands affectionately upon her
plump shoulders. "Here is our country squirrel come to town."

Mrs. Chumley laid down her pen and turned the surprised eyes upon Don.
Being met with a smile, she smiled in response--and her smile was oddly
like that of her nephew. Flamby knew in a moment that Mrs. Chumley was a
sweet old lady, and that hers was one of those rare natures whose
possessors see ill in no one, but good in all.

"Dear me," said Mrs. Chumley, in a surprised silvery voice, a voice
peculiarly restful and soothing, "it is Don." She stood up. "Yes, it is
Don, and this is Flamby. Come here, dear, and let me look at you."

Flamby advanced swiftly, holding out her hand, which Mrs. Chumley took,
and the other as well, drawing her close and kissing her on the cheek in
the simple, natural manner of a mother. Then Mrs. Chumley held her at
arms' length, surveying her, and began to muse aloud.

"She is very pretty, Don," she said. "You told me she was pretty, I
remember. She is a sweet little girl, but I don't think black suits her.
Do you think black suits her?"

"Any old thing suits her," replied Don, "but she looks a picture in
white."

"Quite agree, Don, she would. Couldn't you dress in white, dear?"

"If nobody thought it too awful I would. Dad never believed in
mourning."

"Quite agree. Most peculiar that I should agree with him, but I do. Don
does not believe in mourning, either. I should be most annoyed if he
wore mourning. Was your mother pretty? Don't tell me if it makes you
cry. What beautiful hair you have. Hasn't she beautiful hair, Don? May I
take your hat off, dear?"

"Of course," said Flamby, taking off her hat immediately, whereupon the
mop of unruly hair all coppery waves and gold-flecked foam came tumbling
about her face.

"Dear me," continued Mrs. Chumley, whilst Don stood behind her watching
the scene amusedly, "it _is_ remarkable hair." Indeed the sight of
Flamby's hair seemed almost to have stupefied her. "She is really very
pretty. I like you awfully, dear. I am glad you are going to live near
me. What did you call her, Don?"

"What did I call her, Aunt?"

"When you first came in. Oh, yes--a squirrel." She placed her arm around
Flamby and gave her a little hug. "Quite agree; she _is_ a squirrel. You
are a country squirrel, dear. Do you mind?"

"Of course not," said Flamby, laughing. "You couldn't pay me a nicer
compliment."

"No," replied Mrs. Chumley, lapsing into thoughtful mood. "I suppose I
couldn't. Squirrels are very pretty. I am afraid I was never like a
squirrel. How many inches are you round the waist?"

"I don't know. About twenty," replied Flamby, suddenly stricken with
shyness; "but I'm only little."

"Are you little, dear? I should not have called you little. You are
taller than I am."

Since Mrs. Chumley was far from tall, the criterion was peculiar, but
Flamby accepted it without demur. "I'm wearing high heels," she said. "I
am no taller than you, really."

"I should have thought you were, dear. I am glad you wear high heels.
They are so smart. It's a mistake to wear low heels. Men hate them.
Don't you think men hate them, Don?"

"The consensus of modern masculine opinion probably admits distaste for
flat-heeled womanhood, in spite of classic tradition."

"Dear me, that might be Paul Mario. Do you like Paul Mario,
dear?"--turning again to Flamby and repeating the little hug.

Flamby lowered her head quickly. "Yes," she replied.

"I thought you would. He's so handsome. Don't you think him handsome?"

"Yes."

"He is astonishingly clever, too. Everybody is talking about what they
call his New Gospel. Do you believe in his New Gospel, dear?"

"I don't know what it is."

"I'm not quite sure that I do. What is his New Gospel, Don?"

"That he alone can explain, Aunt. But it is going to stir up the world.
Paul is a genius--the only true genius of the age."

"Quite agree. I don't know that it isn't just as well. Don't you think
it may be just as well, dear?"

"I don't know," said Flamby, looking up slowly.

"I'm not quite sure that I do. Has your furniture arrived, dear?"

"Not yet, Aunt," replied Don on Flamby's behalf. "Most of it will have
to be purchased, and I thought you might give Flamby some sort of a
notion what to buy. Then we could trot off up town and get things."

"How delightful. I should have loved to join you, but I have promised to
lunch with Mrs. Pooney, and I couldn't disappoint her. She is downstairs
now, cooking a chicken. Someone sent her a chicken. Wasn't that nice?"

"Very decent of someone. I hope it is a tender chicken. And now, Aunt,
could Flamby take a peep at your place and perhaps make a sort of list.
Some of the things we could get to-day, and perhaps to-morrow you could
run along with her and complete the purchases."

"I should love it. Dear me!" Into the round blue eyes came suddenly
tears of laughter, and Mrs. Chumley became convulsed with silent
merriment, glancing helplessly from Don to Flamby. This merriment was
contagious; so that ere long all three were behaving quite ridiculously.

"Whatever is the Aunt laughing about?" inquired Don.

"Dear me!" gasped Mrs. Chumley, struggling to regain composure--"poor
child! Of course you have nowhere to sleep to-night. How ridiculous--a
squirrel without a nest." She hugged Flamby affectionately. "You will
stay with me, dear, won't you?"

"Oh, but really--may I? Have you room?"

"Certainly, dear. Friends often stay with me. I have a queer thing in my
sitting-room that looks like a bookcase, but is really a bed. You can
stay with me just as long as you like. There is no hurry to get your own
place ready, is there? There isn't any hurry, is there, Don?"

"No particular hurry, Aunt. But, naturally, Flamby will get things in
order as soon as possible."

"Thank you so much," said Flamby, faint traces of mist disturbing her
sight.

"Not at all, dear. I'm glad. The longer you stay the gladder I shall be.
What an absurd word--gladder. There is something wrong about it, surely,
Don?"

"More glad would perhaps be preferable, Aunt."

Mrs. Chumley immediately succumbed to silent merriment for a time. "How
absurd!" she said presently. "Gladder! I don't believe there is such a
word in the dictionary. Do you believe there is such a word in the
dictionary, dear?"

"I don't think there is," replied Flamby.

"No, I expect there isn't. I don't know that it may not be just as well.
Come along, dear. You can come, too, if you like, Don, or you might
prefer to look at your own drawings in the _Courier_. If I drew I should
love to look at my own drawings. You may smoke here, Don, of course. A
number of the residents smoke. Do you smoke, Flamby?"

"No, but I think I should like it."

"Quite agree. It _is_ soothing. You will wait here, then, Don? Come
along, dear."


IV

An hour later when Flamby and Don came out of The Hostel, the rain
clouds were breaking, and sunlight--somewhat feeble, but sunlight
withal--was seeking bravely to disperse the gloom. Flamby was conscious
of an altered outlook; the world after all was not utterly grey; such
was the healing influence of a sympathetic soul.

"You know," said Don, as they passed through the gateway, "I am
delighted with the way you have taken to the dear old Aunt. She is so
often misunderstood, and it makes me writhe to see people laugh at
her--unkindly, I mean. Of course her method of conversation is
ridiculously funny, I know; but a woman who can suffer the misfortunes
which have befallen the Aunt and come out with the heart of a child is
worth studying, I think. Personally, I always feel a lot better after a
chat with her. She is a perfect well of sympathy."

"I think she is the sweetest woman I have ever met," declared Flamby
earnestly. "How could anyone help loving her?"

"People don't or won't understand her, you see, and misunderstanding is
the mother of intolerance. Ah! there is a taxi on the rank."

"Oh," cried Flamby quickly--"please don't get another cab for me."

"Eh? No cab?"

"I cannot afford it and I could not think of allowing you to pay for
everything."

"Now let us have a thorough understanding, Flamby," said Don, standing
facing her, that sunny rejuvenating smile making his tanned face look
almost boyish. "You remember what I said on the subject of
misunderstanding? Listen, then: I am on leave and my money is burning a
hole in my pocket; money always does. If I had a sister--I have but she
is married and lives at Harrogate--I should ask her to take pity upon me
and spend a few days in my company. An exchange of views with some nice
girl who understands things is imperative after one has been out of
touch with everything feminine for months and months. It is a natural
desire which must be satisfied, otherwise it leads a man to resort to
desperate measures in the quest for sympathy. Because of your father you
are more to me than a sister, Flamby, and if you will consent to my
treating you as one you will be performing an act of charity above
price. The Aunt quite understands and approves. Isn't that good enough?"

Flamby met his gaze honestly and was satisfied. "Yes," she replied.
"Myself and what is mine to you and yours is now converted." The end of
the quotation was almost inaudible, for it had leapt from Flamby's
tongue unbidden. The idea that Don might suspect her of seeking to
impress him with her learning was hateful to her. But Don on the
contrary was quite frankly delighted.

"Hullo!" he cried--"is that Portia?"

"Yes, but please don't take any notice if I say funny things. I don't
mean to. Dad loved _The Merchant of Venice_, and I know quite a lot of
lines by heart."

"How perfectly delightful to meet a girl who wears neither sensible
boots nor spectacles but who appreciates Shakespeare! Lud! I thought
such treasures were mythical. Flamby, I have a great idea. If you love
Portia you will love Ellen Terry. I suppose her Portia is no more than a
memory of the old Lyceum days, but it is a golden memory, Flamby. Ellen
Terry is at the Coliseum. Shall we go to-night? Perhaps the Aunt would
join us."

"Oh!" said Flamby, her eyes alight with excitement; but the one word was
sufficient.

"Right!" cried Don. "Now for Liberty's."

They entered the cab, and as it moved off, "What is Liberty's?" asked
Flamby.

"The place for rummy furniture," explained Don. "Nobody else could
possibly provide the things for your den. The Aunt once had a cottage in
Devon furnished by Liberty and it was the most perfect gem of a cottage
one could imagine."

"Was she very well off once?"

"The Aunt? Why the dear old lady ought to be worth thousands. Her
husband left her no end of money and property. She has travelled nearly
all over the civilised world, Flamby, and now is tied to that one tiny
room at The Hostel."

"But how is it? Did she lose her money?"

"She gave it away and let everybody rob her. The world unfortunately is
full of Dick Turpins and Jack Sheppards, not to mention their lady
friends."

"Ah," said Flamby and sat silent for some time studying the panorama of
the busy London streets. "Is Liberty's dear?" she inquired presently.

"Not at all; most reasonable."

"I'm glad," replied Flamby. "I have got seven pounds ten saved. Will
that be enough?"

Don held his breath. Flamby's extraordinary erudition and inherent
cleverness had not prepared him for this childish ignorance of the value
of money. But he realised immediately that it was no more than natural
after all and that he might have anticipated it; and secretly he was
delighted because of the opportunity which it offered him of repaying in
part, or of trying to repay, the debt which he owed to Michael Duveen.
Moreover he had found that to give pleasure to Flamby was a gracious
task.

"It may not cover everything," he said casually, "but the sum held by
Mr. Nevin will more than do so. Think no more about it. I will see that
your expenditures do not exceed your means."

       *       *       *       *       *

They alighted near that window of Messrs. Liberty's which is devoted to
the display of velvet robes--of those simple, unadorned creations which
Golders Green may view unmoved but which stir the aesthetic soul of
Chelsea. In the centre of the window, cunningly draped before an
oak-pannelled background, hung a dress of grey velvet which was the
apogee and culmination of Flamby's dreams. For not all the precepts of
the Painted Portico can quench in the female bosom woman's innate love
of adornment. Assuredly Eve wore flowers in her hair.

"Oh," whispered Flamby, "do you think it is very dear?"

Don having paid the cabman, had joined her where she stood. "Which one?"
he inquired with masculine innocence.

"The grey one. There is nothing on it at all. I have seen dresses in
Dale's at home with yards of embroidery that were only four pounds."

"I don't suppose so," said Don cheerfully. "Let us go in and try it on.
_You_ try it on, I mean."

"Oh, I daren't! I didn't dream of _buying_ it," cried Flamby, flushing
hotly. "I was only admiring it."

"And because you admire it you don't dream of buying it? That is odd.
And surely grey is what is known as 'half-mourning' too, is it not?
Absolutely correct form."

"But it may be frightfully dear. I will ask the price when Mrs. Chumley
is with me." Flamby was weakening.

Don grasped her firmly by the arm and led her vastly perturbed into the
shop, where a smiling saleswoman accosted them. "This lady wishes to see
the grey gown you have in the window," he said. He drew the woman aside
and added, "Don't tell her the price! You understand? If she insists
upon knowing take your cue from me." He could say no more as Flamby had
drawn near.

"How much is it?" she inquired naively.

"I don't know yet," replied Don. "Won't you look at it first?"

"The dress is a model, madam," said the puzzled modiste. "Probably we
should have to alter it to fit you."

"Would that be extra?" asked Flamby.

"Only a trifle," Don assured her, "if you really like it."

"How much is it please?" Flamby asked.

Don, standing just behind her became troubled with a tickling in the
throat, and the woman, hesitating, looked up and detected his urgent
glance. He raised three fingers furtively. She could scarcely conceal
her amazement, but an emphatic nod from Don left her in no doubt
respecting his meaning.

"I believe it is--three guineas, madam," she replied in a forced and
unnatural voice. She was wondering what would become of her if this very
eccentric officer played her false.

Flamby turned thoughtfully to Don. "That's expensive isn't it?" she
said.

The saleswoman's amazement increased; words failed her entirely, and to
cover her embarrassment she opened the screen at the back of the window
and took out the grey gown. Flamby's eyes sparkled.

"But isn't it sweet," she whispered. "Where do I go to try it on?"

"This way, madam," said the woman, darting an imploring glance at Don to
which he was unable to respond as Flamby was looking in his direction.

Flamby disappeared into a fitting-room and Don sat down to consider the
question of how far he could hope to pursue his plot without being
unmasked.

He lighted a cigarette and gave himself up to reflection on the point.
When presently Flamby came out, radiant, followed by the troubled
attendant carrying the grey gown, he was prepared for her.

"I'm going to have it!" she said. "Am I frightfully extravagant?"

"Not at all," Don assured her; and as she took out her purse. "No," he
added, "you must not pay cash, Flamby. It would confuse Nevin's books. I
will write a cheque and charge it to your account together with the
other purchases."

He withdrew with the saleswoman, leaving Flamby seated looking at the
velvet frock draped across a chair. Having proceeded to a discreet
distance--"What is the price of the dress, please?" he asked.

"With the alterations which madam requires, eighteen guineas, sir."

"I will give you a draft on Uncle Cox," replied Don, taking out his
cheque-book and fountain-pen. "You must feel rather bewildered, but the
fact of the matter is that the lady chances to be the orphan of a very
dear friend, and coming from a country place she has no idea of the cost
of things. I would not disillusion her for the world, just yet. Will you
please make a note to send the gown to Miss Duveen at this address." He
laid one of his aunt's cards upon the table. "But--an important
point--enclose no receipt; nothing that would afford a clue to the
price. Will you remember?"

"I shall remember," said the saleswoman, greatly relieved and beginning
to smile once more.

So the quaint comedy of deception began and so it proceeded right
merrily; for passing on to the furniture department, Don took the man
aside and succeeded, although not without difficulty in this case, in
making him an accomplice. As a result of the conspiracy Flamby purchased
an exquisite little dressing-table of silver-maple (for thirty-five
shillings), a large Axminster carpet and a Persian rug (three pounds,
fifteen shillings), a miniature Jacobean oak suite (six guineas), a
quaint bureau and bookcase (fifty shillings), and a perfect stack of
cushions (at prices varying from half-a-crown to three shillings and
elevenpence-three-farthings, or, in technical terminology,
"three-and-eleven-three.") The man became infected with the quixotic
spirit of the affair and revealed himself in his true colours as a
hierophant of the higher mysteries. Producing secret keys, he exhibited
those arcana, of the inner rooms which apparently are not for sale but
which are kept solely for the purpose of dazzling the imagination: jade
Buddhas, contemplative and priceless, locked in wonderful Burmese
cabinets, strange ornaments of brass and perfume-burners from India,
mandarin robes of peacock-blue, and tiny caskets of that violet
lacquering which is one of the lost arts of Japan.

With some few items of glassware, vases and pictures purchased
elsewhere, Flamby's expenditure amounted to more than twenty-five
pounds, at which staggering total she stared in dismay. "Shall I really
be able to pay it?" she asked.

"My dear Flamby, you have only just begun. The really essential things
you will be able to buy when the Aunt is with you. I am instructing all
the shops with which you may have occasion to do business to send
accounts to Nevin. He will let you know quickly enough if you overstep
the margin."

"How much money, for goodness' sake, is the Government paying?"

"I don't know exactly, but in addition to the regular allowance and
arrears there is a gratuity of something over a hundred pounds to your
account."

They were crossing Regent Street, and Flamby narrowly escaped being run
over;--but the pavement gained in safety, "--A hundred pounds!" she
exclaimed--"_I_ have a hundred pounds!"

"Roughly," said Don, smiling and taking her arm. "Then there are the
weekly instalments, of course. Oh, you have nothing to worry about,
Flamby. Furthermore it will not be very long before you find a market
for your work and then you will be independent of State aid."

In truth, now that he was hopelessly enmeshed in his own net, Don
experienced dire misgivings, wondering what Flamby would say, wondering
what Flamby would do, when she learned of the conspiracy as she could
not fail to learn of it sooner or later. But at the moment he was solely
concerned with making her forget her sorrows, and in this he had
succeeded. Flamby was radiantly happy and at last could think of the
sweet countryside she had left behind without discovering a lump in her
throat.

       *       *       

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