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diff --git a/77484-0.txt b/77484-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..80bfed7 --- /dev/null +++ b/77484-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7608 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77484 *** + + + + +THE ISLE OF LIES + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes + +Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations +in hyphenation have been standardised where appropriate but all other +spelling and punctuation remains unchanged. + + + + + NEW NOVELS + + Betty Brent, Typist. + By “RITA.” + + Red Love. + By the Author of “The Wild Widow.” + + The Soul of Crœsus. + By GERALD VILLIERS-STUART. + + A Gentleman from Portland. + By RANGER GULL. + + The Methods of Mr. Ames. + By the Author of “The Adventures of John Johns.” + + A Laughing Matter. + By SHAN F. BULLOCK. + + The Loser Pays. A Story of the French Revolution. + By MARY OPENSHAW. + + The Silent Ones. + By MARY GAUNT and J. RIDGWELL ESSEX. + + The Adventures of Louis Blake. + By LOUIS BECKE. + + Side Stepping with Shorty. + By SEWELL FORD. Author of “Shorty McCabe.” + Illustrated. + + The Wild Widow. + By GERTIE DE S. WENTWORTH-JAMES. + + Cousins and Others. + By KATHARINE TYNAN. + + Lil of the Slums. + By DICK DONOVAN. + + + + + THE ISLE OF + LIES + + BY + M. P. SHIEL + + Author of + “The White Wedding” + “The Last Miracle” + + + “The sounding again of the + mountains.”—_Ezekiel._ + + + Published at Clifford’s Inn, London + + By T. WERNER LAURIE + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAP. PAGE + + I. THE STELE 1 + + II. MOLLY O’HARA 17 + + III. THE ISLE OF LIES 29 + + IV. THE SHIP 43 + + V. “MISS EVE” 52 + + VI. THE TOWERS 62 + + VII. THE TERRACES 68 + + VIII. IN THE GARDEN 79 + + IX. “VITRIOLISERAI” 93 + + X. “THE MOON” 111 + + XI. THE CHAMBER-WINDOW 135 + + XII. THE WEDDING-PLACE 171 + + XIII. AT EGMOND 190 + + XIV. AT SERAPIS 208 + + XV. TO SHUNTER 226 + + + + + THE ISLE OF LIES + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + THE STELE. + + +Perhaps one’s happiest manner to begin the history of the remarkable +boy whose moral we have to point is to give, as we can, that part of +Professor S. S. Reid’s diary which has to do with the matter. The +professor writes: + + * * * * * + +I have this morning the tidings that a son is born to Dr. Lepsius, and +as the fact may possibly come to prove momentous in the history of +experiment, I am about now to jot down just what I was in the way to +know of the story. + +In the dog-days of ’68, close on two years gone now, our bout-at-arms +with Theodore III. of Abyssinia came to a close with the capture of +Magdala by Napier: and the victory was still in everyone’s mouth, when +Lepsius one afternoon strolls into my study to notify me that the +British Government was about to send out a mission to that country, +and that he, Lepsius, was to accompany it in some rôle or other. I +was quite surprised, in spite of my familiarity with the manifold +activities of this man. + +“_You_ going to Abyssinia?” I exclaimed. + +“I am,” says he. + +“But what for?” I asked. + +“There are the Jurassic limestones for one thing,” he answered, “and +you surely know that some more or less valuable MSS., especially Bible +MSS., already derive from Abyssinia.” + +He then proceeded to tell me that in the rage of the Mohammedan +invasion of that region in the sixteenth century, the Abyssinians +heaped most of their Ethiopian and other manuscripts into a certain +museum on Debra-Seena (an island of Lake Sana), where they remain +guarded by clerics, who regard them as idol relics. “Abyssinia, then,” +said he, “might not be a bad four-months’ abode for a bloke like me; at +all events, I am off.” + +And off, in some weeks, Lepsius was.... Never let it be said that the +doctor was any shade of a scatter-brains! for in my lifetime never +did I meet so essential a sage; all the same, I do admit that to some +of the heats of Lepsius the word “flighty” has been applied with some +meaning, he was ever so fevered, seeming always to keep vastly too many +irons in the fire—“Jack of all trades!” I don’t say master of none. +The man was tinged with both physics and biology like a Janus-head, +was an educationist and an Egyptologist, all in the ardour of the same +day. Modern learning—he made that his domain. Of course, his thumping +fortune had much to do with such a mental posture and manner of life, +for, like the free-lance that he ever was, his relation with the mill +of science was mainly honorary. I never met him steaming along the +streets, mopping his pink brow, but he was eager to drag me to the +meeting-of-council of some society, or to drop at my ear some spanking +scientific tidings. Old Lepsius! I fancy that I behold him anew, not a +beauty assuredly, with his shortish form, bold nose, and thin lips, +his burning straight hair brushed back flat from the forehead, and +curled up a bit at the nape! At the time when he started for Abyssinia +he was a man of perhaps forty-five, of established fame in the western +world, and a hardened old bachelor—I almost said old maid! + +What surprises me is that a man like Lepsius, a tender wight at bottom +surely, should have let himself become the excuse for bloodshed during +this exuberance of his, and should have been led into committing an act +which the common man might well consider wonderfully like pilfering—at +the spur of a whim! Learning, may be, has a claim to make its own code +of morals, but I am convinced that in, say, Madrid, Lepsius would have +shrunk with dismay from doing what in that savage country he did with +the coolest self-assurance. + +The mission reached the town of Gondar at the end of August—a world of +mountains now, after a camel-journey of some weeks across the lowlands +from Somaliland. By September, Dr. Lepsius had won sufficient favour +for his purposes with the viceroy, or _ras_, and, with his usual +rashness, ventured out with only one Choan servant on an ass for Lake +Sana, twenty miles south, to examine the MSS., etc. + +It appears that in these regions the rainy season is from June to +the tail-end of September, so that now it was pouring without pity. +However, one forenoon Lepsius comes to the lake, and is rowed, as he +related it to me, in a buffalo-hide boat to one of the islets. + +On this island was a kind of double monastery, half occupied by +sisters, and half by brothers, to which latter Lepsius had a letter +of introduction given him by the _abuna_ (or father) of Gondar, the +head of the Christian-Coptic Church of Abyssinia; but the scientist’s +welcome at the monastery was hardly hearty, since, having landed on +the island, he had to hang about a whole hour without beholding his +hosts. This, however, as it turned out, was owing to no cursedness +of the monks, since it appears that, the prior of the monastery +having recently died, the monks were even then intent upon the rite +of electing his successor. This once over, Lepsius was fairly well +received, and soon thereupon was rowed through the rain to the library +by two of the monks: those monks, he told me, being dark-skinned carles +with crinkled hair all in plaits, and the library being a kind of +mosque on another island half a mile from the monastery-island. + +Here, then, on this second island, Lepsius abode most of the day, +ferreting and feasting his curiosity. Onwards from the sixth century +of our era Abyssinia, he has told me, was a bold and expansive power, +having dealings with India, with Ceylon, with the Greek Empire, +and overflowing by far the greater part of Arabia: so that this +mosque place was crammed with all the gimcrackery and dust of the +ages—scriptures, urns, relics, cartouches, taliput-books, mostly modern +and of small importance, but still of interest; and the only thing +which badgered Lepsius’ peace of mind at being turned loose into these +pastures was the continual presence of the two monks who had rowed him +over, seeing that they did not leave his side a moment. One of them, +he says, was a particularly swagger chap who carried over his cotton +garment two falchions in scarlet-morocco scabbards, and his aspect +appears to have smacked nastily of the fact that in Abyssinia the +Church is burningly militant. Ever and anon he would grumble something +to his mate in Amharic—a kind of Arabic lingo with which Lepsius was +pretty well acquainted, though his ear lacked ease in striking quite +what was said. + +Toward sunset he went down some steps to an underground corridor +into which a series of grilles and doors opened, having in his brisk +fashion already made a survey of the treasures above, and wishing to +run over those below while there was still some twilight. Midway in +the corridor, at a moment when, as it happened, the two monks were +whispering together, he noticed a half-open grille, and passed in, +whereat the grimmer of the two fellows stepped sharply up and tapped +him on the shoulder, saying, “Not in there!” But Lepsius was already +in, and making out that he didn’t understand, took another step, and +looked about him. + +Three sides of this apartment were piled with papyri and many book-like +objects dark with dust, together with pictures of saints all painted +full-face, whatever the posture of the body, and with idols, weapons, +beads, and other suchlike gems and curios. One wall of it, however, +was almost bare, and there, in the centre of that wall, hung a little +basalt stele, about as thick as one’s wrist, and about six inches long; +it had a copper cap with an old hole in it, through which passed the +banyan string with which it was hung up. Lepsius could see that it was +covered with a singular enough mixture of hieroglyphic, hieratic, and +demotic figures; and his curiosity seems to have been at once fired +to a high degree by this sight, especially when he saw marked on the +wall over the stele in the Geez jargon the curious runes, “Riches of +Jerusalem.” + +Meantime, while peering at the little stele, Lepsius with half an eye +had observed on the floor, immediately under the stele, a coffin only +half covered by its lid, so that he could spy the body of a very old +man who looked lost within it—the coffin was so large, and the corpse +so small—and at the coffin’s foot sat on the floor a gigantic Galla, +armed to the teeth, his shield garnished with human hair, these Gallas +being, in fact, the blackest and most malignant of the Abyssinian clans. + +“Well,” Lepsius said, “may I look about?” addressing himself to the +milder of the two monks. The answer was, “No, it is the prior’s room.” + +“And who is the dead man?” Lepsius asked. + +“The prior,” was the answer. + +“Who died yesterday?” + +“Yes.” + +“He died here, then?” + +“Yes, in this chamber, where he mainly passed his time.” + +“Why did he pass his time here?” Lepsius wished to know. + +“Because,” was the answer, “he wanted to contemplate the sacred stele. +For fifty years he was poring upon it, and dropped dead before it.” + +“Oho,” says Lepsius, “and what is the history of the stele, my friend?” + +“It fell from heaven,” replied the monk; “the prior found it here when +he was a very young monk, and hung it there under that picture of the +Virgin, who was looking when he found it.” + +“Oho,” says Lepsius, “but can’t I approach a little and examine it?” +The answer was, “No, the irreligious could not approach it.” + +But the irreligious _had_ approached it. Lepsius could already make +out two or three of the phrases, could tell that it was mainly an +imitation of the hieratic of the nineteenth dynasty, mixed with some +intentionally secret writing; and, as he stared at it, he mumbled on +absently, saying, “Oho, one can see, one can see, its date; and what is +the meaning of those marks on it, then?” + +“No one knows,” was the answer. + +“And yet you write over it, ‘Riches of Jerusalem’?” + +“Yes, for the prior discovered this much, that it tells of the riches +of the City of God.” + +“He was a learned man, I see.” + +“We shall not have another like him! a learned and a saintly man. +He made the stele the study of his life, and mined out much of its +meaning, for which reason it is to be buried with him.” + +“Buried with him?” cries Lepsius. + +“Yes, by his own instructions.” + +“And when?” + +“To-night.” + +“Ah! At what hour?” + +“At eleven.” + +“And where?” + +“In the monastery.” + +But at this the more truculent of the two monks stepped offensively +before Lepsius, blocking his view. The Galla warrior, too, who kept +guard over the corpse was eyeing him disagreeably, so Lepsius moved +off, and after sauntering through another room or two, started off for +the monastery-island, to be at once afresh drenched through by the +rain. Darkness had suddenly come. + +As he now passed up the steps towards the monastery, he made +minute note of everything: a number of boats lay close about the +landing-place, with some monks baling them out; from a chapel some way +off he was aware of the chaunted vesper-psalm of the nuns. + +After a repast with the new prior, a portly man of middle age, he was +conducted for the night to his chamber, where for a while he waited, +sitting on a bed made of rushes mixed with raw cotton; but at ten +o’clock he got up and stole through his door. Lepsius by this time had +fully informed himself of the minutiæ of the dead prior’s funeral, and +had resolved to pilfer the little stele. + +I think that I never knew quite so insolently plucky a nut as this of +Lepsius. His impetuosity is extreme, and his tenacity is extreme; so +that whatever happens at any time to fascinate his mind fascinates it +in a quite unbalanced manner, to the banning of every other concern in +the world. When this blessed stele had once seized upon his fancy as +a thing likely to prove a scientific find, his subsequent action was +so very in character, that I shouldn’t wonder if he went stealing the +thing, about to be buried and lost as it was, with an overweening sense +of propriety, and perhaps, in setting about it, whispered to himself +the word “Science,” or perhaps only the word “Lepsius”: I don’t know. + +But no man surely ever rushed into a job bristling with dangers more +horrid, for he was alone among all those martial fanatics, and, save +for a razor and a penknife, if I am right, quite unarmed. + +He crept out of his room into a corridor and down some steps, there +being no light apparently in that part of the building, though the +place was full of the sounds of busy footfalls and people passing +about with lime-torches; and when one of these approached him at a +rapid walk, Lepsius had to snatch himself into a kind of carrel, only +to find a monk praying in it in the dark, who, at the sound of his +entrance, looked round and addressed him: Lepsius droned some mutter in +Amharic, and slipped out into an alcove opposite. + +He knew very well that he had only to be noticed prowling about in this +way to set the whole place in a hullabaloo, and no doubt bring on his +instant death; but the floors, covered with cocoanut-fibre, facilitated +his flights and escapes, and he contrived to run the blockade to the +landing-place. There his ears were aware of a priest baling rain-water +from the boat meant to bring over the body of the prior, but so deep +was the darkness of the night, that nothing could be seen a yard beyond +one’s eyes. With elaborate stealths Lepsius stepped down into a boat +almost swamped with rain-water, put out the oar, and paddled off for +the library-island. + +His hope, derived from certain answers already given to his inquiries, +was that the corpse might by this time be less closely guarded, that he +might thus perchance be able to stretch a clandestine arm to the stele, +and then, hastening back with it, steal into his chamber. But when with +bare feet he had got down into the underground corridor of the stele +and corpse, and had peeped into the prior’s room, there still lingered, +brooding, the armed Galla. Lepsius was the last man alive to be +baffled! He simply said to himself, “Well, the other way, then,” went +up afresh, towed his boat away from the landing-stage, sat down on a +rock, and waited, his ear cocked to hear a sound through the showering +of the rain. + +Presently over the surface of the lake appeared three throngs of lights +approaching—torches made of lime-wood saturated in spirits, borne by +the priests; and amid the splash of their oars there floated forth +the burden of a Coptic dirge. One by one, however, these torches were +seen to cower out, quenched by the shower, and by the time the boats +had reached the library-island where Lepsius lurked, not one remained +burning. Upon this Lepsius had counted. + +The monks landed and entered the mosque. + +After some twenty minutes they returned to the quay with rekindled +torches, carrying the coffin: and though the largest of the boats +was a craft as big as a Red Sea lugger, so overgrown was the size +of the coffin, that they were obliged to lay it crosswise over +the gunwales aft. Lepsius, himself unseen, could, by means of the +flickering torch-lights, see all. He stole along the shore closer to +the landing-stage. The placing of the coffin was a longish task; and +out into darkness, one by one, cowered the lights, so that no more than +two remained burning when the first of the boats pushed off, and the +dirge was afresh lifted; and when at last all the boats were abroad on +the water, the priests intoned in a complete darkness. Lepsius was then +hanging to the transom of the boat which bore the coffin, she towing +his length in her track. + +He knew that in the monastery a rite had yet to be performed over the +prior; he had been told that the corpse would then be exposed for +the last time to the looks of the assembled fathers; he was certain, +then, that the lid was not so far fastened to the coffin. All he had +to do was to lift his weight up on the transom, raise the lid, whip +the little stele from the dead bosom, where he had been told that it +would be, and bolt with it into the building, to his bed. They couldn’t +see him; the chaunting should drown any chance sound which he might +make: and he felt secure, save for one vital fact—he could not swim; +he would have to hang on to the boat till it came to the monastery +landing-place before he could attempt to make his escape. + +Midway across, judging the moment come, he raised himself cautiously +up; one stiff arm held up his weight on the transom, while with the +other hand he groped, grasped the lid, tried to lift it. Lid wouldn’t +stir: it was fastened. + +Another man might now, perhaps, have renounced the attempt, not knowing +what string next to pull; it was in just such a plight that Lepsius was +likely to show fight. + +The man’s a born theorist: would never dream of abandoning a conclusion +based upon reasoning, because, perhaps, appearances should happen to +combat it; and he had already reasoned that the lid was unnailed. He +raised himself still further, felt with his hand over the surface of +the lid, and was soon reassured, seeing that the priests, in order to +keep the two pieces together during the passage, had tied two cords of +banyan-twine bodily about lid and coffin; finding which, Lepsius dived +into his pocket, took out a penknife, and cut the cords, deeming that +the monks, when they saw the cords cut, the stele gone, would set it +all down to a miracle of God. By this time the boats had floated the +funeral-hymn pretty close up to the monks’ home. + +Lepsius could now easily insert his fingers between lid and coffin, +and, on doing so, found what he had opined, that the stele had been +slung round the dead neck by its string; so, manœuvring with the +fingers of his left hand, he managed to urge and win this string upward +from under the dead head: and he had begun to draw forth string and +stele, his fingers being still within the coffin, when the poor man’s +stiff right arm, weary of his weight, gave way under him with a shock, +whereat he, in an involuntary movement to check his fall, caught the +coffin-rim. It was a disastrous business: the blessed coffin tilted, +and slid with a sideward dive into the water, while Lepsius, having +clean lost his hold, found himself adrown in the deep, as an outcry +arose among the crowd of monks. + +Lepsius splashed about, catching at the vacant air; but even in the +very plight and fix of his death his reasoning mind was not drowned. +He judged that he must now be very near the monastery, so that if he +could find even a minute’s support in the water, he might by such means +manage some way to come at safety; but the boats had forged on well +away beyond him, and there was no making out anything in that thickness +of blackness. There was, however, one hope—the coffin: for, though he +could not see, he knew perfectly the course of its sideward dive, and +it was assuredly only the coffin, or the coffin-lid, which, if he was +to find salvation, could save him. He quite well knew the science of +swimming, though no master of the art: so, taking care to keep his lips +closed, he made a few strokes, sinking and rising indeed, but moving, +and his strokes proved in the duly right course, for very soon now he +found himself on the coffin-lid, the little basalt stele hanging still +to his forefinger by its string. + +Still awash and struggling, he began to urge the board toward the +shore. The hubbub of monkish tongues had now come to land, while a +number of them had rushed out of the monastery, all carrying torches, +with outcries, so that the landing-stage was now in a nice state of +commotion. Lepsius, in the gloomy deep, steered his struggles in a +changed direction, making for another spot of the shore, though he +does not seem to have known what he was to do when he got there; but +his feet touched bottom in a minute, and at the same time he entered +the region of the off-shine of the lights, which showed up his white +visage, whereat at once a perfect hullabaloo of howls broke out from +the priests, and they all dashed forward to catch him, foremost among +them being the fierce monk of the day-time, with his sword flashing, +and the new prior, and the huge black fellow. + +Lepsius scrambled up some rocks, and started slantways away from the +throng of lights toward a wing of the building; and as the priests +appear to have had no firearms, it became an affair of darting, +Lepsius being a fairly nimble fellow, though, I fancy, without any +wind to speak of, and already very weary. However, he reached the +monastery-wall, and hastening along it, happened upon a small doorway, +into which he darted, slammed the door, and was away anew through +darkness; whereat the monks ran round to the front, and scattering +there, rushed with rekindled torches in all directions through the +monastery, scouring it for the fugitive. + +Well, a scene of sufficient wildness seems to have ensued. Lepsius, +divining that the monks would leave the door which he had slammed in +their faces to fly to the front, ran back to the door; but his slam +had locked, he could not open, it. So back afresh he turned, ran to +the bottom of the corridor in which he found himself, and now heard +the sound of the onrush of many runners. Happily, it was no longer a +question of legs and lungs alone, but of eager, quick wit as well, +and here Lepsius was in his element. He saw that he could only rescue +himself by hiding, and that he could only hide by continual wise +movement. On hieing thievishly up some steps he heard more pelting feet +behind him, but he had the advantage of being in shadow, while his +hunters were well lit up, and away he went again, choosing his way with +good instinct; only, the priests had split up into such an intricacy +of pickets, that he should have possessed six sets of wits to elude +them. Still, he did for no little while elude them, guided not only by +their lights, but by the sounds of the groups, their faint footsteps +and outcries: till on a sudden one of those aids was cut off—that of +sound—when out roared the abbey-bells, drowning everything else. Just +afterwards, he was running down a corridor when behind him he saw +coming a bunch of torches; there was no harking back this time; so, +hoping to hit upon some door or side-passage somewhere ahead, forward +he sped, his wind about done for now, and his wits all bewildered and +badgered by the loud bedlam and brabblement of the bells throughout the +building. At the corridor’s end his course was stopped by a wall with +what he took to be a door in it, and a cocoanut tapestry hung before +it; there was no side-passage anywhere; the door was fixed, and his +hand, feeling behind the tapestry, could find no handle; the throng of +torches, too, were now trooping down the corridor towards him, and he +thought himself dished and taken. However, he found by touch that the +door, too, as well as the tapestry, was of cocoanut-fibre, not a door +at all, but a mass of matting fastened over an opening; and inasmuch +as the corridor was long, he had time to snatch his shaving-razor and +slash a rent in the tough stuff, so that when the monks arrived at the +spot they must have been astonished (if they had spied him) to find +their man vanished. Lepsius says that he next hastened over a species +of bridge or hanging gallery, at the end of which he hacked a hole in +another door, got himself through that as well, and was away ardently +again, no more caring whither, through darkness, when all at once he +was in the very midst of a lot of people, of a flood of light, for he +had pitched through the doorway of a chamber before ever he could check +his flight. This chamber was full of beds, for which the people in it +must have been making ready when the pealing of the bells had flurried +them; they were all women, as Lepsius saw at once, all half-undressed, +with their hair floating loose; the two door-mattings through which +he had slashed his way were manifestly the doors which separated the +monastery from the nunnery; and at the apparition of this white man +among them, that multitude of women whooped out one unanimous yowl, +which Lepsius tells me he is not going to forget. Out they rushed +pell-mell, clutching their garments about them, he after them—with +the grave consciousness meantime in his eye-corner of a big floor-bed +on fire, for one of the calabash-lamps had been dashed to the floor +in the out-rush, and how the whole show, built mostly of touch-wood, +was not burnt to the deuce was, he asserts, a wonder. After a little +Lepsius pulled up and listened: all was still—for the simple reason +that the priests would not at once enter upon the part of the place +sacred to the nuns, and presently coming to a staircase, he sped down, +and soon found himself out in the open, unpursued. Running now round +the rim of the islet in search of a boat, he heard all round about the +shores a buzzing sound on the lake, the cause of which he was unable +to imagine, and when, having found a boat, he paddled away, this sound +swelled upon him, until he was all in the thick of it—a host of +tongues hubbubooing, not in Amharic, but in Ethiopic; not monks, then, +but chiefs, or _dejamatshs_, with their troops, who, at the call of the +bells, had come to beset the islet with a cordon of boats; and Lepsius +declares that he passed through the thick of them, thanks to the +darkness and the rain, by something of a miracle. After this the banks +of the lake were not far off; and there, having made rapid paces for +the deeps of a forest, and presently feeling himself safer, he dropped +to the ground, giving out. + +Toward morning, it being still pitch dark, the Englishmen at Gondar +who composed the mission were startled by the bombardment of the +place set apart for their abode: for the priests and natives, failing +to find Lepsius, had posted northward to seek vengeance upon the +mission; whereat the British, in danger of their lives, were obliged +to barricade their doors and defend themselves; and before the +intervention of the _ras_ was able to reach the residence, three +Abyssinians were shot, so that this matter of the basalt stele had +something of a grim beginning. + +Not till six days later did Lepsius succeed in coming up secretly +with his comrades, after seeing the lion and the hyrax, and a score +of escapades; and on the sixteenth morning they all started eastward +and coastward under an escort of the _ras_. The terror of the anger +of England was, of course, extreme at the moment in the mind of the +Negus and his Court, or it might have gone ill with Lepsius and his +companions. However, all’s well that ends well; nothing graver than +threats came about, and Lepsius, having his basalt stele, could afford, +I suppose, to grin his grin. + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + MOLLY O’HARA. + + +Professor S. S. Reid’s history thus continues: + +Well, I saw old Lepsius very shortly after his return, when he showed +me the little cylinder of basalt, and related to me for the first time, +not the last, the details of his adventures. He was blithe and fit, if +a bit bothered in mind about the three shot Abyssinians, and about the +drowning of the aged prior’s body, due to his rage of research. + +“And how about the stele,” said I to him; “have you made out the +meaning?” + +“I am going to,” was his answer. + +“I suppose it is worth the pains?” said I. + +“Reid,” says he, “it would be worth the pains, if all the Orientalists +in the world applied their wits to nothing else than that one thing.” + +“What makes you think that?” I asked. + +“Well, but haven’t I already read part of the thing?” says he. +“True, it is no cartouche of Darius, nor Rosetta-stone; its date +can’t be earlier than the thirteenth century, and not only is it +the oddest mix of Memphitic with hieroglyphs, but, what is really +remarkable, this Coptic stone is the record of an Indian incident. Its +comparative-philological value will hardly be high, perhaps, but I am +convinced that, once deciphered, it will prove a priceless document +from the historian’s point of view.” + +Well, I wished him joy of his new toy, and we said adieu for that time. + +Then for some few months I did not see much of Lepsius, nor, I imagine, +did anyone else of his world, till his seclusion began to be remarked +upon by one and another of the gossips. “Where was Lepsius, what was +he pottering at at present, why the father of lies...?” and so on. On +three or four of the occasions when I called upon him at his Hanover +Square house, I found him looking far from so well and sprightly as +usual, nor did the good fellow give himself the pains to hide from me +that I was somewhat heavy upon him. I understood that he was in the +grip of a fit of study—a certain grimness of his looks and gauntness +of his face informed one of so much—and that in that same little stele +lay the secret of this too great zeal. By this time the blessed stele +had been reproduced and distributed among the savants everywhere, and +it may be that a race was being run in its deciphering, I don’t know; +but one thing was obvious, it made Lepsius lean many days, so that +says Matthews to me, “serves him right for picking and _steling_, +there’s some black spook in the basalt thing that’s paying him back, +and making him its victim”; and, in truth, I never saw such a thing, +for one by one Lepsius threw every social, every scientific obligation +to the winds to give himself day and night to this one object. Such, +however, was the man: whatsoever his hands found to do, he did it with +a fraction more than all his might or right. Then all at once I learned +that he had fallen ill and had gone off to his castle in Galway, from +which region, after some weeks, he once only wrote me a few words. + +On a sudden one morning, say ten months after his coming back from +Abyssinia, Lepsius presents his old phiz before me, looking as brisk +and light as you like, with a smile on the thin lips. He had got back +from Ireland only the day before, and, after some gossip, said I to +him, “Come now, one can really see that we have laid bare at last the +secret of our basalt stele.” + +“Do I look like it?” he asked rather sorrowfully. + +“So I thought,” said I. + +“Just failed, sir! just failed!” sighs he, tossing up his hand. + +“Tell me about it,” said I. + +“That’s all I’ve got to say,” says he; “I’ve only just failed. The +epigraph, as you know, consists of signs of very diverse dates, with a +quite hierogrammatic vowelling, but Memphitic aspirations, and a jumble +of true idiographs and true rebuses. Well, within five months I had +deciphered it all—every syllable—save fifteen signs, making, I think, +three words at the very finish, which are purposely ‘secret’; but, as +it chances, those three are the important ones.” + +“That’s hard luck, certainly,” said I; “but why, then, are these three +of such particular importance?” + +“You know,” said he, “that the stele is the record of an accumulation +of riches heaped up somewhere by a host of Hindu princes during the +period of the Mohammedan deluge—this where and when is exactly what +remains dark. Fix place and date, and you have sextupled the value of +your stele as a piece of history, quite apart from the pile of lucre in +question, supposing it still to exist.” + +“Well, that’s tantalising,” I said. “Of course, Thibaut has seen it?” + +“You may bet,” was his answer. “Who hasn’t seen it? They have all seen +it. But the fellows _can’t make it out_! I question if any one of them +has read as much of it as I have. Reid, there’s not one single living +man who can do it!” + +“So much for stolen goods, then,” said I. “Still, you seemed to me a +good deal more like your old self just as you came in, quite a youthful +step and jaunty air, I thought! so I made sure....” + +He laughed, saying, “Well, perhaps you are right, for I _am_ relieved, +and I have reason.” + +“How do you mean?” I asked. + +“Look you,” says he, “I am going to read every syllable of the writing +on that stele.” + +“You said just now that you couldn’t,” said I. + +“I am going to, though,” says he, “for it can be done, if not by me, if +not by any living man, still it can be done; and if I look relieved it +is because I know the means of doing it, and because, two nights since, +lying in my bed, I suddenly decided to use them.” + +“Very good,” said I, swallowing my puzzlement; “and what _are_ the +means?” + +“I am going, Reid,” says Lepsius, “to make a man who will read the +secret.” + +Quite at a loss to make out what the deuce he would be at, no doubt I +smiled, for he added quickly, “No, don’t smile in that fashion, as if +you hadn’t known me until to-day, since I assure you quite seriously +that I can and will successfully accomplish this job.” + +“The making of a man?” said I: “those are your words.” + +“The making of a man,” says he, “who will not merely read the rebus, +but do it without difficulty—without effort.” + +“Quite so, Lepsius,” said I, “for though you choose to express +yourself in terms of x, I am quite sure that in due course some +explanation will be offered by you of the matter which you meditate, +and of your meaning when you speak of ‘making a man’ to read this +stele.” + +“Lord,” exclaims Lepsius, “what a speech! How sweet the smile, but +how icy the meaning! as if I were some rash, fantastic talker. No! at +present I haven’t the time to go into prolonged explanations, moreover +doubting Thomas ought to be tortured; but in about four days I shall +probably lay my plan fully before you, when I shall have seen the +initial stages of it well under way: and meanwhile, I invite you to +take part with me in watching the accomplishment of these stages.” + +“Where?” said I. + +“You come,” said he. + +“To the end of the world,” said I, “if you are serious and scientific.” + +“I am quite serious and strictly scientific,” says he. + +Well, I went with him. First we drove to his club in Piccadilly, +where we took two seats at a window to look down upon the passers on +the pavement beneath, as to whom Lepsius remarked that we might have +to keep an eye on them for two, three, four hours, and—did I mind? +“No, didn’t mind,” I replied, feebly chewing my foolish feeling. +However, after half an hour of this watch, he changed his mind, said +that that was hardly the proper place for his object, and suggested +that we should drive to Westminster Bridge, if I would. I should, I +said: so thither we drove, and there by the parapet of the bridge we +stood, under the July blaze of the sun, two hours. I was at first +simply amused by this open-air sentry of two venerable persons like +ourselves, then I became a little vexed. However, I stuck to my task, +while of the river of people that passed by every one stared at us +two standing stupidly there, Lepsius speaking of everything except of +what had brought us into this exhibition, mainly, I remember, of the +necessity, by a law of probability, that every variety of human type +should move past us within a number of time-units equal to the number +of type-varieties which exist in the city. At last, when it was close +on two o’clock, he stopped suddenly in his talk, and pointed. + +“There, I think,” he says, “comes the right age, the right race, the +right trade, the right body and being—the very lady.” + +It was a passing woman at whom he pointed, a woman of the lower orders, +with black hair, black eyes, high cheek-bones, very cheaply dressed, +but not unclean, long in the leg, lean and fit, some twenty-five years +old. Her nose was not red, her teeth were regular. She was going, under +a heap of soiled clothes, toward the Surrey side, and one could make +quite sure that she was an Irish washerwoman. + +Well, Lepsius stepped out and addressed the woman. She was startled! I +heard her say, “Sure, then, it isn’t me that has the time to be showing +your worship around the town this day.” + +I remained waiting at the parapet, absolutely astonished, much amused, +while Lepsius walked on with the woman, talking pressingly, quite +a confab, one could see, taking place between them, he all suave +insistence, the woman curtseying, till, presently turning, he beckons +me to come. So I ran and overtook them, to find them already fast +friends; and Lepsius effusively introduced me to “Miss Molly O’Hara.” + +This woman turned out to be the heartiest, best soul in the world, and +in some half-hour we had won from her the whole simple history of one +who was orphaned and friendless, save for a sister, a fruit-seller, +who lived at Ballihooly. In the course of our discourse it was +discovered that she had never visited the Tower, the Crown Jewels, +nor the whispering-gallery at St. Paul’s, so we soon got from her an +engagement to meet us on the Bridge the next day, in order to go with +us to inspect these glories. She showed us the slum and the house in +Southwark in which she occupied a room, and we parted. + +Well then, the next day, at one o’clock, behold Molly standing in +holiday garb with her landlady for guardian, and the pair of professors +before them with doffed hats, like characters in an opera! We had +lunch in a restaurant, and I spent a pestilent day in the “chamber +of horrors” and other suchlike places, winding up with a play in the +evening; after which, at about midnight, we sent our ladies home in a +cab, and Lepsius, coming back to my house with me, disclosed to me that +night the design that underlay his conduct during the last two days, +so that we were still talking in my study when the dawn stole in. When +I said to him that I had well earned his secret, and asked what in the +world he meant to do with this Molly O’Hara, his answer was, “I mean to +make her read my stele for me.” “Quite so,” said I, “but then, Lepsius, +you persist in speaking to me in riddles.” “I mean to marry her,” says +Lepsius. + +I was so startled, I couldn’t help crying out a “No!” + +“And why not?” says the doctor coldly. + +“Oh, Lepsius,” I couldn’t help saying, half laughing, and half +shrinking with reproach, “this is ridiculous, this is absurd.” + +“Ridiculous enough, certainly,” says he, “but very far from absurd. We +differ there.” + +“But, Lepsius,” said I. + +“Pooh, man,” says he, “don’t be excessive; there’s no law to prevent +me taking a female to the altar, if I like, and, as to the particular +lass in question, if it isn’t the right of men like you and me to look +at facts in their true light, where’s the use of us? Molly O’Hara is +a better human being than I, you may bet, with all my learning, sound +from her top-knot to her toes; I don’t doubt she will make a pretty +fairish wife—and a most splendid mother.” + +“Well, I never was so astonished,” I said. + +“That,” he answered, “is due to the fact that you have not yet acquired +a scientific interest in my motive, for as soon as ever you have, your +interest will quite quash your astonishment.” + +“Well, I am all ears,” says I: “what _is_ your motive?” + +“You know, Reid,” was his answer, “that whatever else I may or may not +be, I am by nature an educationist; the world calls me educationist, +and with justice, if a lifetime’s work and warmth are worth ought; +and you know, too, my notion that no son of Adam so far has ever been +educated, or been half educated—that education is an affair of the +future. Well, my thought, cherished for many years, and now brought to +a head by this stele, is to turn out by certain quite sure modes of +education, a man, or why not a woman? who shall be not so much a man as +a kind of—god. The methods, however, have to be such, that I should not +venture to employ them upon another man’s boy, nor, unless the child +were in my absolute power from a very early age, would they be of any +use. You now observe where my Molly comes nicely in: the first needful +work for a man who would build a mansion or a fane is to make sure that +his marble and beams are at least good.” + +“I see,” said I: “given fair materials to start with, you undertake +what you say.” + +“Aye,” says he, “and without so much as the shadow of a doubt as to the +result.” + +“What an enterprise!” I cried. “But as to the means.” + +“The means,” says he, “will be simple enough, being based purely upon +the known fact that human beings are what their environment makes of +them. We know that an English child, abandoned by its guardians in +China, will grow up, hardly a mental Englishman, but a mental Chinaman: +never by any effort will he be able to row like a Cambridge-man, or +do business like a jobber; but he will, without effort, make finer +porcelain than could be turned out by the life’s devotion of ten +thousand Cambridge-men or jobbers; it is a question of environment, +of the mental hue and house about you. Be sure that every brat born +into ancient Athens was straightway an artist, and if children to-day +were born into a world in which everybody as a matter of course played +violins with perfect skill, then _every_ average child would without +conscious effort be a pretty perfect fiddle-player—and, indeed, _is_ so +in some regions of the Bas-Pyrennees. It is a question of environment.” + +“Quite so,” said I, “and, if you add heredity——” + +“No,” says he, “let one get on; what I am trying to tell you is that +the faculties of a human child’s mind and body can be made to stretch +_a hundred miles_—almost indefinitely—I half said infinitely—according +to the ideal, the standard and life-idea, that he finds about him; and +I should doubt almost any limit which you chose to lay down to the +possible activity, exactness, and acumen of the human mind and senses; +we here are limited merely by habit, by the iron rod of mean ideals. +Primitive man in his atmosphere of reindeer could run very like a deer; +he had his hound’s scent, could speed his spear with the sureness of a +machine—and without toil, that’s the point, without dreaming that he +did anything astounding. A modern British child, abandoned in Africa +to that same atmosphere and life-ideal, would also run like the devil, +shoot like a machine, track like a dog; born into a world of gods or +godlike beings, he, too, would in general be stretched into a god or +godlike being; if he believed that everybody about him could read +rebuses without effort, then he, too, would read them without effort. +It is an affair of environment.” + +“Quite so,” said I; “one has no difficulty in following you so far, +for even monkeys that have lived long in an environment of men become +manlike, and get to do many things; so, given your ‘environment of +gods,’ your undertaking looks all in bloom. But where, then, do you +mean to find this environment of gods? On the moon? In Venus?” + +“Oh, as to that,” says Lepsius, “surely that much is simplicity itself. +The environment may be real or it may be merely imagined. A child +placed in isolation may be made to believe in an environment, a world, +which does not exist, and so long as he never comes into actual contact +with the imperfect world, and has no suspicion that it is not a perfect +one, you will have all the elements of success: his life-ideal and +standard, his idea and atmosphere, will remain quite unaffected by the +actual world round about him; and having been made to conceive man as a +god, he will not himself be vastly inferior to his conception.” + +“By George,” I cried, “I see what you are at!... But, my friend, aren’t +you preparing a nice little shock for some poor devil of a child, +supposing he ever does come into contact with his actual, as distinct +from his fancied, environment?” + +“May be,” says Lepsius, with a shrug; “or may be the shock will be to +the environment, not to the child—‘so much the worse for the coo,’ as +old Stephenson said; but really, Reid, that’s looking too far forward +for me; the practical point for us is to make out the meaning of our +stele.... Lord! it is broad day, I’m away.” + +Such is something of the gist of my talk with this radical mind that +morning. I can’t recall a hundredth part of his ratiocinations, but +when he had finished I was convinced. I made him stay till with our own +hands we had found and cooked some coffee on my tripod, whereupon the +doctor went home. + +As to the end of this business, I have already, under September 13th, +1869, recorded the doctor’s marriage with Molly O’Hara in the church at +Lambeth. As usual with him, Lepsius has given himself up heart and soul +to the grip of his caprice, the married pair going off at once to his +Galway castle, where, for the past twelvemonth, they have lived. Some +months since I received tidings that Lepsius was in a fair way to be a +parent, and that he had then leased the island of Shunter (one of the +uninhabited islands of the Hebrides), which he was busily preparing at +a crazy cost for the habitation of the child shortly to be born. Now +this morning comes the joyful news that a boy was actually born about +two weeks ago, and with it the gloomy news that our poor good Molly is +no more. She died of milk-fever five days ago, and it had been better +for the good woman not to have passed over Westminster Bridge just +at that particular hour of that day twelve months ago. However, so it +was to be. The fellow who is to read the famous stele is to be named +Hannibal ... etc., etc. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + THE ISLE OF LIES. + + +If what has so far been given by Professor Reid be read as a sort of +prologue, nearly nineteen years may well be passed over in silence, +till, patching artfully into one a number of letters of Dr. Lepsius to +the professor, we watch what then befell. The doctor writes: + +The bubble’s burst then. We two, Shan Healy and I, have passed over to +the island of Barra in the boat, this being the first time for over +seven years that I have left the shores of Shunter; and at Barra we +now are, my head bound in a handkerchief, aching, and this same fond +Shan Healy looking as sad-hearted as a man handed over to be hanged. We +really lack the grit for the moment to go to the mainland, or to take +any course to get the matter looked into. But you, Reid, will do what +you can at once. I am sure the police should be disposed to take an +interest in it, if you can make them know the peril implied both to the +public and to the poor fellow himself. And there can be no mistaking +him! Middle-sized, swarthy, kind of dusky sallow, blackened over cheek, +chin and lip by a bluish shade of hair which he would oftentimes shave +twice a day—he’s so mighty hairy; and by the smile you should know the +beggar—that cruel smile which hardly departs from his lips, and those +dark eyes, with a glance, Reid, just so wild and sharp, I assure you, +as the glance of the rupicapra gazelle. For the rest, no jacket, rough +shirt of bauge-like stuff—but where’s the good? No police could ever +get nigh him, I suppose. He’s gone, perhaps he’s drowned—he may be, I +doubt it; but God knows. On the sands of the little bay at the north +_a lady’s handkerchief_ has been found; can’t tell how it or she came +there. + +My friend, it was just on his nineteenth birthday, the 21st of July, +that, strange to say, it was to happen; the day which I had long +determined in my own mind as that on which I should present him the +little stele to read. + +All was as usual the evening before; we ran the usual race. For the +past two years, you know, his highest ambition in life has been to be +able to beat me at running—I, a poor old wreck of sixty-four years! +I believe that this was his great dream and hope of glory. For four +years an almost daily race has taken place, and Mr. Hannibal has once +or twice come gallantly nigh victory, but has never won. Well, at +7.30 p.m. this eve of his birthday, down he bounds from his study, +and stands in the castle courtyard, waiting for me to come, with +the impulse, I dare say, to dart away pricking in his high health. +The climate of these Outer Hebrides is a great deal too humid to be +ideal; the ground is mostly of gneiss, too shallow for much culture, +so drammach, with some barley, potatoes, and buckies, have formed the +main part of our maintenance, apart from what provisions Shan Healy has +brought over in the boat from Barra once every four months. But on this +thin gruel my man has greatly thrived; is fully grown now, having the +shoulders of a man, but a shape as limber as a Grace, sir, and about as +supple as any greyhound pup. + +Well then, aware that he is below waiting, I pull myself together now, +put a bit of go into my gait and glance, and down I go to him; together +we stand at the gate of our little home—alas, for the last time—my grey +head reaching little higher than his shoulder, Reid, for the old spine +bows a bit now, you know; and from the kitchen Shan Healy looks up to +watch the race for the thousandth time, while away in the west the sun +is going down all in a wild of clouds and glories, as often in this wet +place. The sea is dead, just lapping the beach in a weary way; the sky +grey, with a curlew or two skirling under it. It gives a little relief +to live it over again.... + +There then, we stand, ready to renew the old, old trial of thews. You +know that it has ever been my policy to speak as few words as possible +to this creature, so now I only say to him, “Well, ready?” + +“Ready, sir,” answers my man. + +“Then one, two—_Three!_” + +We are away, he to the left, I to the right, the goal of the race being +a little flag-staff standing on the sands to the north of the island, +two miles off, and so placed that the boy going over the east shore, +and I over the west, we should run about equally far, the castle, our +starting-point, being right at the rim of a bluff of rock at the south +of the island. A very few instants after we start, we are quite hidden +from each other behind the saddle of the hill, which, being all hard +rock just by there, makes hardly any record of the foot-prints of this +part of the race. So now, no sooner has my man lost sight of me than +I pull up, and pant, and wipe my old brow, and turn back, just in +time to catch a glimpse of the flying heels of Asahel going thirteen +to the dozen round a corner—a sight, Reid, fit to make soft the eyes +of an artist at so much charm of form, and such a pelting puissance +of swiftness. Well, I imagine that you have already heard the rest of +the business, how I climb back at my leisure to the ridge of the hill, +where Shan Healy makes me the wink which means that the mare is ready, +and how I descend to the bush in which she is trained to await me +without budging, and take her quietly in my hand to the entrance of the +tunnel, where I mount and am away. You may be aware that what we call +the tunnel is a sort of gut or gorge, which, half natural, and half due +to my re-organisation of the features of the island during the fellow’s +first youth, was specially arranged for the purposes of this race. It +runs pretty straight across the island, from south-west to north-east; +is thick with peat-moss, so that hardly a sound of the mare’s hoofs is +to be made out in it, and is fairly shut in by bushes at both ends. So, +having galloped straight across to the north-east end, I get off, give +the mare her hint to go back to Shan Healy, dive sharply and quietly +through the growth of leaves, and am off like the devil afoot for the +goal, only some seventy feet distant, but still hidden from me behind a +bluff of rock: and as my right hand claps the flag-staff, with the wild +eyes of a hart Hannibal darts into view, to fling his flying impetus at +the post—a good half-minute or so too late. + +No change in the smile, but a shadow now in the eyes, and I know just +how my man is meditating in his head, thinking in himself, “It is so, +then, that ‘Man’ can run, and how far beneath Him must _I_ be, when +this old being, who is one of ‘Man’ can beat me, a youth, can beat me +always and completely at running and at all else”: for it was never so +much with _me_, I’m sure, that the fellow fought for victory as with +“Man,” those angels and giants inhabiting the sunset of whose existence +he knew, whom eye of his had never viewed, at the idea of whom in their +lurid rule over nature his soul swooned with self-disdain. + +Darkness was beginning to fall rapidly, the winds to pipe up a bit, +as he and I together strolled back homeward in silence all over the +western shores, upon which the waters were just moving themselves to +moan and spume. I willed it so always, for along the eastern shores, +where I was believed to have passed, there was ever a certain absence +of foot-prints! And Mr. Hannibal often seemed to have the knack of +seeing in the dark. + +Have I done well? Have I done right? Never did a question of that sort +arise in my mind till within the twelve months gone, when I have had to +ask myself, “Have I, who forgot nothing, forgotten one thing—one thing +needful?” God Almighty forgive His faulty ones. I am an old man now, +with the back bowing down, and a head of white hairs, meekly aware of +my own weaknesses and achings.... + +You know, my friend, something of the kind of life that during eighteen +years nearly has whiled itself away on that island of delusion: like +the shadow of a vapour it is vanished now. Not without the sacrifice +of my career did I tackle it, Reid: but because of the thousand +eyes and the acrobat activities of mind by which alone it could be +accomplished, the years have been so packed with interest, and have +passed so far from unhappily, that though the task has too soon done +for me, yet when I look back over them they look to me more like two +years than like eighteen; and, if after all one’s travail, one could +only be certain that the work has been truly good, that one has not +somewhere mishandled and bungled, then one could go to bed. Indeed, in +some points, there need be no fear as to the meeds of my toils, for in +his intellectual and physical features at least there breathes on the +earth to-day (if he still breathes!) the highest human feat, a peerless +being, at whose feet all the peoples of this planet may very well +kneel, and wail because of him, crying, “Here is what we might have +been.” + +But oh, the web of imposture to which this being owes his soul! He +is the child of lies—and I am his father. At _every_ moment of his +life, from the age of four and before, the fellow has known my mould. +Nothing was left undone, nothing for me was a bore, or more than I +could afford. You know that his books alone cost me a sum of more than +£14,000: for, owing to my purpose that his notions of the soul of +“Man” should grow from his study of only the most glorious of human +works, and owing to the fact that even those works as they stood would +never do for those pure eyes, his whole library was formed solely of +purged volumes, specially prepared for him, almost before he opened +his eyes upon this world; and when he was old enough to study them, +it was sown into his skull that only men made of very poor stuff ever +wrote books. And so in everything; everywhere the same whip of deceit: +the mass of principles, for instance, which we call mathematics, due +to the shrewdness of fifty thinkers, adding and adding, each of them, +to the achievements of the past, was for Hannibal, his books were so +doctored, the discovery of a single ordinary wit, a certain “Peter +Pitt,” who, as I had to give the lad to believe, lived in the ancient +ages. His study of history, above all, was minutely nursed: wide, yet +much pruned. The story of the ingenuity, zeal, and success of masterly +adventurers like Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon, he knew by heart: but he +had no suspicion of their chutes; doesn’t even now know that Cæsar +was assassinated, nor that Napoleon was plucked down at last, so that +their victoriousness and force remain measureless in his imagination. +He knew well the proportions of the pyramids of Shufu and Shafra, but +he was not allowed to know how many multitudes, nor how many moons, +were used to build them. And so on. It was dropped into his ear at a +very early age that among men some few may be born with feeble bodies +and wits, that these are called “idiots,” and that poor Shan Healy, who +in reality is a rather sharp chap, is one of the feeblest of these: so +Shan has always passed with us under the name of “The Idiot.” As to +myself, Hannibal now at the age of nineteen cherishes, if he lives, a +belief, ploughed into his brain by ten thousand stratagems, that I can +shoot like doom, can swim like a fish, can run like a roe, can watch +like a dog, can see like an eagle; and that this skull is the dome of +all skill and of all wisdom. + +Frauds. But the outcome, I say, is (or was!) without doubt a success, +something of a success. What the father feigned to be, that the lad +was led to be. I fancy that an average acrobat, after regarding some +of the pranks of this young man, would be asking from what moon the +beggar had gadded; he has a damnable habit of chucking about little +dynamite or other bombs, which he turns out himself, and carries in +his pocket—five, ten times a day for years have the curlews heard the +burstings of this turbulent being’s play—and I am pretty sure that any +other runner than he would long since have been shattered to the deuce +by it. As to his mere knowledge, it is of a vastness which you would +certainly call marvellous, though to me, who know the cause of it, +it is hardly so: for if, for instance, he knows a good deal of most +languages from Japanese and the Dravidic dialects to Portuguese, it +is because he never, I think, forgets a word or thing which has once +come within his consciousness, and so has learned a language within +some weeks. I remember to have heard it said that Lord Macaulay could +repeat word for word a book once read, a statement the truth of which I +beg leave to disbelieve: but, even if true, his lordship differed from +Hannibal here, that Hannibal, I imagine, is not quite clear with regard +to the meaning of “forgetting”; I never heard him utter such a word; +certainly, he never heard such a word escape _my_ lips. _Forgetting_ +is, in fact, mainly a loose habit into which humanity has lapsed, +for to observe vividly is to retain rigidly; and Hannibal, with his +over-manly mental habit, observes each fact presented to him with a +vividness which seems to be pretty absolute. + +You will say, then, to yourself, my friend, that it was a strange pair +of men that paced by the seashore in silence that evening, the eve of +the young man’s nineteenth birthday—old Jack and his young giant; the +giant in the meekest subjection to his Jack because of delusion, as all +a world will sometimes meekly lie in shackles under the will of the +weakest lie. My thoughts as I walked were of the morrow, of that dawn +toward which for long years I had looked forward, when I should hand +over to Hannibal my old problem of the stele to conquer for me, and I +wondered in what manner the young man would manage it. Little doubt, +however, had I as to the outcome, seeing that I am even now about to +compile into a book quite a crowd of new scientific principles dropped +from the mouth of my man in the course of his studies, with a thousand +little observations about things in general, most of them bound, I +should imagine, to astound you. So, then, that my man would read the +stele I could readily believe; but indeed, Reid, I was no longer deeply +interested in this miserable bit of a stele; I’m afraid it is too true +that my interest had all shifted from the lifeless thing to the living +fellow, all too much so, all too much for my peace.... + +Sometimes lately, Reid, I may avow to you, I have stolen out of my +room in the dead of night and stood before his door, stood for hours, +hearkening for a sound; couldn’t at all tell you why—bound there +somehow—and I have shaken my poor head, saying to myself, “No, surely, +I have to cure myself of this folly: a purely scientific interest in +this savage, nothing more”; but still I have stuck at his door. + +Do you understand that this boy is in some points an idiot? It is +only lately that the amazingness of it all has struck and made me a +wrecked man! To a thousand throes and heartburns, learned in a thousand +social niceties by men who dwell with men, he remains a stranger. The +different ways in which one should bend the mind toward one’s brother, +toward one’s mother, one’s friend, and so on, seem to be unknown to +him; I don’t know who is to blame. Never a little tenderness, never +a sign. I _couldn’t_, of course, bring his mind into contact with +the Christian faith from the very nature of the case, the Man of +Christianity being a sorrowful type, while the Man of his fancy was +bound to be a type of power; so that the name of Christ he has never +heard; but his mind was presented with such naïve nature-worship as +that of the Rig-Vedas, Genesis and Job: I thought that it was well.... + +But to return to this birthday-eve of his. We two had made our way back +together in silence, nearly to the castle-gate, when out darts Shan +Healy, wringing hands and crying, “Oh, Master Hannibal, do forgive me, +sir, the glass pot has boiled all over, while I was attending to the +dinner”; whereat Master Hannibal, without waiting to hear another word, +threw Shan out of his way, and rushed into the house, no doubt to see +for himself how the matter stood, for he seems to have left some mess +simmering in his laboratory, had bid Shan look to it, and the thing had +had some mischance. + +“Now, here’s a go for a poor chap, doctor,” says Shan to me, in great +distress; “believe me, I couldn’t avoid it, the thing boiled over so +quick, and what’ll Master Hannibal say now?” + +“Say?” said I, for I was angry, “what can he dare say? Let him go +to the devil, you couldn’t help it, and I order you not to distress +yourself in the slightest.” + +“Ah, doctor, it’s all very well for you to talk,” says he. + +Well, we went into the house, and Shan went down to his kitchen; but +I still hung about the bottom of the stair, being a bit anxious as to +what this being might take it into his nut to do now about his blessed +chemical. All was still during some time, so presently I called sharply +up to him, “What are you at, Hannibal?” No answer, no sound; only the +faint sounds of Shan’s preparations for dinner downstairs. So now I +ran very thievishly up the stairs, and peeped into the laboratory, +but he wasn’t there, and I can only think now that at the sounds of my +steps on the stair, faint as they were, the monkey must have passed +out of the laboratory window, and slipped down the turret by the ivy; +anyway, the next thing that I heard were Shan’s howls coming up out of +the kitchen, upon which I ran down, to find myself locked out, and to +hear within the kitchen the sounds of a head being beaten against the +ground, mingled with Shan Healy’s exclaimings. + +Beside myself with anger, I pounded upon the door, and now at once the +row stopped, and in a moment Shan opened, saying despondently to me, +poor chap, “Oh, doctor, he do use me cruel, sir, cruel, cruel, cruel. +Oh, my poor head—what does he think anybody is made of?” + +My own head was hung with shame; I could do nothing but silently pat my +old companion on his shoulder. + +“Where is he now?” said I. + +“Gone like a shadow through the window, doctor, and down to the shore, +the minute he heard you pounding,” says Shan. “He held me down on the +floor with one hand, and with the other he banged my poor head ... +cruel, cruel. I shouldn’t mind if it was done in a rage, but smiling +as cool as a cucumber, as if anybody’s head was a block of wood he was +playing with.” + +“Well,” I said bitterly, “all your own fault, Shan Healy; you’re too +faithful and good.” And I left him there and went up. + +Well, I dined by myself, my fellow keeping culpably aloof perhaps; and +during the rest of the evening I saw or heard nothing of him till, near +ten in the night, I heard some long way off the bursting of one of +his bombs. A gale was then raging, and it had grown coldish, with that +wet chill which marks this part. So I went to seek a little sleep, but +at about three in the morning rose and went softly to stand outside +the observatory door, to see if I could detect a sound of his through +the row of the storm; and as I so stood, to my surprise, he called to +me, praying me to enter. I did so, to find him sitting at a window, +looking out at all the dark strife of the winds and waters, and at the +bethundered bluff down there below: whereat, without the least mention +of Shan Healy, my man began to blab about the moon, which just then +struggled through into a channel between two cloud-bogs, saying that +our globe, as it seemed to him, might have been made a more suitable +place for living beings, if provided with two moons instead of one. +Being grum and out of sorts at the moment, I told him not to trouble +his small head about that, that things were well as they were, and I +quoted dogmatically to him that “God made two great lights, the greater +light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night.” At this +my chap turns up at me a gaze of the greatest astonishment, asking if +I did really think that some purpose of providing a lamp to the night +had anything to do with the birth and being of the moon. I said yes, I +did think so; on which he anew turns at me a certain searching look of +astonishment, and murmurs something about not daring to question the +truth of my words, but that as a lamp the moon undoubtedly appeared to +be a failure, since she did not shine most nights; sometimes shone for +a short hour only; sometimes shone uselessly during the day, but left +the night orbless—a rather mad sort of lamp—whereas _two_ moons with +such and such parallaxes, of such and such masses.... “Well, never +you mind that,” said I shortly to him, for I thought that I’d better +be mum as to the moon. But he was moon-struck that night, and after +saying that just as she then was, near her full, but not quite, she +reminded him of “The Idiot’s” face when he had gum-boil and swollen-jaw +some years ago—for he’s as simple as a baby in some respects, mind you, +and many things said by the boy that you might think said in fun, are, +in fact, quite grave statements, devoid of any grain of humour on his +part; for though he smiles ever, he hardly ever laughs, so that one’s +cheeks are apt to puff out on a sudden with laughter at his words, as +at the artless freaks of a child’s remarks. Anyhow, after likening the +moon to Shan’s gum-boil face, my boy goes on now to wonder for the +thousandth time how it is that his “Man” never managed to range so +high into space as the moon, for I had soon found myself compelled to +confess to him that man had never yet landed on the satellite, nor did +all the reasons which I could adduce for this fact, such as the absence +of an atmosphere on the moon, and so on, ever suffice to abate his +wonder that the moon should remain unvisited: for little did the man +dream that even the north and south poles of our own planet remain even +now all unknown, let alone the moon! + +Well, sir, he was thus droning to himself as to the moon, and +specifying the modes by which her surface appeared to him attainable, +when in a foolish heat of tenderness I, standing behind him, let my +hand fall on the flesh of his neck, inside the broad flap of his +shirt-collar, and I allowed myself to murmur the word “Boy,” about to +say, “Boy, I am fond of you,” or some such futility, when my fellow +gave me such a gaze of Arctic-cold astonishment—for sheet-lightning +and the strangled moonshine both beshone the darkness of the room, so +that one could see anon—such a gaze, that I was glad to slip away to +conceal the wet in my poor eyes, and I went to sleep. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE SHIP. + + +The morning after, his birthday, on meeting him at the breakfast-table +as the clock struck eight, I observed to him that he couldn’t have had +much sleep: to which, glancing up from his book, he answered, “Enough +for the needs of my nature, sir, I think, though I was at work at four +minutes before five. The old have greater need of repose, it appears, +while, as to the young, the demagogue Cataline, it is written, could +dispense with sleep almost altogether.” + +“Oho,” said I; “well, let us be eating,” and we sat to the old jug of +porridge and oaten loaf. + +Presently, as we ate, I said to him, “By the way, I want you now to +understand that you are not to knock my servant’s head about any more.” + +His answer was that he had discovered that such occasional visitations +had the effect of slightly heightening the functioning of the idiot’s +wit. + +“Never mind your discoveries,” said I: “you are not to do it, sir.” + +“I will not, sir,” says he with his formal bow, and buries his brow +anew in his volume. + +I for my part could hardly eat, for I was uneasy and excited, and my +fingers kept on going to feel the old stele, which I had in my pocket; +so, fidgeted by his cool reading and feeding, said I to him, “Didn’t +I beg you some time since not to be for ever eating and reading +together, since it is injurious to the digestion, and there’s a time +for everything, as the mightiest minds among men well know.” + +“True, sir,” says my man, “you did speak to me on this subject on +the third of June two years ago, but your words did not give me an +impression of great urgency, so I have dared to disregard them, since, +after all, the digestion of the young is hearty and strong, and the +days are hardly born but they are fled, and it is hard to the foot +to race after the fastness of the horses of time; hence the greater +masters, the minds of white-hot ardour, like Cæsar, always delighted +themselves in the most entangled exercises, like the dictating of a +vast host of letters at once, so as to harbour in their mood a habit of +keeping pace with the fleetness of the passing days.” + +“So true,” said I, “so true; still, it is as well not to eat and read +together; nor are you any longer so ‘young’ as you have been; you know, +of course, that to-day is your birthday.” + +“So I calculate, sir,” says he: “I have now existed apart from the womb +nineteen times as many as three hundred and sixty-five days, less four; +that is to say, six thousand nine hundred and thirty-one days, without +counting some odd hours.” + +“Oho,” said I; “and how are you going to spend the day?” + +“I am engaged in a chemical investigation, sir,” says he, leaning back +now, and balancing a plate on the edge of his forefinger nail, for he +always speedily devoured his food, though with complete mastication, I +believe, and was generally done before I was nearly through. + +“Ah, and what is the investigation?” I asked. + +“You must have noticed, sir,” says he, “the agitation I call it, with +which bismuth acts——” + +“I know exactly what you are going to say,” said I—God forgive +us—“quite so; but look here, before you go I want to show you +something, something that will amuse you; just read me that.” + +On a sudden now, Reid, the moment long waited for had come, for I now +caught the old basalt stele out of my pocket, and laid it before him; +whereat immediately the fellow seemed to feel an interest in the mere +sight of this object, took it up, looked it up and down and round +about, smiling his smile, his brow twitching into momentary frowns. + +“Why, sir,” says he suddenly, “where did you come upon this stone?” + +“That’s not the point,” said I; “I got it in Abyssinia, but that’s not +the point; just read it.” + +“It is mainly enchorial and alphabetic,” he breathes aloud, peering +into the thing, “but with a great number of syllabary signs, and vowel +matres lectionis——” + +“Yes, I know; read it,” said I, painfully conscious within myself of +being pale in the face. + +“Strange,” says he to himself: “both Sahidic and Memphitic, but mainly +Memphitic——” + +“Yes, I tell you, I know,” said I; “read it, read it, boy.” + +He hesitated, sir, and I felt growing within me an agitation almost too +great to be any more restrained. + +“Have _you_ read it, sir?” he suddenly asks, raising his eyes to my +face; and I was foolishly conscious that my eyes drooped before his, +even as in a tone of protest I answered, “Why, naturally! I only give +it to you as a little exercise to amuse you; just read the whole thing +right off.” + +Now, sir, he puts the bit of a stele on the table, and he bends his +brow studiously over it, supporting his head between his hands. + +“Seven of the words are purposely secret,” says he to himself; “it is +not an easy cypher....” + +“Well, I know, I know that,” said I, deadly anxious now, “that’s why +I give it to you—for a little fun on your birthday; just read it off, +boy, to please me.” + +“Ah, I see,” says he all at once: “this whole half-line is a long rebus +or pun; the sound of each ideograph combines with the third following +to form a word: that is clearly the idea of the inventor; I can trace +his thought; I see. Oh, it is not difficult, sir!” + +“Good—very good,” said I; “then just read it right off, and go up to +your science, boy,” for I felt my face growing white with excitement, +seeing that, in spite of his brave words, the man’s manner showed some +hesitation, and lower and lower bent his head over the thing. + +“A moment, sir,” he murmurs, “one moment; your servant is slow and +dull, but”—something; and another minute went by in a silence that +was most bitter to me to bear, till, all in a scare, I called to him, +“Well, but haven’t you done it _yet_?” + +“Yes, sir, I think——” he falters. + +“Then read it!” + +“In Coptic?” + +“In English.” + +Now, very deliberately, my man begins to utter syllables, his brow +between his hands bent low down over the symbols, and, syllable by +syllable, says he, “It is graved on a golden brick within the grave of +Arunzebe, that when the white strangers from over the Great Hill came +with fire and warfare, then did eighty princes bear together their +braveries for safety, and they heaped them into the grave of Arunzebe. +Even a spirit (_nat_) could scarce penetrate to their secret place, nor +could a rain of men, straining through many days, attain to them. There +is the Silence that annihilates. Let no man strive to visit them at——” + +There my man stopped short. “At,” he repeated, but couldn’t go on, and +there in the shameful silence he sat now frowning into the thing with a +sort of haughty, excruciated self-surprise, but without progress. + +“Well?” said I, and my looks, I know, were ghastly, for all that he had +read of the thing I, too, long ago had read, though I admit that it had +cost me some few months of effort. + +“At, sir,” says he, more to himself than to me, “at—something; fifteen +other ideographs remain, making three words, I am certain. But they are +without determinatives, and their outlines are so blurred, they bring +no meaning, no meaning—to my mind; they seem to belong....” + +“Better say at once, Hannibal, that you can’t read the epigraph!” I +cried out. + +“_You_ have read it, sir, no doubt?” says he for the second time with, +I fancied now, just a touch of scepticism somewhere. + +“Why, naturally, boy!” I cried, with such a noise that, at the moment, +I almost believed it myself. “Can’t _you_, then?” + +“It is strange, sir,” says he, “it seems to contain _htar_, and the old +verb _secha_, to write.... Pray, bear with your servant a little, sir, +I shall read the words, I see clearly that I _can_, if you will only +vouchsafe me a little time—down by the seashore.” + +“Time,” said I, with some disdain; “why _time_? The human mind should +strike and divide like the very scythe of the lightning!... And how +much time?” + +“If I may have half an hour on the shore, sir,” says he, rather +down-heartedly, and as I knew that his mind usually rose to the height +of any problem which bothered him with a lighter spring down there amid +the droning of the waves, I said nothing when he took up the little +stone, and passed out through the door. And so, Reid, we parted without +one last clasp of the hand after nineteen years, for that was four +days ago, and neither Shan nor I have since seen him. He is gone, he +is no longer on Shunter, that is our one certainty: he may be drowned, +or he may be living, but on Shunter he no longer is, I’ll vow. After +waiting in suspense an hour, nearly two hours, for him to return with +the basalt stele, I despatched Shan Healy from the castle to seek him +over the shore, and to command him to come back to me. When Shan was +gone on this errand, I took my stand at a window, looking anxiously out +over the eastern shores and over the rolling ground of the sea: and +while there I chanced to catch sight of a schooner, about the size of +a dove, some two leagues to eastward, breasting southward through that +gaudy kind of haze that shrowds with a gauze of azure the bridal and +gala glances of the brighter days on these islands. But little did I +heed her then, nor to this moment do I know that she had anything to +do with the vanishing of the young man. Meantime, Shan did not come +back, Hannibal did not come back, and at last, angry and anxious, I +ran out of the castle, and had got some half a mile over the western +shore before I encountered Shan Healy dashing back to the castle in +a white heat, with a wild countenance, hardly able to gasp out the +words, “Found this, doctor,” as he paraded before my marvelling gaze +a paltry square of cloth and lace, a lady’s handkerchief, marked with +the initials “R. V.,” and tainted with some effluvium of stale perfume. +That thing on Shunter shore! My heart failed me, Reid: for the young +man’s notions of female man had so far been gathered only from certain +Greek and Egyptian urn-traceries, meagre things; and I thought that +if eye of his had indeed fallen that morning upon the carnal fact of +womanhood, then it would be small wonder if all were lost, and his +parting from me an everlasting parting. For fourteen years, so far as +we know, no human foot but those of us three has passed over those +peats and marshes of Shunter; no spar nor oar has approached within +even half a league of its shores; but when Shan and I had run together +to the little harbour at the north, where the bit of a flag-staff +stands, we found the boat empty of the two pairs of half-tame +_motacillæ lugubres_ which had made nests in her, and half-way down +to the edge of the low tide I found the sands much trampled. Unknown +to us, some craft had put in there, had anchored, and had departed, +perhaps taking with her what far surpassed the understanding of those +on her. Shan and I, having separated, searched each of us one of the +promontories which enclose the harbour like claws, since, being dark +with growths of bush, they seemed worth the searching: and on the east +side I found, far out toward the last rocks, a track of footsteps going +down to the sea, going, alas, without return: and they seemed to me, +though I could hardly be certain, rather like the track of sandals +than of boots, in which case he may have chosen that place to swim +off to the craft in the harbour, so as to stow himself away below—I +don’t know. If so, it is remarkable that he should have acted in that +fashion. At first we fancied that, maddened by the sight of man and +woman, the boy might have started to swim to Barra, and have been +destroyed by a shark or a narwhal _en route_. But we are still quite +in the dark as to the actual truth. Shan afterwards discovered half a +bon-bon—a bitten bit of chocolate—amid the kelp on the shore, and no +more know we of it.... + +Such, then, is the close of our eighteen years of the cloister on +Shunter. Without a message of good-bye to his father the boy is gone. +But, after all, I should have known beforehand, I should have guessed: +for latterly he has been most museful, given to porings over the ocean +through half a night, with more, perhaps, going on in the soul of him +than I had any notion of, for we least of all see and know those that +are nearest us, Reid; we see their faces and only fancy that we see +themselves. Anyhow, it is all passed and over now; the little castle +that was our home, that I had grown to love, and hoped that he, too, +had grown to love, stands now lone through grey days, and darkling +through nightlongs of thunderous weather without us: for, as I have +told you, we have passed over to Barra in the boat, we two and the dog, +and the poor mare and cows and goats will go hungry now, no doubt, or +will soon grow to the humour of the guillemots and herring-gulls on the +crags, and become sea-things, goblin of eye, like the tangles of kelp +on the shore, or the stench of the ocean’s throat, or the pools remote +from the foot of men with little bleaks brooding in their green glooms, +or the inclemency of gales that gather over this sea. I tell you truth, +man, I am sad, for nineteen years of life is not nothing, Reid. The +young man’s gone, and how he is going to adjust himself to the world, +and how the world is going to manage to adjust itself to _him_—God +only knows. His books will become covered with particles of peat now; +our little garth, with its darg of peat heaped in one corner for our +fire next winter, will hearken now no more, alas, to the echoes of our +passing; our little garden will grow wild; and Shunter will forget +the unlasting foot of man and boy, to go back anew with joy to the +largeness and boisterous ocean-mood of her past, and the charm of her +harsh old solitude. To-morrow, I hope, we shall be able to take boat to +Uist, and so to the mainland, but I’m not sure, this poor Shan Healy is +so beastly seedy and down in the mouth ... etc., etc. + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + “MISS EVE.” + + +At this point the statement of Dr. Lepsius becoming devoid of interest +for us, we may next take up that of one Jeanne Auvache, where she +writes (in French, with no eye to _us_, but quite for her own behoof): + + * * * * * + +... The next (Tuesday) morning, near nine, the yacht anew dropped her +anchor within the claws of a creek in an island called Shunter: for the +weather was fine and the sea smooth, so Miss Ruth and Miss Eve, each +wishing to seek for more dolomites, weeds, and other suchlike things of +the sea, and to place their feet on still a new shore, were pleased to +land. I had already massaged, bathed, and coiffured Miss Eve, brought +the two ladies their chocolate, and now had sat to costume yet another +doll for Miss Ruth, when Miss Ruth comes to give me to know that she is +about to go to land, and suggests that that should amuse me to come too +with her: for she is ever good, as befits one who has the reputation +of a saint, and who feels bound, no doubt, to keep it up. As for me, I +little believe in saints, since all beings are as alike as two drops +of water, the one to the other, at bottom—all save one, perhaps; and +though it is a thing hardly to be questioned that, if a true saint +does live, then it is this Ruth Vickery, still, I little believe in +saints, I. Nor is it such a great matter that Miss Ruth should do me +these little graces and goodnesses, inasmuch as I am not really her +maid—I am the maid of Miss Eve—and not bound to be for ever sitting +down dressing dolls for the brats in the hospitals of London; and if +it were merely Miss Eve, I should have very little to do through some +hours of the day: but Miss Ruth finds ever some charitable work to +which to bind me down, and if thou wert now so young as thou once wast, +it is not thou, Jeanne, my cherished one, I think, that would long +endure this demure quietude and existence of a recluse. But patience, +do not yet despair; thou hast been beautiful, thou hast been loved! +Yes, and now, it appears, thou art anew beloved. It was not, then, all +in vain that I have lived, and the world may not be altogether so dirty +a bog of egotism and rotted dogs as I have lately grown to regard it. +Heavens! that is droll—I feel myself anew young! The sky looks bluer, +my feet would be almost dancing, and I am no more morose within myself +at everything: for with a few touches of art there is nought which may +not yet be hidden, and it is as if all the mirrors had of late years +conspired to make me appear to myself plainer than I really am, since, +as a matter of fact, I find the flesh under my jaws yet firmly plump, +my eyes glow as gaudily as a girl’s, their creases have existed chiefly +in my fears, and each day I appear to myself to grow more fit to please. + +But how little does one know what is before oneself! The boat had been +already lowered down into the water when, having put aside the dressing +of the dolls, I went up on deck and saw Miss Ruth, Miss Eve, Lord +Astor, Miss Savage, and Monsieur le Comte de Courcy ready to descend +to go to the shore, though Mr. Vickery did not go to the shore, but +abided on the ship’s poop perusing his big Bible through his glasses. +When we had come to the shore, the ladies were taken out of the boat +both by the sailors and by the gentlemen, and Monsieur le Comte de +Courcy, one may be sure, took care to be he who lifted out Miss Eve, +while, as for me, I was left to be taken out by a mariner who, in doing +it, embraced me, I think, with intention. In the boat it had been said +that the island was uninhabited, but, to our surprise, we found a +“coble” or sail-boat, with a brown sail, with the rags of a philibeg, +and with a pair of the sort of shoes which they call “brogues” in it, +lying in some bushes; also a little inland, on some waste land over +which many peewees and moorfowl were chattering their screeches, we +found the ruin of a long shed, built of loose stones, with a roof of +turf; also on the sands a sort of post or flag-staff: all showing that +there were, or had once been, people on this place. On the shore the +party split into two parts, Miss Ruth and Miss Savage marching off one +way, and Monsieur de Courcy and Lord Astor following after Miss Eve as +insects infest a feast of sweetmeat, while I was left to wander as I +would. I therefore walked alone over that claw of the coast which was +to the left as one looked toward the sea, where I paced in shade over a +species of peat between bush and briar, which was deep on either hand, +though little higher than my head, with thousands of gulls and whaups +whistling and crying together in the air around me; and meantime, +whatever seemed rare or strange, such as a weed or a piece of flint, +I picked it up to keep for the ladies’ pleasure. In this manner I +was engaged, waging war on the fog of midges that sang and stung my +face, when, at a place where the glow of the morning’s sun was quite +extinguished under the shade of the bush, I all at once felt within +myself the instinct that two great eyes were regarding me from the +darkness of an ambush. I sprang up from my stooping with affright! And +it proved no fancy, for there, a yard before and to the right of me, +I beheld, yes, two ardent eyes, glowing huge and close to the ground, +it might be those of a tiger crouching, only that they were as dark as +night. No second glance I gave, but with my heart in my mouth ran my +hardest back toward the sands, awaiting at every instant the devouring +teeth of a beast in my rear. Nothing, however, pursued me, and at +length, seeing this, I halted, even ventured back a few feet, peering +forward: for I have never lacked bravery, I, and am not to be terrified +by a mere pair of eyes like that; but I could now see nothing, though, +as I stood peering, my ear seemed to catch through the leafage not +far from me a sharp rush which afresh had the effect of putting me to +flight. However, I was about once more to stop to pry round, when the +whistle of our boatswain sounded to summon me, and I ran down to the +boat, where I found all our party already come back to embark. + +When the ladies had been again placed in the boat, and we were all +again on the water making toward the yacht, Miss Ruth, noticing my +looks, remarked to me, “Why are you so pale?” and I then related to +them my adventure in the dark of the bush, how two eyes had glared +strangely at me from the ground, and had scared me. At this all the +talk stopped short, and no small astonishment was shown at my hap: +for all had thought that the island bore on it no form of life except +those of the smaller sea-fauna, as sea-birds and suchlike, so that, in +short, I was the centre of the interest of all the world for a while, +and every eye looked toward me. Miss Savage took the view that it must +have been my “fancy,” but I at once quashed such a notion by a gush of +assurances, whereat Monsieur le Comte de Courcy gave his opinion that +it was the eyes of “the genius of the place” which I had seen, Lord +Astor thought that they were “the eyes of Hermes searching the island +for the nymph Lamia,” and Miss Eve believed that “more of inhabitants +crowd in the village than count in the census; each grove harbours its +ghost, heart-sighs and eyes are about——” in the midst of which argument +the boat reached the yacht, and at once our anchor was tackled, our +canvas thrown to the breeze, and we started out upon the last part of +the voyage, no more to tarry till our craft should be at her buoy on +the coast of Scotland. + +Well, now, I come to the event: I am about to write it! During the +hours of the forenoon I had been mainly bound down to the dressing of +Miss Ruth’s dolls; during those of the afternoon I had found my hands +full enough with the making ready of the trunks, and with the thousand +other little last cares that crowd upon one before a disembarking: +and it was now evening, about half-past eight o’clock, when, passing +out of Miss Eve’s apartment, I went in a hurry round into my own to +get and bring out her older brown gown. My wee apartment was quite +in darkness; I was able merely to see the circle of my window, near +under which, it being on the lee-side of the leaning ship, one was +able to hear like a dirging the seething of the sea’s surge sweep by +toward the rear. So now I reached out my hand to switch on the light, +and at that moment it was that it came upon me, while I, in a blue +affright, gave up everything, recommending my soul to the good God, +for it was as if thirty-six[A] tigers flung their weight against me, +and in the very same breath, as it seemed to me, I found myself lying +on the ground, my feet bound together, and my mouth gagged with my +apron; and so instantly were all these different performances done to +me, that I understood, I remember, that I must be under the power of +at least three ruffians. Heavens, that moment! I lay as it were given +over and drowned far down in the gloom of the tomb, and I said within +myself, “Jeanne, thou art finished now,” for one could not catch one’s +breath, nor cry out, nor see anything! However, by a cunning move—for +I was ever astute and deep in an extremity, I, and not to be done for +so easily like that—I managed to jerk myself sharply upward a little, +remembering that the switch was just above, and by a feat of luck my +free arm, reaching wildly up, chanced to touch this switch, upon which +the apartment was flooded with light, and I saw, to my bewilderment, +that my tormentor was not many, but one. At once I had a sigh of escape +and of regained hope, for though his right hand still held the gag, I +could understand at the flash of the light that it was not a butcher, +but a suppliant, who knelt at my side; and at once with that flash of +light his lips were passionately at my ear, panting words so warm and +queer, that I half questioned whether I heard him well when the young +fellow whispered wildly to me that he knew that I am a woman and wanted +me for his wife. Heavens! of the two surprises of my situation here +was the greater! For I could scarce believe that he was jeering at me, +seeing that he gave utterance to his words with so earnest a _naïveté_, +so that I wondered whether I had to do with a lunatic! And even in the +thick of my fears, I was so pierced with a feeling of the queerness +of the young man’s remark, “I know that you are a woman,” that I had +to laugh within myself! for I was suddenly light-hearted and relieved +in that he wanted me to be his wife rather than to be his victim. +Again he made me hear his demand in a pant at my ear, this time with a +glance in his gallant eyes which made me afresh apprehensive, and gave +me to guess that the penalty of hesitation might be grave; so with my +finger I now indicated the stuffing in my mouth, whereat he told me to +nod my yes or no, so, to humour him, I nodded yes, I would wed him! +He now demanded of me a vow that I would not betray him “to Man” (as +he said), till the ship should come to land, and this, too, I vowed +with movements of my head and with my uplifted hand. But little did he +trust me! for, on releasing me, he flew to the door, and had it secured +before I was yet even on my feet. We then stood staring the one at the +other, both bosoms labouring, and during some moments my tongue seemed +to be unable to dare to address this being, till on a sudden I said to +him, “But you are deranged! Who, then, are you?” to which his answer in +the lowest whisper was that he was “Hannibal Lepsius.” + +[A] Anglicè: a dozen, a hundred. + +“Little that imports to me, your name,” said I: “I wish to know, since +you are not one of the ship’s company, how came you here?” + +His answer was a whisper at my ear that I already broke my vow, since +I spoke loudly enough, he said, to be heard by everyone throughout the +vessel; but that since he was now certain that he was more powerful +than I, therefore he would throw me down, and bind me anew, if I +betrayed him “to Man.” + +At this I stood scared, half-laughing within myself, for I seemed to +have to do with a quixote or one crazed! but because of the beauty of +his young face and form, and of some _naïveté_, and of some power, +that was all about the young man, I could not be cross with him, for +I declare that in some way he at the same time touched my soul with +compassion, with mockery, and with awe of him, so that I craved at the +same moment to become his mother and his love, his protectress and his +slave. Something odder than anything in the world—in his looks, his +words, his being—widened my eyes with the wondering of a babe, and +made life a new thing to me ... he had sandals on his feet, a belt, no +jacket, no hat ... he seemed to me fleet enough to leap up and fly with +pinions. At this menace of his to bind me anew I said to him, “But you +must have taken leave of your senses, as it seems to me! for I spoke +scarcely above a whisper, which no one could possibly hear.” + +As I said this, my young man, without saying more, drops on a sudden +down, with his hands outstretched to me: and when I said to him, “Well, +what now?” his answer was a prayer not to be untrue to him, but to hide +him “from Man” and be his wife! + +I laughed anew at this within myself! for he seemed to be blind to my +forty-one foundered summers, and the flowers that withered in them, he +a youth of hardly twenty years. So I said to him, “Get away with you, +for you are crazy; how do you know that I am not already a married +woman with a husband?” on which he told me very secretly that in any +case he believed it to be possible that he should be able to make me +one of “the most sovereign of ladies,” and with that he presents me +with a piece of stone, resembling an ink-bottle, saying to me, “Read +that.” + +“What is this now?” said I, turning the thing round in my hands, since +I could see nothing to read, only some holes cut in the stone; upon +which he repeated his demand that I should “read” it, telling me that +it was partly in Coptic and partly in—some long expressions which I did +not comprehend. + +“I know nothing of this,” said I to him, handing him back the piece +of stone, whereat he peered piercingly at me a moment, and then all +at once a light seemed to dawn upon his mind, and he rose up from his +knees saying to himself, “I thought so.” + +“Thought what?” said I to him, but to this he made no reply, only +smiled upon me. + +He gave me an impression of some young god gone mad! “You are hardly +very polite,” I said to him, “and another woman might think you a +little crazed, since at one moment you crave to be my husband, and +at another moment you smile upon me as upon some ninny,” to which he +replied something about being bound to adore me, ninny or no, inasmuch +as I am so adorable! + +“Why, get you gone,” I said to him, “you have hardly had time to see me +yet!” + +He asked me how much time was necessary, and if he had not gazed at me +through the bushes? + +“Those, then, were your eyes that gazed there at Shunter through the +bushes at me?” said I; “and you found me beautiful? What, then, could +you have found so very beautiful about me, my face, or my figure—or +both?” to which he replied, “Both.” + +“And do you mean,” said I to him, “that it was merely through love of +me that you concealed yourself in the yacht? What a sudden flame of +passion! But I am at a loss to know how you could come here!” on which +he explained that he had swum under water from the shore. + +“But how could you possibly steal down here without being seen?” I +asked him, to which he replied that “that question of itself charged me +with a drowsy consciousness.” + +His little smile of a superior man (_petit sourire d’homme supérieur_)! +“Well,” said I fondly to him, “you, for your part, are of a wakeful +consciousness, and I, for mine, am beautiful both in face and form, +is it not so? and it is a pair of us, is it not? But since we are now +about to come to land, tell me this——” but before I could utter another +word I heard the call of “Jeanne,” and was recalled by it to this +world. It was the voice of Miss Eve who called me, and ere I could find +my tongue to reply she called again, “Jeanne, where are you?” but I +could not answer her, my eyes were fixed upon the boy, who now appeared +lost in a joyous attention to the call, and with his finger held up +gave deep into my ear a whisper of “Sweet voice.” Whereat I, being a +little perturbed, turned from him, switched off the light, whispered +him to await my return there, and went out in haste to Miss Eve, +wondering within myself how in Heaven’s name I was now to restrain him +from making the acquaintance of other ladies. + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + THE TOWERS. + + +Jeanne Auvache thus continues: It all went beautifully, the landing. He +had the wit, on appearing suddenly, to take upon his back the trunk of +Miss Eve, which he bore over the pier to the little station, and in the +dimness must have seemed to the sailors a porter, and to the porters +a sailor. He did not see anyone in the light of the station, save a +stationmaster in his uniform, and I praised Heaven that the train was +a special one which carried none save our party. As she moved, he ran +from the outer dark to the door of the compartment in which I stood +beckoning him, and skipped in beautifully, so that we two went quite +alone. Ah, but he trembled—all the way, so that one could see his +jaws chattering anon. When I kept on saying to him, “But why do you +so shiver?” he confessed to me that he felt fear. “But fear of what +specially?” I asked, and when I pressed him he replied, “of Man and of +my father.” I compassionated, but could scarce comprehend him, and I +felt myself abashed and banished from contact with his soul, for though +we were side by side, yet he was alone, and I was alone. I could only +console myself with the thought that I had to do with an _ingénu_—a +beautiful fault soon enough to be cured. But such an _ingénu_! one +dropped down from the moon, as it looked to me. His curiosity about +the train! for, to begin with, it was his terrors and tremblings that +were uppermost, and then it was his curiosity struggling with them. +His eyes were wide with an amazement which at first I took to be the +natural amazement of a rustic suddenly plunged into the thick of the +wonders of civilisation, until I learned that his amazement was not +at the speed, but at the slowness, with which the train was creeping! +This caused me to laugh within myself! “Why, we must be flying at fifty +miles an hour,” I said to him: “how much more do you wish?” But he did +not appear to pay much heed to my statements, and continued to rush +about the compartment, touching this and that, now springing up to peer +into the lamp, now darting down to lie and pry under the seats, gazing +into the make of the window, tapping the woodwork with his fingers, +all with so eager a zeal, my God! with the omnipresence of a monkey +imprisoned in a crib, and trembling all the time with excitement, as +I could see. What most of all amazed him was the size of the train! +Why, he wished to know, was this particular train so miserable a thing, +seeing that its largeness could be vastly increased with only a paltry +increase of the motive force. “But are not all trains of the same +size?” I said to him: “they are of a certain size, that is all; one +does not know why they are so, and this is no smaller than the others.” +But after starting and staring at me, in a moment, as if he regarded me +as an ignoramus that did not know what I was saying, he told me with +disdain that most trains were raging palaces, though this one, for some +sage motive that he did not understand, was not so. + +I began then to recognise that he must have lived wholly buried away +from actualities amid those islands of the sea, for his ignorance of +life could scarce be greater, since he harbours the most laughably +large notions of the glory and achievements of beings: and I was glad +within myself at this, and resolved that he should be kept like that up +to the day following my marriage with him. But even as I was thinking +this within myself, what was my astonishment when he informed me that I +am a Frenchwoman, and spoke thenceforth to me in very passable French +of Bordeaux! So that here is a rustic with a difference. + +When we had arrived at Thring we found that, though the sun had not +yet risen up, the night had now been replaced by daylight, and the +birds were loud at their works in the silence of the world. I had by +that time told him by what way to make to the brink of the river, and +where to await my coming to him there under the ruin: so some moments +before the train stopped he leapt from the door on the off side, and +hied off over the metals. A moment more and laughter was sounding on +the platform, and I looked out to see Miss Eve alighted, calling out +to her father, while she fingered her now withered violets of Parma, +that getting home in the dawn was like dying to earth and a getting to +heaven, and immediately her father was to be seen stepping down out +of his compartment, on his arm Miss Ruth, and the rest of the party +trooping out after. Anne and I, having then assisted to carry the rugs +to the carriages outside, set out together in the mail-phaeton for +The Towers some minutes later than the others: and we found a gaiety +in returning once again after so much of London and the sea, for +everything is good in its turn, but a curse upon too much of any one +condition of being. So down the mountain through the townlet to the +river we drove in a procession, and up the mountain beyond, no one yet +to be met on the roads, but one constable, and the day slowly working +about us toward its birth. + +After our arrival at The Towers, having first perfumed Miss Eve’s bath +with the infusion of frangipane and ambergris, and then got her hair +prepared while she perused an accumulation of her correspondence, I put +her to bed, she impressing it upon me that I, too, must take a nap. I +had other thoughts than napping, tired as I was! all my nerves tingling +at the whispered word within me that love was now again by God’s +goodness about to be mine in this dog’s world. The moment, therefore, +that I was free, I was down and away, tapping my face with powder, +taking from the larder and housemaid’s pantry a parcel of bread, meat, +and preserves, and down by the river found him seated in a cavern of +the cliffs, searching into the interior of wild plants which he had +slit with a knife. He was still visibly atremble with excitement, but +did not rise when I came to him, continuing to gaze into the make +of the plants, having recognised my coming step, as I think. But on +a sudden he started upright with something of a laugh, and made the +remark, gazing upward at the sky and around at the girdle of mountains, +that it was a world worthy of “Man” to circulate in. “It is more +imposing than those islands of the sea, is it not?” said I to him, +and he replied, “Yes,” for that those are mostly of bog and boulders, +with hags in between, but that these parts are made of stones with +strange names, so many millions of ages old; only he wished to know +what creatures could live in those sheds over the river, and looked +dumfounded when I informed him that they are the ordinary houses of +a country townlet! But he scarce seems to believe my statements. The +windows, he remarked, can only be opened half-way at the most to take +in the fresh air, and when I gave him to know that all English windows +are of this sort, though French windows fully open, this caused him to +fall into so extraordinary a marvelling, that one had to laugh! For one +kind must be ideally the better, he said, so why do we find the British +tied to one kind, and the French married to another? But this I was +unable to make plain to him, and he remained in his surprise. + +I now went into the question of our wedding, telling him how everything +could be fixed up in some days, how I found myself possessed of two +hundred pounds funded out of my earnings, which amount would serve +nicely for our small _ménage_, till he should have found his niche in +the world; and I engaged myself to see to everything as to getting the +licence from the surrogate, as I desired him meanwhile to hide in the +church-steeple near St. Peter, whither twice a day I would fetch him +a meal: for I did not wish him to see the world at all as yet, and +so, working on his awes as to his father, I warned him that he would +certainly be caught, if he but once looked forth of his hiding; though, +_after_ our marriage, I said, he could safely range out anywhere, since +the laws would not allow his father to take him out of his spouse’s +arms. + +As to this he bent his head; but as to bringing him meals, he made +the observation that that was not worth the trouble, inasmuch as he +frequently exercised himself in abstaining from eating for a week at +a time, and he asked if he might not remain in the cave where he was, +in order that he might peep at the people passing over the opposite +rivershore: to which, as I could see no reason against it, I gave my +consent, and even agreed that he should come to meet me in the east +shrubbery of The Towers that evening about nine. So, having given him +to observe the zig-zag running down round the mountain’s brow from The +Towers, I ran from him. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + THE TERRACES. + + +Arrived at The Towers, I first slumbered a couple of hours, and then, +the day still early, returned to my mistress’ bedside. She had bidden +me wake her, but I just massaged her with a gentle touch, contemplating +with a smile of pleasure that face whose charms I am soon no more to +behold: and never did she show to me in so angel-like a light as then, +for everything is suddenly changed in me, I find myself inclined to +be kindly-minded to everybody, and then Miss Eve is ever beguiling, +from her very breathing being given forth a breeze fraught with that +fainting fragrance of frangipane, which is as essentially a part of +her self as are her eyes or her smile. When her lids unclosed of their +own action she once more bathed, and it was when I was doing her hands +in making her toilette for the forenoon that she begged me to bear +tea with my own hands to her, if she should happen to be in the small +drawing-room after four that afternoon. + +I at once suspected an interview with Monsieur le Comte de Courcy, +and this proved true: for on looking into the small drawing-room in +the afternoon, I saw the two alone at a window, and when I presently +stole in bearing the tray, there they still were, Miss Eve considering +something that had been entreated of her with her head bent, while +Monsieur le Comte, in his grey frock-coat, spoke pressingly at her, +eagerly fingering his imperial. Now, the sight of lovemaking always +profoundly agitates me, causing me a shivering round my right knee; so, +having announced the tea in a mutter, I could not, on stealing out, +tear my ears away, but stood there by the stair-top, hung upon what +was said; and presently could hear the Minister of the Interior say, +“You have permitted me to hope these four months,” then mumble, mumble, +and then the lips of Miss Eve were speaking, saying, “Days have their +weirds and their weathers, if Thursday its drought, perchance Friday +its showers: somehow to-day I am dull, empty of every reply.” “Only +whisper to me the word ‘hope,’” I then heard Monsieur the Minister +implore with much agitation, though what answer was made to this I +could not catch; and he then said, “Soon?” to which she replied, “Soon +necessarily, since you are going.” So he asked her, “To-morrow?” and +the answer given was, “Well, to-morrow, if God will,” at which point I +saw the boy-in-buttons rushing up, so went away. + +For the evening Miss Eve had arranged for the party a ball, to which +came a troop of neighbour visitors, though Miss Ruth and Mr. Vickery, +of course, kept themselves from the levity of it. So, after preparing +Miss Eve’s third bath—Miss Ruth, I have heard, considers it to be +“worldly” to bathe her body as frequently as once in a week, as nuns +believe!—after bathing Miss Eve anew, I advised her to put on for the +evening the Chantilly over-skirt and the pearls, for I knew that Miss +Savage in her crimson robe would be making Miss Eve’s pink appear +pale; and having aided nature one wee bit by a touch on her cheeks, +her lashes, and her eye-brows, I turned her out an object _chic_ to +kiss the hand at, proudly certain in myself that she must prove the +finest-costumed of the company; and still I had uttered no word to her +as to my leaving her service immediately, it was so immense a step, +like a ravine from which I shrank. + +After dinner, till nearly nine, I was down in the housekeeper’s place, +making a pretence at playing cards, and some moments after nine rose +to rush off to meet him in the east shrubbery, as arranged; but just +then my bell summoned me, and when I went to the shrubbery ten minutes +late, with a rush of terrors I became aware that he was not there. I +ran my hardest now, my heart raised to Heaven in a prayer that nothing +had happened—down the mountain to the cliffs, down their face to his +cave. He was not there, and I wrung my hands together in an anguish +of apprehension, begging the good God not once again to bring me all +the gall of the draught of frustration to drain to the dregs, and the +bitterish bread of drabness to chew for ever: for there he was not, +and where he could have gone to I could not guess. Thinking at last +that I might have missed him in coming, I made my way back up, with +runs and stoppages to take my breath, came back to the shrubbery, but +failed to find him there. However, on looking out across the lake, I +saw in the moonlight that laved the lawn-terraces two forms: one of +them Miss Ruth, pacing there with her gaze poring upon the zodiac, +and her rubric of devotion hung between her fingers; the other, whom +I could just perceive, was lying flat, peeping into the drawing-room +through a window, and I knew that it was he, for a rumour of the music +and dancing came faintly to me there, and I knew that this must have +seduced him to it. I could not but feel pleased to find him, but to +my feet my being was pierced with fear to see him lying there, peeping +carefully in. In a minute, however, he bounded to his feet, hearing, +I presume, the step of Miss Ruth, and he ran some paces, looking back +at her; but when she beckoned to him he waited, and in a minute I +perceived them standing together engaged in speech. + +I crept then through the bushes of the lake’s edge, till I came to the +lawn; and there, observing their backs turned toward me, I stalked +still further forward on my hands and knees, till I was in concealment +beneath the stonework of a terrace—little dreaming that I had been +overheard; and thence I heard the voice of Miss Ruth saying to the boy, +“But you must have lived in a strange isolation never to have heard +speak of Jesus Christ?” upon which he, gazing down upon the ground, +said in a low tone that he was altogether ignorant, till two days ago +having never met with anyone save his father and an idiot. + +“Poor dear boy!” coos the voice of Miss Ruth, who, being but +twenty-five years of age, has scarcely the right, I think, thus to +soothe a youth of twenty. “And where,” says she, “was this?” + +In a tone in his throat he replied, “On an island of the Outer +Hebrides.” + +“Why, I am even now from there!” she told him. “But your father, has he +also never known the blessed name of Jesus?” + +He answered her that his father possesses the sum of worldly wisdom, +but that he had never at all heard from his father any mention of this +personage. + +“Why, this is strange!” she cries in a maze, with her azure eyes of a +child widely agape at him: “to think of such pagans living in Christian +England! Do you not, then, know the words ‘Christian,’ ‘Christianity,’ +‘Christendom’?” + +To this he answered that he had never heard these words. + +“Tell me this, then,” said she: “in what year is it that we are now +living?” to which he made her the amazing answer that we are now in the +year six hundred thousand three hundred and sixty-three. + +At this reply Miss Ruth smiled, and during some time appeared wrapped +in silent prayer, until she suddenly asked him, “From what event, then, +do you date this vast sum of years?” + +“From the presumed date of the evolution of human life from the +ape-state,” was his reply. + +For a few moments Miss Ruth mused upon the young man, then threw up her +hands with drollery in her little human way which just rescues her from +being angelic; and she asked him, “But are not all dates reckoned among +us from the Lord Christ?” + +At these words of hers he seemed extremely perplexed, and, after +frowning upon the ground, asked her if the Lord Jesus Christ was a +Greek or a Roman. + +“He was a Hebrew!” cries Miss Ruth. + +“With an Arianised name,” said he: “lived, then, under the later +Romans.” + +“Just so,” said she: “how much you know for one of your station, and +how little!” + +“How little,” he said, and on a sudden knelt to her, begging her to +bear with his ignorance, for that she was much more gracious and +merciful to discourse with him than he deserved, as he was not only +strange to the world, but his brain, moreover, was all in a whirl, +inasmuch as he had only just made away from his father’s control, nor +had ever before been intoxicated with strains of harmony such as those +escaping from out of the house, nor beheld such blessed beings as she +and those fabulous beldams moving beautifully to music over the floor +of the drawing-room.... Upon this Miss Ruth raised him up, bid him +wait, and, moving to a window of the drawing-room, peeped in to Miss +Eve, becking her to come, too, to inspect the curiosity. I disliked +her for it, since there was little need for him ever to have seen Miss +Eve near at hand, save for this. At all events, out stepped Miss Eve +now, very tall in the sheen of the moon, Miss Ruth seeming a midget +near her, and even when the three stood face to face, still Miss Eve +appeared the tallest of all. So Miss Ruth recounted now in how odd a +solitude the young man had spent his existence, and then fell anew to +talking of the Lord Christ, he eyeing Miss Eve steadily with the corner +of his wild eye, speaking with a drooped head to Miss Ruth, eyeing +steadily Miss Eve; till now Miss Ruth cried out, “He was man and God, +too!” and only then did the ogler, peering in surprise at her, cease to +eye Miss Eve. Immediately now, too, his meekness appeared to cease, for +looking straight now at Miss Eve, he asked her if she also shared this +belief. + +Miss Eve had as yet uttered not a word, but now with her eyes turned +downward, her lips muttered, “Why, yes.” + +He smiled, and at the same time looked perfectly perplexed, turning his +stare from one to the other lady, until Miss Ruth remarked to him, “Do +not doubt it, though it is marvellous in all our eyes, so that even the +cherubic natures of the skies deeply brood with admiration upon it,” +and he then very impolitely replied to her that her consciousness of +the size of this earth could not be alert. + +To this answered Miss Ruth, “The earth? she is huge in momentousness, +you know: with each tick of the clock a human being ceases to breathe——” + +“A human being?” he replied with a cry of surprise: “with each tick of +the clock a million worlds are burned, and are born!” + +“Oh, La!” says she, startled a little at him. + +Then she said, with that veiling of the eyes with the eyelids that +lends her her air of Madonna saintliness, “That cannot be, I think.” + +But the other sister murmured, “Ruth, it must truly be so, if the +universe truly is termless: prove me one world that’s been burned, +millions a minute must burn.” + +“Let it be so, then,” said Miss Ruth, “since you say so, and glory be +to God, for the remotest of them, I think, His hand holds, and His +right hand guides it.” + +“He is it,” the young man said. + +“He is with it, I think,” Miss Ruth replied. + +“And _you_ also say this?” he asked of Miss Eve. + +“Yes,” she answered curtly, with a touch of pique, as it appeared to me. + +Silent he stood now a while, with that smile of his that hides all the +windings of his mind behind his brow, but still giving an impression +of one plunged in bewilderment at the creatures he was speaking with. +Then, glancing upward, he swept his fingers athwart the vault of the +stars, with the remark that all that was a darksome mathematic, a +perfection which was deaf. + +But now Miss Eve, going rosy, frowned upon the ground, and in tones +that trembled a little, she observed, “Perfect it _is_, though a Heart, +not a Head, was its Father and Harper; tolling melodious notes, wrung +with emotion it rolls;” and it was now that the young man suddenly +caused my heart to bound into my mouth by coming out with the statement +that, inasmuch as _the fourth_ sharer in the conversation would +undoubtedly be found to contemplate the universe in the same sort of +mood, he could only suppose that all ladies were prone to criticisms of +the same quality. + +The two ladies looked round, and “which ‘fourth sharer’ can he mean?” +Miss Ruth wished to know of Miss Eve, while I crouched there beneath +the terrace, trembling lest he should betray my whereabouts; but when +they pressed him to say where I was, to my great gladness, he gave an +evasive reply. + +He next requested Miss Ruth to instruct him further in her views of the +universe, upon which she begged him to come the next night that she +might give him a Bible and teach him of the Lord Jesus; and as to his +father, after some hesitation on her part, he gained from her a promise +that, if his father, or his father’s agents, should get upon his scent, +the sisters would not let out to them where he lurked down there in the +river-cave. And next he began to beg Miss Eve for one of the begonias +at her girdle, but at that moment, before he could be answered, +Monsieur le Comte de Courcy stepped out of the house, and, really as +if by magic, the instant he appeared the young man had vanished. By +this time I had somewhat recovered of my fit of affright, my eyes were +anew at the parapet-top, and I could spy the surprise of the ladies, +who seemed unable to believe what their two eyes had seen: for though +the nearest leafage was quite nineteen or twenty metres away, in the +twinkling of an eye, as it seemed, he was within it, and gone like a +ghost at cock-crow. + +I, for my part, having crawled back to the lake, rushed through the +shrubbery obliquely, meaning to meet him somewhere in his career +downward: but he was nowhere to be found, until I was on the footpath +above the cliffs, when down there in the moonlight I beheld him walking +furiously to and fro before his cave’s mouth. Down, then, I scrambled, +calling out to him, asking why he had not awaited me; but he is not +very well-bred, went on silently walking, and on marking one of the +swans glide past on the water, he suddenly darted to lie on his face +and gaze at it. + +“But why did you fly like that?” I asked him when he returned to me, +“since the gentleman could not have hurt you?” but still he made me no +reply. + +“And what did you think of the two ladies?” I next asked him. + +Then he: “Who are those ladies?” + +I: “They are Miss Ruth and Miss Eve Vickery, the daughters of Mr. +Richard Vickery, who is what is called ‘An Iron King,’ a very rich +and an extremely religious man, who sometimes preaches in a chapel on +Sundays.” + +He: “Preaches?”—and I had now to try to explain that “preaching” means +teaching the people how to be devout and grave; but I failed to get him +to comprehend how Mr. Vickery could have attained to greater gravity +than the rest, and he struck his brow in the misery of his failure to +grasp the signification of a single word that I uttered as to this. +“Well, it is so, and that is all,” I said at last; “but as to the +ladies, you have still not told me which of the two you most admire.” + +Then he: “Which is the first-born?” + +So I: “That auburn-haired one is the elder by three years, being +already twenty-five, and it is she who has the reputation of a saint +in society, though it is Miss Eve who is so much the more queenly; so +which of the sisters do you like, the auburn or the light?” + +He: “A saint?”—and I had anew to make an explanation which he little +comprehended, and then anew I wished to know of him which of the two +sisters he the most admired. + +And now he, making that stone like an ink-bottle which he keeps inside +his shirt whirl about his forefinger without attachment in a quite +wonderful way, his waist swaying to keep the thing whirling wildly +quick, answered with whistling lips, “I like Miss Ruth.” + +Then I: “Oh, you do? You like her better, I see, than you do Miss Eve?” +upon which he, putting his hand behind his back for the stone to whirl +behind there, answered, “Yes.” + +Then I: “But leaving Miss Ruth out of the question, since she will +never marry, which of the two do you most admire—Miss Eve or me?” + +He: “You.” + +I: “Oh, you do?” + +He whistled quietly awhile, whirling the thing wildly with a swaying +waist, as it were a wheel wheeling on his hand, and he answered, “Yes” +to me; but I thought that my heart would be breaking with its rankling. + +So I to him: “Well, since this is so, that you like me so very vastly +better than Miss Eve and than all, why go to-morrow evening to get +the Bible, since there is no need, really; it is all nonsense and +make-believe, and will merely mean that you will be caught by your +father,” upon which he, suddenly ceasing to wheel the thing, sharply +asked if she had not promised not to betray him. + +So I: “She has promised, yes, but she little means it, wait, you will +see, you little know women, they are deceivers all; she will betray you +surely enough, if she but has the chance.” + +He glanced sharply at me, then said, “No.” + +I: “But I say yes.” + +He: “The lapwing says pee-wit.” + +What he meant I was not sure, but I was so broken-hearted that night, +that with sobs I threw myself now in a passion to his breast, and on my +knees, kissing my own tears on his hands, implored him like a dear boy +not to leave and despoil me, but to love me for ever, for if he left +me, that would be my death, I said, and his death as well. + +He smiled with his fixed little smile upon me, and I could believe that +he meant well by me; so, getting up now, I told him how I had that day +gained all information as to English marriages, and meant on the morrow +to take the first measures; but as I was speaking of this, he, leaning +aside, bent his ear to the ground, hearing God only knows what sound +under the grass, and when I had bidden him good-night, and was going up +the cliff’s brow again, on glancing back I beheld him bent down aside, +eagerly listening with his ear near the ground. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + IN THE GARDEN. + + +The next day the first thing that happened was the coming of a person +whom Miss Ruth interviewed for her father in the morning-room. I was +even then seeking Miss Ruth for Miss Eve, and on coming near the room +could hear the man say that he was one Shan Healy, a servant of Dr. +Lepsius, who, having traced to The Towers the owners of the yacht which +had touched at Shunter, was now come to find out what he could as to +his master’s son. + +He seemed a person of some thirty years, slimly tall, with a scar that +twists his upper lip, clad in rough new clothes: a man of an alert and +amiable personality, so that Miss Ruth laid her hand on his sleeve +to soothe him, for indeed he was in deep dreariness, and frequently +sniffled. When I went in with the message, Miss Ruth sent me to call +Miss Eve to her, so I ran back, and having brought Miss Eve, hung near +to hear. + +It was a long talk, the stranger having been given a seat near the +grate, the sisters seated on each side of him, hearing his tale. I, +for my share, was kept fidgety by the sounds of footsteps going about +the house, and could gather only in fragments what was said—enough, +however, to inform me of the marvel of the opportunity which has +brought me this gorgeous bridegroom of mine, for here, it would appear, +is Aladdin, and it is the wonderful lamps that are alight in his eyes. +Only sparkle crisply, do, do, my little star, and come to me some +spirit of perfect luck and alertness to spur me now with whispers how +only four days more to hold him, till I have safely erected myself +on my thrones, and bound my brows with crowns. Oh, I am silly with +thoughts. But thrones, may be; may be, many crowns, as Josephine, who +was but a _bourgeoise_, wore: for when Miss Eve asked this man, Healy, +for what reason the father is in this fever as to the son being abroad +in the world, the man answered that “the doctor regards it, lady, as a +peril greater than a charge of gun-cotton piled under the globe, with a +child holding a glowing coal by it: for, says he, the day that Master +Hannibal gets to recognise the real grade of mankind’s mind he’ll be +dragging the frame of society to fragments, like a child tearing a fly, +leg by leg, for mischief.” The ladies had the eyes of a child who has +listened late in the night to tales of the ancient time! “Well,” Miss +Ruth murmured, having heard the wonders that the man had to tell, “I +am in for it now, for though I do know, I promised him not to tell his +whereabouts, being cross with his parent for not having instructed him +in the Christian faith.” Then to Miss Eve, who, leaning forward with +her chin on her palm, sat staring at some vision which she saw in the +hearthplace, she remarked, “What do you say, Eve; what should I do?” + +Now Miss Eve knit her brows, and presently replied, “Promises can’t be +repealed, dear.” + +“But since it may do much harm?” Miss Ruth suggested. + +“Still,” muttered the lips of Miss Eve, “a promise.” + +“Oh, lady, do, for God’s sake,” Healy now entreated of Miss Ruth, “not +that I expect him to go back with me, but he’s so green to everything, +badly needs somebody, lady, like a whale run ashore, has got no razors +to shave, no jacket——” + +At this of “razors,” Miss Ruth placed her hand upon the man’s in a +movement of friendliness: for in truth he appears to be rather like his +young master’s nurse than servant, and Miss Ruth’s heart, like waters +haunted with squalls, is anew every minute smitten with all the world’s +smart, as fluid and easy as Miss Eve is aloof. So she smiles with the +man, saying, “Wait, I’ll question my God,” and gets up to go away to a +window, from which she presently returns to Miss Eve with the words, +“Eve, I’ll peach.” + +To this Miss Eve at first answered nothing, but after a little asked, +“What will he think of the worth of the promises made by us Christians? +Knowing a first that has failed, never a second he’ll trust”; but +Miss Ruth continued to believe that it would be better on the whole +to betray; did not, however, outright do so, only revealing to Healy +that the boy would be coming that evening to receive a Bible, and +instructing Healy to be then on the terraces to meet him. + +But there was one who had no wish that the boy should be taken +unawares, and who, not meaning him any more to meet Miss Eve, +immediately made up her mind to make known to him that he had been +deceived by the ladies. So, after placing Miss Eve’s half-hourly +hot water, down at once I started to him, and in passing near the +morning-room, again had a peep of Miss Eve in solitude now, pacing +there regularly to and fro with something of a frown, as it were a +sentinel in a gown. But when I had got down to the cave, again my heart +went aching, for again he was not there, and I thought then within +myself, “It is going to be more troublesome to hold him in my prison +than to keep quicksilver in a sieve, or to bind a wind with twine, +and this is a wild kind of horse with wings that I have vaulted on, I +think, which may chance in its raging to break every rib of my body.” +Louder and louder I called out after him now, and there was no sound +nor sign of him: only, on the cave’s floor now was a thing resembling +a telescope, made of oak bored through the core; also I saw there a +thing like a trap made of twigs, with the guts and gore of some animal +close to it; also a hollowed stone containing water that was violently +on the boil, though by what means the boy could cause this water to +be bubbling and boiling there was more than one could conceive. There +remained also most of the food which I had brought him, and having left +what I had now brought, I had to hurry back up to The Towers. + +There I spied Miss Eve still pacing in that same machine-like fashion +as before, as queenly slow of step as when a lady, conning poetry by +rote, paces with closed eyes. However, within twenty minutes now she +called me, to ask me to take tea to her with my own hands, as on the +day before; nor did I get any time to go down the mountain again, +for after lunch I had to take the walk over to St. Arvens, where, at +the vicarage, before a Mr. Rae, an aged _curé_, I made an affidavit +as to there being “no impediment” to my marriage, and he promised to +procure me by the 27th, from “the Bishop’s Registry,” the licence +to marry, with a stamp on it for £2 3s. 6d. So far, then, all goes +well, thank God; and in passing back through St. Arvens, having got +my finger measured at Martin’s shop, I there gave orders for the +wedding-ring, since I do not regard it as a good thing to bring my +former wedding-ring into use for this new bridegroom. By the time I +came home, elated with hopes, it was already late, and before long I +was bearing tea, as bidden, to Miss Eve. There was an afternoon picnic +at the Devil’s Pulpit, where many of the party were; a few were at +tennis; Miss Ruth was in the book-room in the thick of scribbling off +a basketful of her correspondence with Christendom; and Miss Eve was +with Monsieur the Minister of the Interior. But this time when I bore +in their tea they were less close together: Monsieur de Courcy sitting +in a mood of gloom on the sofa, gazing at the floor between his legs, +Miss Eve standing nearer the fire-place, fingering white violets, with +a bent face. And I, listening in the corridor, heard her murmur to him +that “pain like a curse or some venomous perfume infects all Eve’s poor +daughters: curst that they needs must endure, worse when they needs +must inflict,” from which I gathered that the poor Monsieur de Courcy, +having been given to hope for twenty-four hours, was now definitely +turned away, though, as I left the corridor, I heard him cry out +crazily, “There is some reason! I know that you like me, Eve!” but what +answer was given to this I did not gather. + +Then, after spending some time at the wardrobe, preparing the bath, +arranging four costumes for her choosing, and the perfumery and lotions +for her _toilette de soir_, I thought I might have just time to run +down to the boy, but was now anew disappointed by being summoned to yet +new toils by Miss Ruth, who, having received a bale of toys from the +Dean of somewhere, presents me five dolls to dress! So that is the way +it is? It was always to be dressing dolls that I was born, was it not, +ladies? Wait only four days more! and perhaps you will then not know +your lady’s-maid for the smile that will writhe her lips, and for the +royalty of that rage of joy which will shine in her eyes. + +For the evening Miss Eve, for some reason, would put on her poudre blue +with the Borzoi ornaments, and orchids, and now I had a small hour to +myself, for, as to dinner, eating was far enough beneath that sphere +of fairies where my brain was in a reel; so, having merely tasted a +spoonful of soup, off I hastened to him.... + +He was not there at the cave, still he was not there! And I could only +guess that, his awes of his “Man” having already grown less great, he +had roamed far, and ah, I asked my heart if he had not done it four +days too soon for my fate.... I had no paper to write him that he would +be betrayed by the ladies if he came up, and after half an hour’s +waiting returned to The Towers. + +Nothing was then left me to do but to watch, and at first I lurked +under the conservatory’s shadow, and then, conscious that I might +be observed, moved up to pry from behind the curtains of that front +bedroom on the right. + +Thence I soon saw Healy appear on the terraces, and soon from the +drawing-room out to him moves Miss Ruth. Miss Eve did not appear, +though invited by Miss Ruth, I know, to assist at the rendezvous. So +Miss Ruth and Healy conversed a while, and I heard the stable-clock +strike nine as Miss Ruth introduced Healy into the conservatory to +wait there concealed, and then returned to pace the terrace in the +moonlight. Three minutes afterwards, half a mile off on the meadow +below the lawn, I beheld a runner coming with a wide stride, his elbows +at his side, his head thrown back, his lips opened, pressing prone +home like a beast with its ribs breathing deeply from long travelling. +At once I was certain that it was no one but him by his black skull, +his shaggy shirt, and by observing how with a bouncing somehow and a +buoyancy in his gait the boy came gaily—beautiful! like a fabulous +youth booted with something pneumatic; and soon, scaling the terraces, +he stood panting before Miss Ruth, I kneeling at the window’s sill with +my ear low to hear him excusing his lateness: for, said he, he had had +a high-day of adventures, and then had been again delayed by watching a +conflagration eight miles away, and the deaths of a man and a child. + +“Really?” says Miss Ruth to him, “and what, sir, is the name of this +poor man who was burnt?” to which he gave the answer that he had heard +the man called “George Perkins, the grocer.” + +“What, Mr. Perkins, the grocer, of Up Brooming?” cries Miss Ruth +shrinkingly, with eyes of alarm, “burnt to death?” and “Oh!” she +murmured with ruth. + +To this he replied—and I disliked him for it—that there was no need +for any feeling of grief or loss, since this grocer’s life, he felt +certain, was a life of no value, one greatly below the human grade, his +figure having the grossness of the gorilla’s, and his soul on a similar +level, since in the attempt that he had made to steal he had failed +even to death.... + +“To steal?” breathed Miss Ruth; “Mr. Perkins, the grocer? A +prayer-leader? There must be some mistake!” + +“No,” he said—at least he took it, he said, for granted that the grocer +had meant to steal, since there appeared to be no other motive for his +demented rush into the conflagration. + +“He rushed to rescue the child!” cries Miss Ruth. + +“So,” he replies, with his smile, “the people of the region seemed to +imagine,” but as the child, he observed, was not even the grocer’s own +offspring, and as even an ape’s eye might have recognised the fatal +state of the conflagration, therefore he could only suppose that the +motive of the grocer was to grasp some hoard.... Whereupon the saint +suddenly throws up her hands with drollery, and once more, as on the +evening before, could not resist running to bring Miss Eve to hear the +story of the good grocer, who, having perished as a hero, was still +impeached of stealing! But Miss Eve would not immediately come, so +that the other sister had need to entreat her thrice with, “Yes, come, +yes, come,” ere Miss Eve, deciding, appeared on the terrace in her +poudre blue, the moonlight’s hue, Hannibal Lepsius making the abject +obeisances of a Jew before her face. Then the three spoke during some +moments, or Miss Ruth and the young man spoke, Miss Eve, with an air +of musing, waiting mutely near. I heard only in fragments what was +said, but gathered that Miss Ruth, having ridiculed the grotesqueness +of the good grocer being accused of stealing, the young man now began +to glorify and laud stealing, asking if the Spartans did not rightly +regard it as an excellent art of life; and what was dishonourable +about it, he wished to know, save to be of so drowsy a consciousness, +he said, as to fail or to be found out in it? In the midst of which +speech of his, Miss Eve, without saying a word, turned away, and went +pacing westward behind the conservatory toward the garden, the young +man all agape after her, and Miss Ruth saying to him, “Now, I’m afraid +you have quite blundered into my sister’s bad books, though I, too, +say with you that there’s no wrong in stealing, save that it does seem +rather selfish, does it not? and selfishness, I think, is the sole +falsity, the only fault. But never mind, it will be quite well, let us +wait and pray, for I prophesy in the Spirit that one day light will +spring from on high in you. I am only sorry that we have to separate, +but here’s the promised Bible, which for love of me you will read +frequently, while I for love of you will wrestle—Listen!” for he, half +turned toward the conservatory, hardly heard her, his eyeballs all +beguiled away with a hungry glaring in them the way that Miss Eve had +disappeared. “Listen!” she says, “I have considered it best to betray +you——” + +“Ah!” now he span about to frown a second at her, into her, one may +say, and some other seconds stood dumb, considering it; looked up, too +(why, I do not know), at the window where I knelt hidden. At any rate, +he saw now the truth of my prophecy that Miss Ruth would betray him, +and that I was no lapwing that says “pee-wit.” In a moment more by some +reasoning of his own he seems to have surmised that Healy was concealed +in the conservatory, for toward it with his usual ill-breeding, leaving +Miss Ruth, he immediately rushed. Just then the footman John ran out +with some message for Miss Ruth, who went in with him, and soon out +from the conservatory hurried Hannibal Lepsius, holding Healy by the +sleeve, leading him to the terrace’s brink, where he caused him to sit +with a warning finger. The next instant he himself was off with the +fleetest feet the way that Miss Eve had disappeared, tossing aside in +his flight the Bible brought him by the other sister into the basin of +water where the sun-dial stands, and as he vanished I, too, though with +a shivering in my right knee which shook me throughout, rushed toward +the house-back, and out into the top part of the garden, all my heart +in a conflagration and tremble of haste to break into some outrageous +row, and shout my wrongs. + +I thought I heard talking down there at the bottom of the garden, and, +bottling up my rage, shivering, I crawled like a snail down the three +steps into a garden-walk which lay between bowers and arches made of +box-twigs. There the voice of the boy again reached me, clearly now; so +down another path on my right I prowled to its end, and now could see +them down there at the bottom by the seat, he on his knees to Miss Eve +like a very slave, she standing still, looking not at him, but at the +north shrubbery-wall with a frown on her brow, while round in cruises +above-head a white owl, I remember, was moving smoothly about in the +moonlight, like a musing spirit cruising: for I somehow observed each +little object, just as a person in going to the guillotine does, I have +heard; and I observed that, though the previous day there had been +bristles on his cheeks, he was at present clean-shaven, and I observed +that Miss Eve’s handkerchief, which she had dropped, hung from the +young man’s right ear; and I observed that he offered her earnestly the +one half of a halfpenny, or of a penny, at which she would not look. +Then I saw her lips speak, and she pointed southward, enjoining him, it +seemed, to leave her, upon which up the boy sprang, and was now about, +I believe, to seize her body, but all at once now was in flight—along +the alley down which I was peeping! _Why_ in flight I could not +conjecture, till suddenly I saw Monsieur le Comte de Courcy appear from +the north walk, with his cane uplifted in the air. He, it seems, pacing +with two ladies in the north shrubbery, and seeing through the gate, +may be, a male without a jacket molesting Miss Eve, had run to protect +her, at which the young man, ever fearful of his “Man,” had taken to +his heels: and before ever I could raise my self up to run, he, raining +his steps, had pelted by me, looking back over his shoulder at Monsieur +de Courcy. He seemed, when his eyes fell upon me, to see me there +without surprise; and on some way he still ran, more and more slowly +now, however, looking back always at Monsieur de Courcy who, cane in +air, was pursuing him. But all at once the boy, making only loitering +steps that halted, almost stopped, amazement painted on his face—that +he was so inefficiently chased, I take it; amazement, and also, though +he always smiled, a terror which stretched his nostrils as the cane of +Monsieur the Minister came. I stood awe-struck at it! and Miss Eve, +too, appeared to be apprehensive of something fearful, for she tripped +some distance in Monsieur the Minister’s rear, and once called out +after him. He, however, seemed not to hear her: still on came his great +bulk of body, the cane, the eye-glass and glassy shirt-front, till +he was quite near the turning in which I lurked, his teeth grinning +white to bite his cigarette between them. But he never advanced as far +forward as my turning: all at once Hannibal Lepsius was at him; and +in that instant of bewilderment, ere one’s wits could decide what had +been done, or in what way done, one was aware of the cane of Monsieur +the Minister wheeling high away up in the air, up where the owl wound +its flight, while the Minister himself was now on the ground, and his +cigarette, no longer in his mouth, now stuck out of one nostril, the +glowing end upward.... Oh, I was smitten with compunction for Monsieur +de Courcy, he a man of so much culture—and with a feeling of affright! +he being one whose anger it must be a truly grievous thing to bring +upon oneself.... As Miss Eve hurried to him, I ran off.... The young +man also had vanished, appalled, as I imagine, at the enormity of his +defiance of his “Man”; and when I ran out to the terraces, neither +of him nor of Healy was any trace to be seen, nor when I ran down to +his river-cave.... I came back up lagging and agued, yes, trembling +throughout in a kind of ague-fit.... + +Then, till my bell summoned me at midnight, I lay sullen, and, as it +were, dead, though uttering a sob anon. But soon after midnight I had +my mistress in my hands before the mirror, had already made ready her +hair, and now after massage with the preparation, was getting on her +night-gloves, when she remarks to me, “What is the matter? Your fingers +quiver,” and I then replied to her, “Miss Vickery, this is because I +have it on my mind to inform you that I am about to leave your service +in a hurry, since I am about to be married.” I expected to feel her +start a little! but even in that electric blaze of the two candelabra +I could detect no surprise in her, and oh, these English with their +cold spleens, how one dislikes them! She muttered to me, “Don’t be +agitated; when do you go?” did not even inquire who was that future-one +of mine. But as it was mainly in order to proclaim this to her that I +had spoken, I made the remark, “I believe, Miss Vickery, that you have +even seen my future-one, who is that young individual named Hannibal +Lepsius”—whereat as when a nerve leaps a little, it appeared certain +to me that her hand stirred in mine: and I was pleased within myself at +this. + +She asked not one question, but I now informed her frankly of +everything, how, in his passion for me, after seeing me in the bushes, +the young man had swum aboard the yacht, how I had hidden him, brought +him hither, and now was about to receive the bishop’s licence to +marry him—keeping meantime a sharp eye of observation upon her face +in the mirror: but beyond a little raising up of her palms once as in +amazement, she listened calmly, making no remark; only, the moment +I stopped, up she stood, went to the large wardrobe, and now began +prodigally to shower out her gowns, gown after gown, upon the arm-chair +for my wedding-gift, so that I stood agape at the largesse of her busy +arm, and this sharp shower of her bounty—quite a thousand pounds, as +I now count—for out, too, with the others flew that pearl grey, the +ermine stole, that orchid-mauve silk with the spotted poplin, and +now the China silk tea-gown with the Valenciennes insertions, and +that great creation for the Coaching Club Meet last year, only that +once worn. “And are all these really for me, Miss Vickery?” I said +to her in the midst of it; “you are truly good and gracious, Miss +Vickery,” I said, to which she made no answer, but continued to rain +her largesse with a scornful arm. I had to make three journeys out of +the chamber, submerged beneath these riches, and comforted inwardly of +the pangs that rankled in me. Even when I supposed that I had taken out +everything, the stole was still left, and when I now stepped in softly +for this from behind the portière, I came upon the lady standing there +as naked now as a lily, her outlines all slenderly long-drawn as by +the pencil of a stripling painter who has never yet ventured, save in +his dreamings, to be voluptuous, and she appeared to stand tip-toe +stretched to spurn and desert this earth, and return to her heavens. +Suddenly, chancing to catch sight of me behind her, all that marble was +washed in one blush, as though I was he upon whom perhaps her heart was +musing. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + “VITRIOLISERAI.” + + +The next morning he was gone, he was not there in the cave, and as for +the man, Healy, he was not there, and where to seek I knew not at all: +only the thing like a telescope was there in the cave, the thing like a +trap, the dead creature’s remains, the stone which he has hollowed into +a vase, and under some rubbish and leaves in a corner the thing like an +ink-bottle that he has called a “stele”: but all the bread, etc., that +I had brought him he had either eaten or taken away. + +Eaten, may be; but, if not eaten, whither, I asked myself—with this +food—was he off to? Ah, many questions I asked myself; and then, +hurrying across the bridge, went to the cottage of Mrs. Bream, with +whom Healy was lodging, to ask if the man did not sleep there the +previous night; but she said no, he had merely come in, together with +a stripling who wore sandals, to take away his bag, saying, however, +that he would be back to her in some days; and he had taken the 10.20 +up-train with this stripling, who had wished to know of her, poor +sinner, if she did not know even so much as the names of the mountains +in the moon. + +Upon this, seeing me near to fainting, she made me sip a little of a +white wine made, she said, out of cowslips. I was not, however, wholly +without hope, since Healy, who is clearly a captive, and probably but +repeated his master’s words, had promised to return; nor did I believe +that the man could mean to deceive, since he seems an honest-minded +person. To this, then, I clung; though that the boy should fly off thus +wildly to London without breathing anything of it to me who am his +sweetheart seemed hard—_to London_, I assumed! for that 10.20 train +stops only at Gloucester and Swindon before London, and I thought that +he may have wished to behold the capital. Indeed, this is probable: +for the conviction has clearly been growing upon him that his “Man,” +hereabouts, at all events, is hardly all that he has thought him; and I +guess that the feebleness of such a magnate as Monsieur the Minister of +the Interior in that encounter in the garden may have sent him flying +off to the capital to find out once and for all how things actually +are. What, then, I asked myself, would be his opinion of it all? Would +what he there saw fascinate or in any other way keep him from returning +to me? Would not Healy find the means to communicate with Dr. Lepsius, +or in some way to kidnap and immure the young man? Ah, many, many +questions I asked myself.... + +The 26th. It was vindictive of Monsieur de Courcy to give information +to the police as to his grievance against the young man, which, after +all, was hardly very grave; but his no doubt is one of those hard brows +that hardly ever forgive. At any rate, this morning an “inspector” +demanded to interview me with regard to the whereabouts of the young +man, my relation with whom, owing to my haste to crow my marriage, is +already known throughout the household, just as the fact that Miss +Eve is in negotiation with a lady for a new maid is well known to +everyone.... My God! what is to become of me now, my good God? Have +I not conducted myself like a light-headed young girl who has not yet +learned to govern her nerves or her tongue, who skips into enthusiasm +at the first music, and boasts beforehand of shadows as though they +were substances? At any rate, I had to confess to this constable my +complete ignorance of my bridegroom’s movements, whereupon he, getting +up to go, said to me, “Well, we shall make it hot for him if he dares +show his nose about here again.” + +The 27th. But is he such a blackguard, or is his scorn of me so great, +that he cannot even write me a line to say that I am never again to see +him? Still not even a line, and Miss Eve this morning would not let me +do her hands, but ordered me to bed, I looked so bad. I went, but had +to get up to go to St. Arvens to receive the marriage-licence, after +which I took the train, as directed, to Wynton, to give notice of it to +the registrar there; and now any day after to-morrow, this gentleman +told me, I may be married: a statement that made me in coming down the +stairs break bitterly out into tears.... In passing through Wynton I +procured myself at the chemist’s a vial of vitriol.... + +The 28th. Again to-day I was several hours in bed with my headache, +Miss Ruth coming at noon to read aloud to me a fairy-tale named _The +Pilgrim’s Progress_, and after luncheon comes Miss Eve also to sit five +minutes at my bedside. It was in going away, when she had reached the +door, that she stopped and said, “And as to your marriage?” whereupon +I too rashly indulged my shame with the falsehood that I had that very +morning received a communication from my future-one, assuring me that +he would immediately be here to be mine.... The house is now empty of +guests, the two Gordons having departed this morning.... + +The 29th. Well, dear Lord, he is here, and I thank you. I now write at +six in the morning, after having spent a nearly sleepless night with +him and Healy, and still with no desire to close my eyes. By to-morrow +evening we shall have been secretly and safely married, and within a +week I shall have taken farewell of this my life here.... + +I was in the housekeeper’s room alone, for Mrs. Bowden had gone up, +it being long past midnight, and I was lying on the sofa, the vial of +vitriol beside me on the table, for I had been foolishly fingering +it, when there came a tapping at that back door which opens upon the +passage. I get up, I go to it, I open it.... And it was _he_! Oh, my +wild one with wings, with the light of life flying wildly in his eyes, +it was he! and while one might reckon three I stood breathless, then +with a cry was on his breast. + +His nature is not yet coaxed over into tolerating the luxury of +kissing, and even in the ecstasy of our meeting his chastity shrank +from the touch of my lips; but, my faith, that will soon be “al-right”! +and he patted my shoulder fondly, even while hurriedly saying, “I need +light for an hour or two.” + +I was too much flurried to attend to what he said! I cooed to him, “And +is it actually true that you have come back to me?” + +“Yes, yes, let me get in,” he mutters hurriedly, and now, seizing Healy +by the sleeve, hurries in into the housekeeper’s room. He had climbed +outside, and spied me alone in there through the window, Healy told me +afterwards. + +But his air was much changed! all bustle now, business, and aloofness +from one! When I now said to him, “But where, then, have you been?” +he mutters to Healy, “Just answer her questions, and see that she +speaks in whispers,” and instantly sits to the table, places on it +that ink-bottle “stele” of his that he had left in the cave, takes a +magnifying-glass out of his shirt, and begins to gaze through it at the +marks that are cut in the stone. + +“But tell me——” I began to say to him, when “_Sh-h-h!_” breathes Healy +into my ear, “_I_’ll tell you,” and draws me away to a corner, where +he whispers me, “Mum, can you offer a body such a thing as a bite of +something? He”—indicating Hannibal Lepsius with his thumb—“can do +without food and sleep, but that’s a bit more than _I_ can bring off, +anyway.” + +I made him sit, stole out, and in five minutes was back with bread, +meat, cheese, and a bottle of beer. Hannibal Lepsius at this time could +no more be said to be sitting, but was half over the table, one knee +on the chair, poring with greed over that “stele,” as if he would eat +it with his gaze. I was about to say something to him, when my ear was +afresh reached by the _sh-h-h_ of Healy, like a whispering of leafage +fretted by a zephyr; so I placed the victuals on Healy’s knees, sat +before him, and commenced to question him; but it was many minutes +before his stuffed mouth could bring out a syllable. + +“Why were you so famished?” I asked him, “since you had money to pay +railway-fare?” + +With his lips at my ear, he answered: “It was a question of time, +mum—no time to eat, no time to sleep; but that’s good meat, that is, +and that’s good beer, too.” + +“Was he, then, in such a hurry to return to his marriage?” I asked. + +The man looked at me under his eyes—strangely, I thought—and replied, +“I know nothing of that, mum; but we went to see London, and we saw it +in a tear, I tell you, and we left it in a tear, for by the end of the +third day London had got a bit too hot for us.” + +“Why, how was that?” I asked him. + +“Truth is,” he whispered, “some of us have been putting into our +pockets more than what belongs to us!” + +“What!” I said. + +“_Sh-h-h_,” he went. + +Mrs. Bowden’s clock just then struck one, and glancing round at it, I +beheld Hannibal Lepsius bent yet further over the table, poring upon +that stone, and heard him whimper over it as if in pain. + +“What is he doing?” I whispered to Healy. + +“Lord knows, mum,” he whispered back. + +“So the London police were after him?” + +“That’s so.” + +“What a thing!” I said in awe. + +“Thrice in three days!” he whispered; “aye, and that second time it +was a close go with us, too, seeing that he wouldn’t let go hold of +me—a thousand people after us through London streets, if there was one, +and he dragging me, thinking that I am against him, too, and want to +betray him. That’s hard, too, that’s hard. Here am I, mum, Dr. Lepsius’ +servant—I’d give this hand for the doctor—yet keeping the lad dark from +the doctor, going against the doctor, mind, knowing that I am doing +wrong, but no more able to help it than a man addicted to liquor, I +am that given up to the lad; yet he keeps me as his prisoner, I who’d +race after him to hell; thinks I want to run away and betray him to +everybody, can’t believe in a motive that’s not selfish, it’s hard.” + +“You haven’t, then, written to tell his father that you have found +him?” I asked. + +“God forgive me, no,” he answered with a bent head; “though I have had +chances to do it, too, mum, and the doctor must be in as much of a +wonder what’s come to me as what’s come to Master Hanni. God forgive +me! for never I’ll forgive myself on this side Jordan. And all to +pleasure the lad—but he can’t see it, keeps me as a prisoner, it’s +hard.” + +“But what did he do in London? what did he think of the ladies there? +was he really chased by the London people?” I asked, for I could not +whisper my questions fast enough to satisfy my inquisitiveness. + +Healy answered yes, that the sandals and bauge shirt of Shunter Island +had been chased with hue and cry all up Tottenham Court Road at midday, +and twice by night in other places; and that not the London police +only were after him, for that he had no sooner stepped from the train +down here than a constable laid hands on him; but he had filliped the +constable in the face, and run away, making to the cave to get the +“stele,” which he seemed to be extremely eager to get, and then had run +up here, dragging Healy with him. + +“And he actually filliped the constable?” I said to Healy: “he is no +longer, then, at all in awe of his ‘Man’?” + +Healy grinned a grimace to himself, and throwing up his hands a little, +whispered to me, “All idiots! that was the verdict on the second +night—about eight o’clock, mum, drizzling, hazy night, he and I sitting +in one of those recesses of Waterloo Bridge, and over the river a +sight, mum, greatly like a fairyland going on in a haze, with that host +of lights.... So he sits awhile there, weary from the two days’ tear, +looking at the traffic rolling over the bridge; then getting up on the +seat, he leans over the parapet; and presently, as he was there looking +down upon the river, I hear him say to himself ‘idiots,’ and then I +hear him say ‘all, all,’ with a sort of wail, shaking his head a bit, +and then I see him bury his face in his hands, and a sound came out of +him that at first was more like crying, but afterwards was more like +laughing; and from that minute he was eager to get back down here to +his cave.” + +I looked round at Hannibal Lepsius, and now saw his body all across the +table, with one knee also on it, for, in the keenness of his strain +as to that “stele,” he had been pushing it inch by inch from him and +following it; and now his brow was all brown and engorged, his eyes +were glaring at the object like a maniac’s, and now also a sort of +groan broke out of his breast. + +When I turned back to Healy to continue our conversation, I found that +during those few moments that I had been looking away his brow had +dropped in sleep; and I was just disengaging from his fingers the glass +that he had been drinking from lest he should drop it, when I became +aware of a tapping at the little door at the back. I stole out to it, +I opened it, and now, heavens! my soul faints within me when I behold +standing there the big Inspector Gibbon, together with that graceful +young constable of Thring with the moustache, whose name is Shooter. + +“We have found him at last,” remarks Inspector Gibbon, for they had +seen the light, climbed a little by the spout outside, and seen the +young man poring over the stele. + +“But what has he done?” I asked them, with a trembling about my right +knee, hearing, as I asked it, Mrs. Bowden’s clock strike twice. + +“There are no less than five counts against him,” answered Inspector +Gibbon, “three from London, two down here; let’s have the beauty +out”—and he steps within the doorway. + +At once now with a wild heart I darted back into Mrs. Bowden’s room, to +whisper to the young man, “I am afraid that two officers are come to +arrest you!” + +He groaned, without glancing up from his poring over that stone. I +waited several seconds, hearing the clock tick, and my own heart as +loudly pounding. Healy also, who had started awake, now sat staring +with an open mouth. + +“What shall I say to the two officers?” I asked the young man. + +Again he groaned grievously, but did not glance up at me, and again I +stood in suspense some seconds; till now he in an absent way, still +without glancing up, mumbled at me, “Bring them here.” + +I ran out, and found the officers already at the door: in another +moment they were standing within the housekeeper’s room. Hanni Lepsius +was now on his feet awaiting them, and the instant they appeared he +stepped up to them, saying, “Now, I wish you to take me; take me—only +be swift.” + +“You are a beauty——” Inspector Gibbon began to say, taking the young +man by one arm, while Shooter took him by the other; but Hannibal +Lepsius cut short his words, saying to him, “Yes, I know: you all +delight in the waste of time, the waste of words. But come, take me, +and I shall know now with certainty whether you are of the smallest +worth.” The boy now pointed out of the back door at the old oak tree +that stands there in the courtyard about twelve yards from the door. +“You see that oak tree,” he said to them: “only get me past that, +and not only will I go with you the rest of the way to prison, but +four hundred pounds which I stole in London shall be for your private +use”—and how earnestly he spoke to them! turning from one to the other, +instilling his meaning into their ears as into the ears of people hard +of hearing, while they calmly smiled upon him with a contempt for him +equal to his concern for them. “You are poor,” he told them, “ah, poor +even to meanness, even to shame; and here in this pocket is the money. +Rouse yourselves now, then! _Ask_ yourselves, ‘How can he escape us?’ +Not by strength!—each of you is as strong as I. By craft, then? Surely, +only by craft!”—turning from one to the other, pleading earnestly at +the ear of each in turn. “But there are at most only six possible +ways,” he said, “in which, by craft, even a lord of Mars or Venus, I +think, could escape you. Think in lightning _now_ of those ways! Rouse, +rouse yourselves! Oh, rouse, rouse, now, all those dark powers that +profoundly drowse in your soul! Look round the room: for the means by +which I choose to escape lie here before your face; nor are you idiots +born, your brain has the same bulk, your reason is equal to mine, +only it deeply sleeps—oh, dull, dull, dull—and wakefulness is bliss, +wakefulness is life——” + +“Oh, come, no more of it,” now said Inspector Gibbon, interrupting him +with a good-natured disdain, drawing the young man away; and Hannibal +Lepsius uttered no other word. + +They took him to the back door, Healy and I following mutely behind, +and down the two steps they went, and across the yard toward the oak +tree and the swing-gate that is close by the south garden-wall. The +moon was about at her full in a sky without one cloud in it, so that +I could see that the boy’s right foot, as he walked, was drawing part +of the coil of rope from the stables which generally lies just there by +the back door; and I whispered to Healy, “He has got his leg entangled +in the rope!” + +They were by this time not three feet from the old oak tree, Inspector +Gibbon at the young man’s right arm, Shooter at the left, keeping a +strong grip, I could see, and a cautious guard, since they had been so +warned; nor had I, for my part, the least expectation of seeing him +escape them ere they reached the tree, or indeed at any time; but all +at once, just as they reached the tree, without even the least effort I +now beheld him easily free; and the next instant one saw a sight!—the +two constables all entangled, and Hannibal Lepsius running furiously +round and round the tree, ever with every revolution at a shorter +distance from it, the rope in his hand, roping with many whorles the +two men to the tree. I never was so curiously affected, I think, by any +sight—with a feeling of religion and hallelujah, I may say, the two +men’s bulk of flesh looking so abject and helpless in the hands of that +wit, like hippopotami with their insignificant skulls: though how he +had contrived to escape out of their grasp without a struggle I still +had no idea. To tie their hands, their arms being already bound, was to +him not the work of a minute, and suddenly he was rushing back to the +house, dashed inward past Healy and me without a word, and by the time +we two had returned to Mrs. Bowden’s room, he was already whining and +whimpering anew over his stone, as if nothing had happened. + +“But in what way——?” I began to say to him, when Healy’s “_sh-h-h_” +again checked my tongue; so in the corner Healy and I discussed in +agitated whispers what had taken place. When I asked Healy if he knew +in what manner the young man had escaped the police, he answered by +asking me, “What’s in that little bottle on the table?” + +At this I felt myself fly red to the roots of my hair! for he meant +the vial of vitriol which, procured at Wynton on the 27th, I have been +foolishly fingering ever since. + +“How should I know what is in the vial?” I said to Healy. + +“Well, whatever it is,” he said, “it is something that makes cloth +rotten in a tick, for when you went out to tell the officers to come +in, he dipped a match into the vial, drew with the match a circle +on each of his shirt sleeves, and now, you see, the two pieces of +shirt have disappeared”—and in truth the young man’s arm nearest me +was showing through a hole in his shirt, so I understood that by the +working of the vitriol the two pieces of shirt had come away in the +policemen’s hands. I had begun to say, “Well, it was not so wonderful, +after all, now that one knows how——” when one of the bound men began to +shout out for succour; upon which Hanni Lepsius groaned within himself +over his stone, and, without glancing up, told Healy to go and give +them to know that if they made but one other outcry before the daybreak +he would gag and agonise them; so Healy hastened out to say this, and +thenceforth the two men remained mum. + +After this Healy and I talked in our corner till the clocks tolled +three, by which time both our heads were ready to nod, our words dried +up, and still on in the soundless night worked Hanni Lepsius over that +stone. I did not hear four strike, for I was in a little sleep; but +immediately after half-past four I heard, or dreamed that I heard, a +laugh somewhere, and I started awake, aware that his study of the stone +was over, and that he was standing at my side. + +At once, as I opened my eyes, he handed me the vial of vitriol, bowing +a little, and smiling. + +“What is this?” I asked him. + +“It is oil of vitriol,” replies the boy. + +I ought, if I had had my wits, to have asked him why he handed it to +me! but, being only half-awake and confused, I foolishly took the thing +and put it down without finding a word to say; and I saw his gaze +linger strangely upon me. Then he said, “I am very hungry.” + +I ran and fetched him bread, cheese, and water, for he will eat no +meat; and it was while eating that he asked me whether I had with me +those two hundred pounds which I had told him that I had hoarded. I +replied that I had with me ninety pounds only; he then demanded of me +if I had this in metal or in notes, and on my replying “in notes,” +he said that he desired to see at once what a banknote is like, and +would I run and bring him the money that he might see. Proud to do him +a pleasure, though it was a journey through the house at that hour, +I light my candle, I set off, and soon return with my roll of notes. +He sat with them, fingering, holding them up to the gas, while I, +with my hand on his shoulder, remarked that all that was to begin our +little _ménage_, informed him that everything had been arranged for our +marriage, and asked him when that little affair was to be. His answer +was that it should be that very day at two o’clock, and I felt my heart +start once and cease to beat, my right knee trembling like a string. +While I stood thus agitated behind him, he, examining the banknotes, +requests me to give him an envelope; so I go to Mrs. Bowden’s desk, I +get an envelope, and, as I give this to him, he hands me back my roll +of notes, takes the envelope, puts into it a piece of tissue-paper, on +which he had written some words with a stump of blue pencil, fastens +the envelope, and with the pencil writes on it the words, “To Eve +Vickery.” + +I started! and I started anew when he said to me, “Hand this to that +lady when she awakes.” + +“But what do you mean?” I said, shrinking from him; “do you, then, wish +to outrage me? and do you suppose that I would do such a thing, really?” + +“You will,” he said; and to Healy, “Come.” + +“But stay!” I cried; “at what hour of the day do I see you?...” + +He was already at the door of the room, but came back a little, saying, +“At noon; and the marriage at two”—whereupon he anew picks up the +vial of vitriol from the table, hands it to me, and goes through the +doorway—the good God only knows why he did this. + +I darted after, caught him at the back door, and, casting my arms about +him, wet his cheek with my kisses and tears. He made no remark, save to +say, “Do not release those police until twenty minutes past five”; and +he went. + +The moon had set, and the new day hardly yet dawning, but I could see +him go past the oak tree without a glance at the two prisoners, and go +away like ghosts, he and his Healy, through the swing-gate close by the +south garden-wall. + +I had then to sit up till twenty past five, as he had said, to release +the police, when I brought them in, gave them some breakfast, and +impressed it upon them that it was useless for them to seek him, since +he was “gone away,” I said; and even if he was not, they could never +get him, I said: a statement which they seemed to believe, for they +were very dejected and shivering. + +It is now near seven, and here I still sit, even now not sleepy, for +this is the day of my life. What is in my heart? Is it peace? Is it +dancing? I think I have a fear.... + +It will soon be time to be at Miss Eve’s bedside. Of course, I shall +not give her the envelope, though he said with assurance that I will; +but I have not as yet opened it to see what is in it, for I fear his +consciousness of things.... There is something solid in it, like the +half of a halfpenny, and a chain.... + +The 29th, at nine in the night. He has robbed me of my savings, he has +abandoned me, he is gone for ever!... No, my God, I cannot write, my +head cannot hold itself up. + +The 30th. I will vitriolise him. God knows, that will not be easy, +he has many eyes, it will be almost impossible: but those great men +who make discoveries which amaze the creation—in what manner do they +accomplish this? I think it is not because their wits are so vastly +more than those of ordinary folk, but because their lives are wholly +devoted to one thing only, as my life henceforth will be wholly devoted +to this alone. God help me in this; it will be only after years of +effort that I can even hope to do it, but one day, if God be my Helper, +it will be done “al-right.” + +When at two yesterday he could not be anywhere found, I opened with +steam the envelope addressed to Miss Eve, and found that he had written +on the piece of tissue-paper in it the words, “Beldam Eve, farewell +for two years, from your slave for ever, Hannibal Lepsius. Please tell +Jeanne Auvache where I have laid her money.” The meaning of this last +phrase I could not for fully an hour make any sense of, since my brain +was reeling round and round; then it occurred to me to look anew at +the roll of notes that he had handed me back, and when I now flew to +them, I found that only the two outer ones were now notes, all within +being mere stuffing of tissue-paper. For a long time I lay on the floor +by the trunk, feeling myself ruined, for the loss of even a franc has +always appeared irreparable to me, and here were two thousand francs +departed by fraud, for ever, out of my life. But after a time I thought +of the words in the note to Miss Eve, “Please tell Jeanne Auvache where +I have laid her money,” and without stopping to ask myself how Miss +Eve could know this, I picked myself up to run straight to her with +the note, no more caring whether she noticed that I had opened it, for +I cared for nothing. First, however, I tried to detach the half-coin +from the note—it was the half of a sovereign which had been split in +two, and through a hole in it passed one of those little chains such +as medallions are hung from round infants’ necks; but he had artfully +gummed the half-coin to the tissue-paper just by the words “please tell +Jeanne Auvache,” and, as I could not get away the coin without tearing +the paper, I ran with the whole to Miss Eve in the eagerness of my hope +to get back my money—forgetting at the moment that this was even what +that fiend had foretold that I would do. Miss Eve was in her boudoir +alone, reading in her rocking-chair, and suddenly, without rapping, I +was there before her, holding out the note and chain. She lifts her +eyes, and instantly a faint flush flew to suffuse her face. “What is +it?” says she, taking the thing, and in one moment her eyes had run +over the words, she had thrown the note aside with a little motion of +the wrist in a little hurry, like one brushing off a fly, and was anew +perusing her book. + +“Miss Vickery,” I said, “can you tell me where my money is laid?” + +Anew she lifts her eyes, looks at me silently, and from that look I +knew at once that that phrase in the note had only been put into it so +as to ensure that Miss Eve should receive the note; for he knew that I +would open the envelope, and that Miss Eve knew nothing as to where my +money is, for how could she? My money is in his pocket, that is where +my money is, my two thousand francs. + +The 31st. I was not allowed to get out of bed to-day, and ah, these +English, they are frigid, they are hard on the surface, but beneath +they are tenderer and better than all the world. I expected that Miss +Ruth would lavish the compassion of her ever-wounded bosom upon my +grief, but I have been even deeper touched by the goodness of Miss +Eve. When, in one of the paroxysms, I cried, “Miss Vickery, I will +vitriolise, I will vitriolise him, if it is in fifteen years to come!” +she, with a look that flashed anger at me, began to say, “You shameful +woman!” but then rushed to the bed and warmly embraced me in her arms, +murmuring many times in words of wooing, “Poor bruised heart, poor +wounded woman,” with water swimming in her eyes, while I wept on her. A +French lady would not have kissed me on the lips.... In the afternoon +when I knew that she was below, I stole from bed, and, creeping to her +boudoir, peeped in to see if the tissue-paper note with the half of a +sovereign was yet on the card-table, whither she had brushed it from +her; but it had vanished. + +The 2nd. I must go away, and in haste, since this holy house is no +place for me to linger one hour in, with my heart all a nest of +hissing asps. I recognise it to be an incongruity, as a devil in +disguise in high heaven might be. Miss Eve would have me revoke the +notice to leave that I have given her: but I will go. In truth, thy +youth is over, Jeanne, thy last hope of happiness has perished, thy +very last rose is ashes. Is it not certainly a dog’s world? and I will +get back into it black and bitter, a hag at heart, bidding good-bye +to the time of bloom, to all beauties of youth, abandoning my being +recklessly to rancour and wrinkles, decay and tragedy and destruction. +I do not care, I will vitriolise him, if he live as high from me as the +sky, and within a week, I swear it, will have left this place and these +people.... + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + “THE MOON.” + + +The narrative of Jeanne Auvache, which continues yet through three +volumes, may here be dropped, and what else took place may be gleaned +from the “Memoirs” of Monsieur Goncourt Leflô (Prefect of the Seine), +and from the “Notes” of Saïd Pasha (Chargé d’Affaires), together with +jottings and gossips of other witnesses. + +In that place which used, I think, to be called “La Plage,” but is +now the Club des Décavés, a crowd one afternoon sat surveying the +Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. (The Décavés is far up at the top of +the Avenue by the Arc de Triomphe, from which point the throngs of +bicyclists who have toiled up the incline of the Champs Elysées put +their legs up, give themselves to God, and by Him are taken gaily down +the long-drawn-out incline to the Bois, like boats in the river of +carriages which rolls droning down.) It was an afternoon in June, and +everyone who knows his “capital of the universe” at all knows that +sight, whose mood, in its large-minded worldliness, is rather to be +recalled than to be described. + +The Décavés itself, with people coming, going, sitting, sipping, +gossiping, was a scene of no little vivacity; and to a new-comer, as +he stepped up, one of a group of three said eagerly, “You have heard, +Leflô?” + +“Well, naturally, one has heard,” answered Monsieur Leflô, the Prefect, +as he sat, “inasmuch as one cannot dodge the omnipresent, and all +Paris is talking of it.” + +“But what an indiscretion!” cried Monsieur Isabeau Thiéry. + +“A public embrace at the Foreign Office, my friends!” added the Abbé +Sauriau, his plump palms spread a little. + +“But, then, everything is possible at the Foreign Office,” remarked the +Prefect of the Seine: “above all, dizziness of the head.” + +“This, however, my friends,” now said the old Duc de Rey-Drouilhet, +“is an incident, not of the Third Republic, but of the Second Empire! +Transfer the scene to the Bal Morel, and the lady might have been +Païva, as the male Plon-Plon,” whereat Isabeau Thiéry shook backward +his lion’s mane of hair with, “It may be an incident of the Third +Empire, which we see beginning—unless by chance a patriot or two +still exists in France.” (“He was”—to quote from the “Notes” of Saïd +Pasha—“one of the tribe of poet-politicians—the Hugos, Lamartines, +Châteaubriands—and though neither his poetry, nor even his politics, +was at all equal to theirs, Thiéry, as we know, took himself awfully +seriously, excelling them all, since not in head, at any rate in hair, +in his spread of hatrim and La Vallière cravat, whose crimson hue +proved him “of the Left.”) + +“But was it Lepsius who did this?” now said the Abbé Sauriau, his +tumbler of byrrh brought half-way up to his broad mouth: “Lepsius, +the Nazarene, reeling beneath the mead of Venus! This Puritan, whose +existence is presumed to be made up of a race with the sun, to whom +a speck of dust appears a heap of leprosy, and the loss of a minute +the loss of a province?... This Lepsius, indeed, is a myth he has +contrived by chance to create in men’s minds a Lepsius-Phantasm, as +there is a ‘Napoleonic Legend’; but oh, if he had but a real existence! +Who in that case, my friends, could fail to revere this furious reaper +of the tickings of the clock, who lives with one eye on a second-hand, +and with the other, I am told, on a pyramid of thrones? Do you know +the story that is told of what he replied to Proudhon _ainé_, who at +that time was one of the Quæstors of the Chamber, when Proudhon _ainé_ +said to him, ‘To-morrow, monsieur, it shall be done’? The answer of +Lepsius—as they say—was, ‘Monsieur, believe me, to-day is each man’s +last, last chance, for it will be doubly impossible for him to effect +to-morrow just that which he may effect to-day, since to-morrow it will +be all an altered world, he an altered man in it.’... Is it _he_, my +friends, whom we find engaging in an amour so touched with giddiness +that it may not wait for privacy?” + +“A propos of ‘the clock,’” remarked the old Duc de Rey-Drouilhet, his +little hand all aflash with diamonds in the sunshine, “Freycinet _fils_ +is said to have remarked this afternoon at Tortoni’s that then at +least, during the kiss, Monsieur Lepsius lost reckoning of the clock, +seeing that his eyes were tight closed! And it is now being said round +about the Palais-Bourbon of Cardinal Pontmartin, who has declared that +the kiss lasted a minute and eight seconds by the clock, ‘How could the +Prelate have seen the clock, when those holy eyes of his must have been +poring upon Paradise revealed before them!’—a _mot_ at which the titter +and grin of the beau set his (!) teeth atremble with a rather ghastly +glitter on his gums. + +“But as to the lady——” Isabeau Thiéry began to say at the same moment +that the old gossip exclaimed, “Here comes Saïd Pasha, one of the +keenest listeners and best observers in Paris”—and a brown man with +a firm lip, perfectly turned out, came up to the table, the duke +observing to him, “Monsieur, one is conscious from the very blush of +your boots that you bring with you much that is new.” + +“But, Monsieur le Duc, they were not polished by myself,” replied Saïd +Pasha innocently—a reply which raised a smile! since everybody knew +that the duke, in the course of a very varied career, had had need to +be his own menial. + +“In any case, you can enlighten us as to the identity of the lady who +is on the tapis in connection with a certain individual,” said Isabeau +Thiéry to Saïd Pasha, who at that time was generally supposed to be +in quite the inner _côterie_ of the Palais-Lepsius; but in the same +instant that the staid and cautious _chargé d’affaires_ was asking what +lady was meant, the duc was saying, “Here, too, comes Monsieur the +Englishman,” and one Mr. E. Reader Meade, an attaché at the Faubourg +St. Honoré, walked up—a man who, because of his bulk, and of that mass +of face on which was written “phlegm” and “judgment,” was often in the +Paris of that day nicknamed “the Englishman.” As he approached, the +aged gossip, holding up his eye-glass before a dilapidated eye, made +the observation, “But do I read aright in Monsieur Meade’s air that he +is unaware of anything having happened?” + +“Very possibly, Monsieur le Duc,” replied the Englishman, sitting down, +“since I only arrived from London an hour ago”—at which confession +of benightedness, in a moment the old Duc de Rey-Drouilhet was at +Meade’s ear, leaning over, tittering forth the story with no little +vivacity—Soirée last night at the Quai d’Orsay—all the Faubourg +St. Honoré there, much of the Faubourg St. Germain itself, not to +mention a Chausée d’Antin mob—in the grand _salon_ the _quadrille +d’honneur_ had already begun, the Prince of Wales the partner of +Madame la Ministre—out in the vestibule, moving in, a crowd—in its +midst the young Lepsius and his usual retinue—also a lady, supposed to +be English, who at any rate was under the chaperonage of the English +Comtesse de Pichegru-Picard; this lady and a certain individual +gradually work together through the throng, by accident, say some, by +design or blind desire, say others—do not, however, seem to see each +other—move on with the crowd, shoulder to shoulder, without speech +or look—till for some reason two of the electric jets chance to go +dark, leaving the vestibule in partial gloom, whereupon that pale +dark face of a certain individual turns toward the lady’s pale fair +face—the lady’s pale face turns somewhat toward his—and, according +to Cardinal Pontmartin, who was quite near the pair, their wide and +wild eyes stare awhile at each other with a stare of scare, of even +the extreme of terror, as in apprehension of some impending crash and +catastrophe—until now the lips of Lepsius pounce upon the lady’s—nor +does the good girl turn hers away, gives herself gallantly up to the +vertigo and whirl of it, smiling though white, her eyes closed, his +eyes closed—the crowd looking on in an amazement so profound, that +Cardinal Pontmartin had since declared that his hair could not but have +stood on end, if he had had any, as beyond all question would the hair +of the good Comtesse de Pichegru-Picard, if it had been real.” + +“And we who imagined that Society under the Third Empire was destined +to be as earnest and _bourgeoise_ as was that under the Citizen +Monarchy,” remarked Isabeau Thiéry with sarcasm when the old duke had +concluded the story, to which Mr. E. Reader Meade replied with a smile, +“But what can be more ‘_bourgeois_’ than kissing, monsieur, or more +‘earnest’ than such a kiss?” + +“Such a kiss,” the Abbé Sauriau said, “is a proof, my friends, of +nothing save of Lepsius’ disdain of mankind, since he certainly weighed +the thirty or so pairs of eyes which observed that kiss as lightly as +lovers on a stile weigh the eyes of kine which watch them. Do you know +the story that is told of his answer to Marshal Macintosh, à propos +of the Marshal’s remark that a foreigner, even after a hundred years, +is never regarded and behugged by the French as a Frenchman? Lepsius +replied, ‘It may be nice to be loved, monsieur, but what is nicer far +is to be disliked, to behold yourself surrounded by people thirsting +like Tantalus to hurt you, and to behold them powerless, because of +your towering superiority.’ So you see, my friends: Napoleon regarded +men mainly as pawns in his game; Monsieur Lepsius, in his more _savant_ +mood, regards them as gorillas in his garden of zoology”—and now the +abbé’s eyes shot out beneath his bush of eyebrow a beam of bile, bush +that burned, yet was not consumed, while Isabeau Thiéry’s eyes, quick +as tinder, caught fire also, for company. + +Saïd Pasha, however, with a frown, was saying, “Oh, pardon, Monsieur +l’Abbé!... This anecdote of the reply of Monsieur Lepsius to Marshal +Macintosh is, indeed, known; but I need hardly remark that to repeat +is not quite to prove, and, in fact, the words are so unlike the +individual to whom they are attributed, that I have even ventured to +assert that they were never uttered by Monsieur Lepsius, the mood of +whose converse is usually much more taciturn. As to Monsieur l’Abbé’s +mention of gorillas, I think I have the honour to know that Monsieur +Lepsius is far too exact an intellect to regard mankind precisely in +that light, but rather, let us say, as sons of Hannaman, the ape-god of +the Brahmins; and as to the alleged kiss at the Quai d’Orsay, of which, +by the way, everyone in Paris is spreading about a different account, +I am able to state that its occurrence, if it occurred, was the result +of no world-disdain, but simply of one of those magnetic gales that +deflect even the needle of the compass. After all, as was said in a +certain Orléaniste _salon_ not thirty minutes since, ‘it takes two to +make a kiss,’ and since the lady is not accused of world-disdain, I do +not see why the male.” + +At this Monsieur Leflô—a little quick personality, whose hairs grew +like a wig of bristles—ogled Isabeau Thiéry with, “We are all aware +that the utiliser of the moon has a champion wherever Saïd Pasha is +present!” + +“But, Monsieur le Prefect,” said Saïd Pasha, sudden and quick in +quarrel, “am I charged with partisanship for aught but the simple +truth?” + +“No, monsieur,” replied the Prefect dryly, “even though it is a matter +of common talk that Saïd Pasha once shed tears of admiration at the +sight of a certain individual racing with camels from a sand-storm +near Khartoum, and from that moment became a hero-worshipper. So it +is said—I was not there. In any case, I beg leave to question the +‘magnetic gale’ by which you explain this embrace, since I believe that +the reason of it is quite a different one than people conceive.” + +At this Saïd Pasha’s brow bowed low, with the reply, “We know that +Monsieur Leflô is a prefect who is a Fouché and a Réal in one.” + +“Oh, as for that,” Leflô answered in his off-hand way, “it requires no +spy of the Rue de Jerusalem to recognise the truth that this kiss was +no result of vertigo, but of a political purpose.” + +“That is only the truth,” added the old Due de Rey-Drouilhet, “since it +is certain that a certain individual ‘knows his Paris’—more perfectly +knows it than Napoleon the First, as perfectly perhaps as Napoleon the +Third; and knowing that your Parisian, as Victor Hugo has observed, +must for ever be grinning the teeth, either in a laugh or in a snarl, +the arch-gamester never permits himself to forget that there must be no +flagging in the game, since in Paris to be out of sight is to be out of +mind, and so seeks continually to _épater les gens_, keeping himself +alive in the public eye by breaking ever anew upon it in a new attitude +and costume, and invariably with an _éclat_ whose radiance blinds. No, +this gentleman is hardly one of those who like to shine in the dark! +If for once in his life he tears his lips from the telephone to apply +them to those of a lady, he takes care that there shall be as many +eye-witnesses to the event as when some months ago he used to assume +the rôle of Haroun al Raschid by appearing in an incognito of rags in +the thieves’ kitchens of the Quartier Mouffetard, where he engaged in a +knife-fight with a Spaniard, and in a cangiar-fight with two Moors who +had attacked him. For here, my friends, we meet with the scenic skill +of a Bonaparte in combination with the ambitious mania of a Thiers, +Bismarck’s steel, that art-genius for _Welt-politik_ of a Cæsar Borgia, +and——” + +“All possibly true,” interrupted the Abbé Sauriau, “but the thing +that this very young man lacks is a certain humanity and nativeness +to the world: for a man above the world he may be, since they say so, +but one discerns that, with all his worldliness, he is hardly a man of +the world. How perfect, how Parisian even, his manners when he likes; +but one gleans that they have been but recently acquired, and girt on +externally for a purpose, as Cato learned Greek at eighty. He lacks a +_je ne sais quoi_ which no one lacks. If he laughs, one feels that he +has said to himself, ‘Just here I will do a laugh, in order to produce +such or such an impression upon this brute-mind.’ All men, indeed, +are actors: but Lepsius is an actor who acts acting, like the players +in _Hamlet_, and I am not certain whether he is to be considered the +best of the world’s actors, or the worst: for ‘the brute-mind’ is +frequently not so brute as not to perceive that his art lacks the art +to conceal its art, owing to the fact that he shares in the mistake +made by each superior mind in deeming the difference between himself +and other beings deeper than it really is. Hence, for all his brains, +a certain _gaucherie_ in his being, a grimace, a guffaw, in relation +to the world, to which he is innately a stranger. How very alien to +our humanity, for example, the commercial use which he has proposed +of the bodies of the dead, a use which he pretends would solve the +world-problem of poverty. On that afternoon, too, when the Moon Company +Bill was being introduced, and he in the Centre began to scratch his +head with one finger in the manner of Cæsar—a signal to his creature +Huguenin on the extreme left to scream, ‘Cæsar! Cæsar!’ in a bogus tone +of indignation—the intention, as everybody knows, was that the whole +Chamber should take up the roar and reverberate it through France; but +not one soul took it up! The trick was immediately seen through by each +French child...!” + +“Yes, last August,” said Mr. E. Reader Meade, gazing away at all the +throng and flutter of the scene, “last August, when the individual in +question had not yet been two months a factor in politics; but nine +biggish months of world-knowledge, of archive-searching, of worming in +the Big Book,[B] have since gone by——” + +[B] National Debt Ledger. + +“My friends,” answered the Abbé Sauriau, still with his Jesuit +blandness, though his bush burned, “I have quite recently been in +personal contact with the individual in question, and still I say that +I receive from him, as previously, the impression of a being destitute +of humour.... He does not please; he cannot speak to you: for though +his memory which, I admit, is no bad one, should render him the best of +_causeurs_, his uneasy feeling that idle speaking is a crime renders +him the worst.... Oh, I am not demolishing any idol! Why, my friends, +should I? You have lately listened to that charge brought against me +in the Chamber by Maître Tombarel, the charge of intellectual egoism +and envy. I cannot, it appears, be envious of a Rockefeller or a Mogul, +but I go green with envy, it appears, on hearing a great epigram that +I did not myself think of making. Well, I deny it.... If to my little +books my contemporaries have too amiably granted the name of ‘great,’ +does that impede my conceiving the possibility of some brain brighter, +greater, being made by Nature? Or, can _no_ mind really conceive, +and frankly admit to itself, a mind of better fibre than itself? +I—don’t know; or rather! _my_ mind could and would, I am most sure, +if—the occasion arose. Thus I can speak, I hope, of the individual +in question without spleen; indeed, I have even been touched with a +feeling of compassion for this poor boy, so joylessly toiling, all +lone and lorn, fatherless, a stone thrown from Utopia—for who could +picture him in the rôle of a son? And did he not once say to Freycinet +_père_, ‘Monsieur the Président of the Senate,’ said he, ‘I never had +a parent.’ Never, at any rate, a brother being, a friend probably, +climbing his mountain-way without quite knowing why or whither, but +willy-nilly climbing.... Oh, my friends, it is not through jealousy, +but for pity, that men should be busying themselves in bottling up the +buzzing of this bee.” + +To words so bold no one answered anything, till Isabeau Thiéry +observed, “From the bee honey, though, as aroma from the rose, though +the former _has_ its sting, as the latter its thorn.” + +“Ah, monsieur,” answered the Abbé Sauriau, knowing on which nerve to +work upon Thiéry, “Brutuses, I fear, are even rarer than Cæsars!” +whereat, instantly, Isabeau Thiéry, with a new enthusiasm, was crying, +“Still, Monsieur l’Abbé, Brutuses—exist!” + +“Quite so,” said Mr. Reader Meade, with a twinkling eye on Thiéry, +“but could a patriot be the Brutus of a Cæsar, whose first work would +be a frontier reconstructed ‘as in 1814’?”—words which had the effect +of making Thiéry glance gladly at the Englishman with the exclamation, +“That, too, is a truth, monsieur!” (“His, Thiéry’s, soul,” says Saïd +Pasha, in his _Paris Notes_, “was like meadows over which sweep shadows +that fleetly succeed each other. He had no self, this man, but only a +set of stock concepts, borrowed emotions—provided only that they were +pure, enthusiastic, and high-souled. Hence he was _the very serf_ of +certain catchwords! If one breathed ‘Brutus’ nothing could keep the +poet-politician from leaping to his feet to butcher Lepsius, if one but +breathed ‘as in 1814,’ Thiéry was secretly ready to press Lepsius to +his breast.”) + +“But,” demands the old Duc de Rey-Drouilhet now, smuggling a cachou +into his mouth, “where is the guarantee of the promise ‘as in 1814’? +Certainly, fancy pictures to us in that workshop of the Palais-Lepsius +the models of many a mechanism which will whiff into wind the +barricades of the next 18th Brumaire or 2nd of December, to say nothing +of the _corps d’armée_ of the Fatherland and the navies of Albion. +And, indeed, they exist, these legions of ingenious steels! For it +was but yesterday that Colonel Doumic, whom Barras, of Public Works, +and I met at Bignon’s, was dropping hints of another wonderful thing, +a ‘steerable bullet,’ he said, which, it appears, is to be both a +bullet and a boat, being made with a hole somewhere in its steel to +hold a man, who will steer it.... It appears, my friends, that the +keel of this contrivance will merely skim along the sea’s surface, +being upheld by the rebound of a gun or something exploding downward, +I forget how many times a minute; and the boat so upheld will be +swept forward rocketwise by another succession of explosions, like a +motor-car; so that this thing will safely visit vessel after vessel at +bullet’s rate, with fatal results to all a navy within some minutes. +Doumic should know, being one of the elect with the individual in +question: for is it not Doumic who already is choosing the regiments to +be quartered upon Paris, in order to send them back to the provinces +imbued, one after the other, with this new-imperial dream? But as for +me, who am hardly still a youth, I little believe in dreams that are +unrealised; I have witnessed many, many things, and heard many words: +I have heard Cora Pearl hum the _Kyrie_, and I have beheld Alfred +de Musset sober. Hence to me the individual in question is mainly a +_directeur de spectacle forain_—a famous one, it is true. His palaces +that are like the blasphemous gardens built to reproduce Paradise by +that king of Irim whom the gods struck blind for arrogance—then the +revels—his Moon-proposal—then his riding of his _Chérie_ to victory at +Longchamp—his Exhibition-proposal—then this kiss—each seems to belong +to a series of scenic——” + +“_Was_ the kiss scenic?” asked Mr. E. Reader Meade semi-privately +of Saïd Pasha, upon which Saïd Pasha undid his cross-looking lip to +answer, “No, monsieur. I state only a fact when I declare that for over +four months I have foreknown some such collapse of the intellectual +tension of the individual in question—a collapse owing, I say again, to +a magnetic gale and to nothing else. Nor was this thing at all sought +by Monsieur Lepsius. He is not, we are aware, by nature a Petrarch or +Ortis; he is by nature an athlete, an engineer, a financier, a juggler, +a sage—what you will, save a gallant; and as others flee the pest, so +he has fled this infirmity of his. All which, by the way, I can state +on the authority of a man already known, I think, to Monsieur Meade, +to Monsieur l’Abbé Sauriau, and to Monsieur le Duc de Rey-Drouilhet, +one Shan Healy, who is known to have followed Monsieur Lepsius from +England to Ceylon, to Japan, and other regions, some couple of years +ago: and from this man’s statement one is afraid that the blame for +what has taken place must be laid upon the lady. In fact, although +Monsieur Lepsius certainly knew the young girl before his departure +from Europe, and knew on his return that she was then in France with +her aunt, the Comtesse de Pichegru-Picard, he appears to have given +himself no sort of pains to greet her again; nor was it until some +four months after his star had well risen over the horizon, that the +eyes of the two individuals in question encountered one another on +the Palais-Lepsius roof, during the morning hours of that ball that +followed upon the passing of the Moon Bill. We remember the sight, +messieurs: a morning all stars, the Champs Elysées all one swarm of +carriage-lights from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde, +the Palais-Lepsius looking like one of the buildings of Chilminar or +Balbec which the genii are believed to have wished into being, and +everyone to be met there, save Monsieur Lepsius himself. Monsieur +Lepsius, it appears, had gone to sleep during the rout at his usual +hour, but at the hour of three had roused himself to go up to his +observatory, no one but his servant being with him; and up there he +was, his gaze glued to his tube, a busy-body in the concerns of other +worlds, when the lady, as ladies seem to conceive it their duty to do, +smartly recalled him to this one. ‘Oh! pardon,’ says she, and with +what object, or by what right, she had got herself up thither is not +known, though she was not the only one of the guests who, beguiled by +the desire of the eye, were roaming _ad lib._ through the rooms of the +building that night. At all events, as her lips part to pronounce her +‘pardon,’ the other individual in question darts his glance round from +the glass to her, crouches there aghast some eight seconds, gazing, +dumb-struck, and—vanishes. Monsieur Healy declares that his heart +all but ceased to beat, believing as he did that his master, who had +darted out of a casement, had cast his body headlong down! Well, three +several times since then have the two individuals——” + +But now, before the anecdotist could further go, a sound arose and +grew, not loud, but universal over the grounds of the Club, the +Avenue, l’Etoile—a rumour in whose droning the word “Lepsius” was +to be heard, as a troop of Zouaves and Turcos, riding all in their +bright robes, broke into the ocean-current of carriages that rolled +through the Avenue. Up from the Elysées they came, making down for +the Bois de Boulogne; and up soon after them trotted another crowd +of troopers—Moors, Hindoos—voluminous in their vestments of various +hues, carrying javelins (jereeds), with streamers, on large chargers +which caracoled; and, close behind these, three carriages with +gentlemen-ushers, household gentlemen; and up behind these outriders; +grooms costumed in green and gold; pigmies in jockey-caps, from which +hung fringes of gold; and up behind all a phaeton hauled by Orloff +horses that haughtily pawed the air, to fling far their front-hoofs, +trotting. In this sat Lepsius. He was in mufti, but clearly no “mere +_pékin_,” the insignia of the Grand Cordon of the Legion showing +his connection with the Army; and by his side sat a girl who looked +American, on her lap a scribbling-book, and flying in her fingers a +pencil. He, as he drove up, bowed repeatedly a little to the buzz that +droned about his ear, but without ever once glancing upward, his lips +never ceasing to move and murmur to the girl whose fingers flew. And +away to the wood swept the wind of it. + +Everyone then turned anew to sip his _aperitif_, and the old Duc de +Rey-Drouilhet was anew observing that turn-outs so perfect had not +conquered the eye since “the early sixties,” when a man with white +hair that curled upward at his nape came up to the table of our +anecdotists to inquire whether the Comte de Courcy had been with them, +or had been noticed about the club. “I had to meet the count here,” he +explained; and something humble, bowed down and sad in his air touched +their compunction. During the moving-by of the cavalry troop he had +been semi-secretly eyeing the sight through trees some distance from +the street; then had come out to seek the count, and now was about +to fare farther, when all at once the count himself was there with +a raised hat, and at once, grasping the old man’s hand, he began to +present “Dr. Lepsius” to the rest. + +“‘Lepsius’?” Isabeau Thiéry breathed the word. + +“_Need_ I explain,” said Monsieur le Comte, taking a chair, all +business, all smiles, with dimples in the chart of his large face, +“that there may be many men of that name?—_not_ necessarily related by +ties of family? which ties, in any case, can never possess much weight +in the matter of politics. So that if by chance we here are all a +harmony, politically speaking——” + +The count’s eye ran prying with an underlook about the table from face +to face, whereat Mr. E. Reader Meade glanced at Saïd Pasha, Saïd Pasha +glanced at Mr. Meade, and they two got up to bow themselves out of +the business, while the others, with glances at one another, silently +smiled. + +Then Monsieur le Comte de Courcy, fingering a crucifix of gold that +from of old lay smooth from his fingering under his shirt-frills, +said to the others, “Gentlemen, it is not without a purpose that I +present to you now (rather than more formally at our meeting this +evening in Monseigneur Piscari’s house) our actuated by precisely the +same motives as ourselves, nay, if possible, by motives still nobler, +concerned not with France alone, but of world-wide anxiety. He brings +with him something which, as I believe that it will prove of even +extreme interest to you, I wished to lay before the Abbé Sauriau, our +excellent secretary, previous to our meeting at Monseigneur Piscari’s +this evening, in order——” + +“Gentlemen,” suddenly rising, said Dr. Lepsius in a low tone, “I think +that perhaps if I took a stroll while you talk the matter over, that +might be more in order. I will be back to answer any question that may +occur to you,” whereat hats were anew raised, the doctor went away, +Monsieur de Courcy’s underlook peered about to see that nobody was too +near, and now he drew with care from out a pocket-book a bit of paper, +rather brown and brittle, that had passed through flame. He laid it +on the table: and quickly, like a congress of eagles, the intriguers’ +heads were together over it, the old duke skipping like a youth closer +round to it, and that lax skin of the Abbé Sauriau’s brow, which above +was narrow, broad below, twitching short-sightedly over the browned +words, while his bush burned. Only the Count de Courcy leaned back, +fingering his secret crucifix, musing through his cigarette fumes upon +the clouds, humorously dimpled. (“He was ever healthy and happy-hearted +when in office-harness,” says Saïd Pasha of him, “with a no small +degree of rush and magnetism when revelling in the thick of affairs; +one of your true _gens de bureau_; an intellect essentially narrow, +bigot, bourgeois, as ‘devout’ as he was profoundly irreligious; but +iron; and the busier the blither.”) + +And presently when Isabeau Thiéry, demanded whence the paper came, +“This script,” replied the Comte de Courcy, “is a portion of a +private letter written from Paris some seven months ago to a certain +English nobleman who is a Directeur Publique—say a ‘Permanent +Under-Secretary’—of Her Britannic Majesty’s Government. By what +succession of good chances the fragment has got itself into the hands +of our friend, Dr. Lepsius, will no doubt be described by him to-night +at Monseigneur Piscari’s.” + +“But can we be sure who wrote it?” Isabeau Thiéry said, “when it lacks +a signature?” to which the count stopped his humming to reply, “Would +a signature add to our certainty, monsieur, when the individual whom +you have in your mind is said to write a hundred hands a day, as it +suits his purpose? But surely the internal evidence furnishes us with a +certainty which is ample.” + +“Oh, ample,” said Monsieur Leflô, glancing up. + +“Well, he is a showman,” sighed the old gossip, rising with satisfied +old eyes from the script, while his eye-glass dropped. + +“But he is mad,” added the Abbé Sauriau. + +“That is the definition of God,” remarked Isabeau Thiéry: “a showman +who is mad”—a remark which caused the Comte de Courcy to laugh, though +with one hand he was at the crucifix, while with the other he was +taking up to replace in its nook the bit of paper, which had on it, +still to be read through the burn, the typewritten words, “World ... +redistribution which I shall choose ... two worlds ... nevertheless, +England ... world’s total capital ... Bank of Dresd ... S. America +_plus_ Africa the first, Asia _plus_ Russia the second, the rest of +Europe _plus_ North America the ... Russia, too, to be included in +Manchuria ... the Caspian ... from the Caspian to the Bosphorus ... +France first, then, by means of France, the world.... The ocean of +blood which will flow, but that, of course ... Quebec to be the capital +of the world, and the seat of my ... Moon ... has been too stupid ... +shape of the ape’s brain ... nevertheless, moonlight will ... like +the eggs of the ostrich, which she hatches, not by sitting on them, +but by just gazing at them, so I may.... If the moon had been of some +beautiful hue, and of a brighter light, and a reliable light, men ... +would naturally have used the day-time for slumber.... Even birds and +brutes, I assume, will soon learn to prefer the mood of the beautiful +night-time of my ... it is for _you_, therefore ... when the Exhibition +... come to Paris at ... discreet fash ... afterwards ... my friend +and....” + +“Well, it is a great and a gallant brain, after all,” cried Isabeau +Thiéry with a flush, when Monsieur le Comte had put away his +pocket-book with the script in it. + +“A great and a gallant brain,” mused the Minister of the Interior, +who, fingering his imperial, was smiling at the sky; “though not a +Christian, not a Catholic, not a French brain.” + +“Tush! the brain of a precocious, pert youth,” observed the Abbé +Sauriau, with a burning bush, “whom it is the duty of us all to remove +out of harm’s way without more delay.” + +“Though that will not be done without difficulty, mind you!” Monsieur +Leflô remarked with a little grimace, planting his fore finger-tip +against his hard nut: “but in the event of a citation of the individual +before the Sixth Correctional Tribunal, with a view to obtaining a +decree of banishment against him for instigating civil strife, I should +say that this document would be of use.” + +“The Sixth Correctional Tribunal,” mused the count, smiling; “I +thought, however, that that idea had by this time been abandoned by +us all, if only for the reason that the trial could not possibly be +completed before the Exhibition, during which, as we assume, the _coup +d’état_ that we dread is to take place? Personally I cannot help +thinking that a court-trial of uncertain termination is no longer +pertinent to the situation, especially as we have been so happy as to +win the sanction of the Church (in the persons of Monsieur l’Abbé and +of Monseigneur) to move urgent and more certain ways of averting this +danger to the world.” + +The Abbé Sauriau, who had a habit of ever eyeing his right shoe and +red sock, which shook up continually (the leg being crossed), struck +smartly with his gloves, remarking, “A stronghold close to the coast, +with grim bastions and the gloomiest of oubliettes! twelve or fifteen +years of that is what the youth wants——” and he struck back his spread +of hair that broadened lankly out down over the ears, the Count de +Courcy repeating with approval in his musing manner, “Twelve to fifteen +years of that, twelve to fifteen years——” and going suddenly grim-red, +he giggled gleefully to himself. + +“Monsieur l’Abbé is right,” the old Duc de Rey-Drouilhet said: “fifteen +years of a bastille’s oubliette is known to induce in a youth a +definite diffidence as to using his lips in public, either in speaking +or in kissing,” at which speech Monsieur de Courcy, who was drinking +menthe, grew crimson, gripping his glass so grimly that it cracked, the +green fluid streaming from the table to the abbé’s sock. + +“If it can be done ...” muttered Monsieur Leflô; “_if_ it can be +done....” + +“Why, Monsieur le Prefect,” said the abbé, “was it not a Frenchman who +said that ‘cannot’ is a _bête de mot_?” + +“That is a truth, too, monsieur!” cried Isabeau Thiéry, “and provided +it prove necessary....” + +But now a trooper, as troopers do everywhere pursue every Ministre de +l’Intérieur, came to the table with a document for the Count de Courcy, +who, making his excuses, raised himself to hasten away; but some +yards off stopped to beckon to the Abbé Sauriau, who rolled after him +with his big stick and soft hat, and together they two walked toward +the minister’s carriage, the abbé’s top-heavy bulk, all thickness of +shoulder without any throat, shambling short below the minister’s mass; +and the minister said to him, “Twelve to fifteen years of a bastille +by the coast, you say: and, certainly, such things have often enough +been effected by private effort for public purposes. But I do not blind +myself to the fact that it would be beyond the Law, and—in fact—I +have to consult you now on a matter of—conduct. I am now about to go +through a singular interview, and I—address myself, Monsieur l’Abbé, +to the ecclesiastic in you. You understand me, I think. We are all +first of all Catholics and good Christians, are we not? and afterwards +men-of-state. A singular interview—with a woman, who, on the strength +of having been in the same yacht, the same house, as myself some three +years since, has lately—thrice—addressed herself to me by letter. A +lady’s maid she—_was_; and as such knew the individual whom we have +been discussing: for this individual whom we habitually associate only +with the future has also, it appears, a past—aye, and a shameful past, +too—I say a baleful and abominable past—which merits to be punished, +which it is righteous to punish. Think of it, Monsieur l’Abbé! as a +mere boy—oh, really, my blood boils to speak of these turpitudes!—he +not only betrayed this poor soul, but afterwards robbed her of all, +all, her paltry savings; was chased through the thoroughfares of London +for petty theft....” + +“The young Lepsius?” + +“Yes, Monsieur l’Abbé—your hero.” + +“Whose hero?” + +“Is it not being stated on the boulevards by Léon Bergerac in +particular, who is always the best informed man in Paris, that you are +bitten by an infatuation which is half an idolatry of admiration, and +half a hatred, and wholly a hankering, that hardly permits you to talk +of aught but of one being?” + +“_I?_” breathed the Abbé Sauriau, standing still to stare, revealed a +moment to himself; then with rage, “oh, he lies, he lies: Léon Bergerac +is known to be my enemy!” + +“Well, well, no doubt,” muttered the minister “... but as to this +woman, whose name is Auvache——” + +“Not the Jeanne Auvache who threw vitriol at the individual in question +at Dover on the 11th of November, threw it wide, and was imprisoned for +five months?” queried Monsieur l’Abbé. + +“It _may_,” said the minister, “be the same; in fact—it is a +possibility; though the name is not an uncommon one, Monsieur +l’Abbé—Auvache—men, women enough of that name, you will say. But I +may tell you one thing: this woman has been spied by a clerk in her +lodgings throwing vials of water at a nail’s head .... It is her hobby, +it seems, having arranged rows of vials on the floor, to eject water at +a run from them upon a nail in the wall; a drill of the eye, wrist, +fingers, that goes on regularly in the loneliness of that garret every +day; she will also practise herself in rushing with a knife to stab a +bull’s-eye on the wall—_why_, no one can say.” + +The Abbé Sauriau pondered it for some moments, and presently observed, +“She must be an imbecile.” + +“That is what I have said to myself, Monsieur l’Abbé,” replied the +minister; “why else should the woman, in wishing to obtain an _entrée_ +into the _valetaille_ Lepsius, address herself to _me_? unless by some +chance she is aware that I know one Nundcumar, a functionary in the +Palais-Lepsius.... This Nundcumar has risen, Monsieur l’Abbé. Eight +years ago he was a lean scarecrow down on his luck about Paris and +London, pretending to be a doctor of medicine, but possessing even less +knowledge of medicine than the present Prefect of Police possesses +of the police. Then he became a cook, and it was thus that I again +came across him at Egmond, the Brittany château of the Comtesse de +Pichegru-Picard. Then he remigrated to his native Agra, and was there +met and admired by the individual whom we now have in our minds—so +Nundcumar avers, though this person, who never ceases to speak, +certainly never yet produced a word which by chance was an accuracy. At +all events, I am still in touch with the man, and could easily induce +him—to-day even—to introduce that ill-used and lunatic woman into the +_valetaille_ Lepsius, provided I do not definitely find in my interview +with her presently that she has any purpose in view other than the +search for work.” + +Monsieur l’Abbé pondered it a little. Then, “Let it be so, then,” he +suddenly replied, as they now arrived at the count’s brougham; “but +though your interview will no doubt prove over-brief to permit of any +deep probing into the woman’s motives and so on, you will very likely +find the time to impress upon her that the practice, or drill, with the +_knife_, at least, is quite offensive, while——” + +“You have known how to say what I was only able to think, Monsieur +l’Abbé.... Au revoir, then.” And the Count de Courcy drove away. + +The abbé then turned to go back to the table of the gossips; but now a +little girl who was gambolling among the trees, tumbling down before +his feet and beginning to scream, immediately he had her garnered +in his arms, hugging her to his bosom, his lips on her head, with +whimperings of love (“for,” says a Note of Saïd Pasha, “he had a most +fond father’s heart, if especially for children, hardly less for all +the world, whenever he was not merciless with envy of some other +mind”); and he toyed before the child’s eyes one of his few coins, +saying, “But look, then, all this is for thee—all, all,” and he pointed +at the receding brougham, leering, breathing, “Look! that is the +brougham of Monsieur the Minister of the Interior—but look! a man whose +‘blood boils to speak of these turpitudes’ since he has need to condone +his deeds to his own shabby-genteel conscience”—and he clasped the +little girl’s fingers upon the franc, placed her on the ground, and now +hurried back to the table where by now Dr. Lepsius was again sitting +with the gossips. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + THE CHAMBER-WINDOW. + + +At that very time Shan Healy was speeding on a bicycle (having missed +a train) from Paris to Versailles, with perspiration raining over his +face and swear-words vented when racing through those villages paved +with old pavers, which mercilessly jerked him. It was not until six +o’clock that he got to Versailles and the Villa des Medicis there, +a house of the Comtesse de Pichegru-Picard, where, having scorched +down to the house-front through a great avenue of yews, he craved to +interview Miss Ruth Vickery. + +He was taken to the door of a chamber in the middle of which stood +three ladies talking warmly, though in low tones—two elderly ladies and +Miss Ruth Vickery; and a whirl of words was being uttered among them, +sometimes all the three trying to make their opinions heard at once, +all looking as exhausted and haggard as if they had been going on all +the day long, while in the gloom of a far corner of the room lay Miss +Eve Vickery asleep, with an appearance of exhaustion, even of swoon. +Shan Healy stood on the threshold, and he could just hear the Comtesse +de Pichegru-Picard, whom he knew very well, cry with a casting up of +her hands and eyes, “Ah, my dear Lina, you can persuade an angel or the +good God himself to change their mind, but you cannot persuade a saint +who is English too.” + +This lady, although English herself, spoke English in quite a halt +way, with effort, was tall and fair, resembling Miss Eve, her niece, in +stand and being. + +“But, Aunt,” wooed Miss Ruth, “bear with me, since I do mean well, +as in my God’s sight. Ask yourself—how can I, how could I, try to +induce Eve to marry a man who, it appears, is without even morality, +whose mood is pagan, whose aim is Cæsarian, whose God is arrogance?... +And Eve never would, I think, if I know her! You have heard her say +yourself——” + +“Ah, then, why in the good God’s name did the girl go and kiss him with +all Paris gazing at it?” exclaimed the Comtesse de Pichegru-Picard. + +“Aunt,” breathed Miss Ruth, all ruby-red, with drooped lids, “you know +that Eve did not—‘kiss’— him; he—‘kissed’—her.” + +“Ah, my good Ruth,” observed the third lady, one Madame Lina Grammont, +“the world does not draw these exquisite distinctions, believe me: it +knows that in a kiss it is generally the gentleman who both begins +against the lady’s will and ends against her will.” + +“Exactly,” remarked the Comtesse de Pichegru-Picard; “but then, we all +know our English: it is always their little mannerism to regard the +lady as made of anything but of flesh and blood. The fact, however, +that stares one in the face is that Eve is now bound to be married +immediately; and I repeat that the scandal will be less if of the two +gentlemen she chooses the one who has kissed her.” + +“Truly, the scandal will be less,” Miss Ruth answered; “and you do +not say, if you think it, that the worldly grandeurs will be greater; +but, happily for her peace, Aunt, Eve would rather choose, I think, to +live in a hovel with a Christian gentleman like the Comte de Courcy +than with one whose bosom was never vaccinated with the stigmata of +compassion and abnegation, though he were five times a Mogul.” + +“So I hear you say, my dear,” replied the countess, “though Eve herself +no doubt most accurately knows her own secret; but if it be a fact that +her stomach is such as to like the Comte de Courcy better, why will she +not send for him, since he is every hour expecting her reply?” + +“She will send, I think,” replied Miss Ruth. “What, however, was the +use of summoning papa from London unless she is to hold out for his +presence before pronouncing her decision? He should by now have arrived +in Paris, and within an hour will be in Versailles; then, I think, she +will speak, she will send, for she feels, I am sure, the nobleness of +Monsieur de Courcy’s renewed offer, and will not, I think, grieve him +by any longer——” + +But at that moment Healy at the door sneezed, and, the ladies noticing +him, two of them, still speaking eagerly together, went away through +another door, Miss Ruth going to meet Healy. She was just beginning +to say, “I am so glad——” when Healy put his lips to her ear with “Not +in here, miss! every word breathed in here all day has been heard in +the palace at Paris”—whereon he showed her the telephone over the sofa +on which Miss Eve lay asleep, whispering deeply afresh, “He’s this +minute lying on his face, hearing her very breathing, I believe”; and +when Miss Ruth, as they now moved out of the room into a vestibule, +asked how that was possible, Healy replied that it was by means of a +whispering-gallery, as at St. Paul’s in London, where anyone stationed +at the part of a circular wall farthest from a telephone in the wall +heard greatly augmented any sounds thrown out of the telephone-mouth, +being in a focus of the sound-waves. “The telephone-number of that +gallery has been plugged on to yours the whole day, miss,” Healy said, +“someone here is in his pay, and he has been lying on the ground in the +gallery with a crowd of tools strewn round about, modelling something +and listening, smiling with himself the while. I know that he knows at +what moment your papa was summoned to you, and at what moment Mr. de +Courcy’s proposal reached here; so, as soon as I could slip away when +he went out, I made paces to answer your letter in person, so as to +impress upon you that he is really in earnest in this, miss: for he has +lost time and given up other things to see to this, seeing that he had +arranged to go to the Chamber to-night, but isn’t going any more; so he +is serious, miss, oh, he means business, believe me, miss, in this, and +it will be a bitter pity if Miss Eve isn’t whipped off secretly this +hour right out of his way somehow, though, as his spies are all about——” + +“You do not believe, Healy, I see, that such a union could be good?” +said Miss Ruth, her gaze on his face. + +“Well, to be frank, no, miss, marriage wouldn’t hardly suit him,” +said the voluble Healy. “No, no; he’d be that miserable, you wouldn’t +believe; and the fonder he was of the lady, the more he’d hate and +hiss at her for making him waste time. Time’s his wife; the clock, the +clock, miss. Believe me, only to be near him, people feel in a prickly +heat themselves, as if they were breathing fever from some fierce +atmosphere—the very Orientals in the palace, miss, only that slothful +old story-teller, Nundcumar.... No, no, miss, do now, he’ll be that +miserable——” + +“And his lady, too, I think, Healy?” suggested Miss Ruth, with her +smile. + +“Well, and the lady, too, now you mention it, miss,” Healy agreed; +“true enough—the lady too; she’d be like a dog tied behind a railway +train, couldn’t keep up the pace anyhow; try now, miss, try, try; +he’ll be that wretched, you wouldn’t believe, and everything’ll be +changed, and instead of me it’ll be the lady may be, and I nowhere with +him; try, try. From that night in the forest round the ruined town of +Anuradhapura, he has been good friends with me—till two days ago when +the doctor came to France. I have told you about that night before, +miss. Oh, that’s a forest, if you like, boundless, miss, I can tell +you, and the men and brutes of that country move about in a brown, +brown day, miss—big black brutes looming upon you out of the gloom with +their stupid gazing, and thousands upon thousands of gods and ogres of +stone broken to bits in those groves a thousand centuries ago, they +say. He left me one nightfall at the top of one of the big dagabas +to go all by himself into the dark of the timber, I to watch each +nightfall there till he should come back with the piece of a stele; and +there on the dagaba I watched and waited fifteen weeks, miss, night by +night, till I began to fancy that he was gone for good. Eh, but he did +come back to me all right, miss, one darksome night, under the large +stars which look upon those parts, almost starved and stark naked he +was, bearing forty old stone boxes on top of a buffalo-cart; and in +his hand was that little gold thing made in the shape of a pear which +he never lets go of, and even in his sleep keeps with him.... Do you +know what’s in that little thing, miss? A little key, they say; and +that old story-teller, Nundcumar, who fancies he knows everything, +says that this little key opens a certain casket in which there’s a +second key; and that second key opens a certain safe in which there’s +a third key; and that third key opens a certain turret at Serapis, the +Brittany palace, in which there’s a fourth key; and that fourth key +opens a certain chamber in which there’s a fifth key; and that fifth +key—I can’t quite call to mind what the fifth key opens; any way, it +goes on till you get to the twelfth key, which opens the room in which +all his jewels and riches are strewn—so says that Nundcumar, miss, and +whereabouts under the ground that room may be no human being has yet +got scent of, though that Nundcumar swears that _he_ knows where; and +the key to the whole is within that little gold thing made in the shape +of a pear which he never lets go of, miss.” + +At this Miss Vickery, with her stare of child-wonder, stared at Healy, +muttering, “How very much lighter and kinder would he feel, now, if he +had no keys, nor any jewels to lay up for himself!” + +“Doubtless, miss,” said the other; “but that’s how it stands—what would +you have? What was I saying? Oh, about that night in the forest round +about the ruined town of Anuradhapura; yes, that’s a forest, miss, if +you like—boundless; but I think I’ve told you about that night before, +miss, often; and from that night he has been good friends with me, till +two days ago, when the doctor came——” + +“Does he still avoid a meeting with his father?” asked Miss Vickery in +a voice of secrecy. + +“Rather, miss; his treatment of that old man is so shocking——” Healy +commenced to answer, but was checked by a “_sh-h-h_” breathed by +Miss Ruth, who through the doorway had noticed Miss Eve moving in +her sleep; and they two stood peeping at the unfolding of Miss Eve’s +eyes, saw Miss Eve notice a Bible which lay open by her nose on the +sofa-cushion—a Bible which had been placed there by Miss Ruth with one +phrase in it underlined in blue—saw her take the Book to gloat closely +over the phrase in the gloaming’s dusk, saw her laugh, and, after +laughing, suddenly press her lips upon the phrase with ravishment, to +drop suddenly afresh on the cushion with a covering up of the face; the +phrase which she had read and kissed being this, “Be ye not unequally +yoked with unbelievers.” + +“Steal softly in,” breathed Miss Ruth to Healy; and softly she herself, +having moved into the room, stole on tip-toe quite to the telephone, +the opening of which she shut off and stuffed up, Miss Eve meanwhile +seeming still asleep; and to Healy Miss Ruth now said aloud, “Continue +now, Healy, to speak of your master’s treatment of his poor father.” + +Healy looked at her, and, discerning her meaning, whispered to himself, +“Why, if she isn’t as wise as a serpent!” + +“No, miss,” he added aloud, “he won’t see the doctor not on no account: +never once seen him willingly since the day he left the island in your +yacht; flies him like death, he does. Fact is, he is nervous of the +doctor; nothing on earth below, nor in heaven above, is he nervous of, +but of the doctor he is. Can’t get over his youth, you see, can’t get +over all those years in which he used to believe the doctor a god, +not a human being—shuns him as death, he does. And partly it’s the +doctor’s own fault, I must say, for that’s only the truth, you know, +miss, seeing that the doctor is going all dead against him, taking part +with his political enemies, and he well aware of it, for there’s an eye +spying for him behind every blind, so to say; and he’s afraid of the +doctor, oh, he’s afraid, miss, that the doctor’s big brains may be +digging his grave for him. So that’s his excuse, look; but still, when +all’s said, his conduct to the doctor has been just shocking—shocking +it has. Again and again has the old soul’s nose pressed against his +gates, and begged and prayed to be let in, but no go; and that time +at Lyons when the old man tried to spring into the carriage, just as +Master Hanni stepped down out of the town-hall, that was a bit beyond: +for as the father made to spring in, the son darted to the reins, the +horses pranced and started off, leaving a father prostrate and bleeding +on the street—oh no, that was a bit beyond, that was.” + +Miss Vickery, with her face averted from the narrator, held her eyes +bent skyward with a steadfast gaze, begging for God’s forgiveness of +men; but from Miss Eve, who must have heard, who was meant to hear, +neither word was uttered, nor a stir seen. + +After a silence the talkative Healy proceeded to remark, “Well, I can +understand him, miss. I recollect that when I was a little lad ten +years of age, one day a great big girl of thirteen meets me in a lane, +miss, and begins to kiss and hug me—couldn’t make out anyhow what it +was about, so I got pretty scared, I did, and from that day for years, +if I but spied that lass a league off, my hair’d go creepy, I’d take +to my heels like a long-dog, and I do believe if I caught sight of +her even now, I’d be bound to do a dart for it. It’s the same with +Master Hanni—shy, shy; the doctor’s a great big bogey to him—thinks the +doctor’ll be digging his grave, though he knows that the doctor can’t. +And who suffers for it, miss? _I_ do. Thinks I am secretly on the +doctor’s side against him, can’t believe I’m on his side against all +comers, thinks I’m always going to ‘betray’ him to the doctor, trusts +no one, trusts no one, it’s hard, because——” + +Now, however, that stream of Healy’s speech was checked by the +appearance in the doorway of a gentleman neatly dressed in grey, with a +grey top-hat on his head, a neat umbrella, and side-whiskers, with him +being the Comtesse de Pichegru-Picard and Madame Grammont; and Healy, +seeing him, murmured, “Your pa, miss,” and now bowed himself out; while +Mr. Vickery, darting his eyes all about the room, and discerning in the +gloom his younger girl on the couch, rushed by Miss Ruth without any +greeting, his eyes brimming with tears, his mouth trembling, and on his +knees garnering Miss Eve in his arms, gave way now to weeping, again +and again darting down his lips at her mouth, with pausings to gaze at +her face, then again darting down at her mouth, with mania. + +Miss Eve sat up, breathing “papa,” and laughed a little, casting back +some hairs from her brow with a gesture which, undoubtedly, was not +without something of hectic and hare-brained. Indeed, she appeared that +day to be dwelling in a region so infected with fever, that through the +day she had been treated as a patient, and on the sick list. + +“Well, here I am,” Mr. Vickery said to her, “just arrived by God’s +help—in time, I hope.... Got a headache, have you? my soul? my love?” + +Miss Eve smiled triumphantly in her parent’s face, replying, “No, papa; +why should I?” + +“That’s all right, don’t say a word,” muttered the father, fast patting +her arm, “don’t say a word.... Well, here I am, you see; arrived, +arrived, by God’s help. And—I have telegraphed to Monsieur de Courcy +to come. Have I done well? I thought I would, and—I did. All the way +from London to Paris I was praying to be guided, and the moment I got +to Paris the thought was given me to telegraph at once to Monsieur de +Courcy, and—I did.” + +“Did you, papa?” asked Miss Eve, smiling with her father. + +“Yes. Eve, have I done well?” + +“Why, papa, I think so,” replied Miss Eve, smiling that defiance which +is amused, that triumph which is secure. “Monsieur de Courcy is a most +estimable man.” + +“He is; but still, Eve, tell me, tell me, dear—have I done well?” + +“Oh, I quite think so, papa.... Have you had a pleasant trip across?” + +“No, no, let us be frank now; let us make use of plain terms, let’s not +mince matters, Eve; come now, tell your papa—my own, my sweet—will you +have de Courcy?” + +“Oh, as to that, why, I think so, papa,” replied Miss Eve with some +appearance of surprise about the eye-brows. “I thought that that was +rather understood as a settled thing: ask Ruth, ask aunt: they’ll tell +you that Monsieur de Courcy, that model of morals, high at the head of +my list, hasn’t a rival to dread.” + +Upon this the father turned with an opening of the arms toward the +other ladies, saying, “Why, this is well.... You didn’t tell me!” + +No reply was made to him; only the Comtesse de Pichegru-Picard +exchanged half a smile with Madame Grammont, who just shrugged, while +Miss Ruth remained with her eyelids drooped. + +“Why, that’s all right, then!” cried Mr. Vickery to Miss Eve: “I knew, +I knew, that my dear’s instincts would strike true. Well, de Courcy +should have nearly reached Versailles by this, and—you’ll be sending +him away a happy man, will you? Is that settled?” + +The young lady, contemplating her father’s face with a calm smile, +replied, “Quite settled, papa—for _my_ share. If it _can_ be, it shall +be.” + +“‘_Can_ be?’ What does she mean?”—Mr. Vickery threw this whisper at +the other ladies behind him; but before anything further could be +uttered, a bomb was hurled into the _salon_ by the words of a servant +who entered, saying “Monsieur Lepsius to talk with Mr. Vickery”—and he +handed a card. + +Straight sprang Mr. Vickery up, Miss Eve also raising herself by +degrees, and all with blanched cheeks gaped in silence at the menial, +till Mr. Vickery, his visage rushing into crimson, cried in a high and +hysteric kind of cry, “Say to that gentleman that Mr. Vickery, being +engaged, begs him to state his business by letter!” + +The menial bowed and backed out, and immediately now there reigned a +gale of breaths among the ladies, Madame Grammont and the countess +making a thousand gesticulations together, Mr. Vickery standing again +pale-faced by a reaction, Miss Ruth at him instigating him to be grim, +Miss Eve moving about from place to place, reading the titles of books, +glancing at trees outside, glancing at looking-glasses. + +It lasted four minutes, which seemed much more, after which the menial +was once more there, bearing a note scribbled in pencil, whose folds +Mr. Vickery tremblingly opened. Miss Ruth meantime breathing in his +ear, “Pray, papa, do not read it aloud!”—words which Miss Eve either +heard or surmised, for now immediately she muttered with some huff, +“Oh, I have no wish to hear anything,” and went away. + +The rest then, laying their heads over the note, read the words: “Dear +sir,—I, a suitor for your daughter’s hand, having run a race with +another suitor to your door, and having won the race, am amazed at your +want of fairness and also of forethought in refusing me an audience. +Why do you? Pray question yourself. Can any king with a rope restrain +the rolling of rivers or the drift of fate? I warn you that you waste +your time in this, causing me also the woe of wasting mine; nor could +that be just to another suitor to permit Miss Eve Vickery in a freakish +humour to promise him marriage, since she has no such intention, +knowing that such a nonsense is not on the files of life.—LEPSIUS.” + +It was Madame Grammont who, gifted with the strongest eyesight, read +the note aloud in a monotone, the gloaming in the room having now +grown very heavy; and as she finished, and all raised their eyes, all +started, for there afresh was Miss Eve, who had been seen to leave the +chamber, hovering anew near to hear. + +“I am not to be browbeaten!” suddenly cried Mr. Vickery in a high kind +of cry. + +“Ah, papa, no agitation, papa!” Miss Ruth called through a throat whose +music broke. + +“I say I am not to be browbeaten, I am not to be threatened!” screamed +Mr. Vickery querulously afresh in an ecstasy, for the atmosphere was +all electric, and each one present caught from all the rest a hectic +cheek and a lip of quivering. + +“My God, I foresaw all! and my advice was not followed,” cried the +Comtesse de Pichegru-Picard, with a casting up of the hands. + +“‘The files of life,’ ‘the drift of fate’!” Madame Grammont muttered in +a maze. + +“Get my daughter’s trunks packed!” cried the father; “am I an +Englishman? Are there no laws?” + +“Calm, papa, calm!” called out Miss Ruth anew: “ah, how disastrous! +papa, I warn you, this agitation is fatal to the welfare of the soul!” + +“Oh, Ruth, let one alone!” now said the countess in an irritation +without restraint; “it is you who are the cause of all, at the end of +the tale.” + +“Aunt, I?” asked Miss Ruth, with reproach lodged in the soul of her +eyes. + +“But no, Margaret, but no,” protested Madame Grammont: “it is not the +fault of Ruth, it is not the fault of Ruth.” + +“Let me get my girl out of this infernal country!” now cried out the +high-strung Mr. Vickery; “it is France that has done this!” + +“Oh, but be reasonable, Matthieu, at the end of the tale!” the countess +mouthed, with intolerance. + +“Quite right, papa,” now cried out Miss Eve in a spirit of rollicking +and recklessness, “let us clearly prove to everyone that we act in no +‘humour of freak,’ having a will of our own!” + +“My love!” cried Mr. Vickery. + +“‘The files of life,’” mused Madame Grammont anew; “‘humour of +freakishness’!” + +“Ah, but he is right, believe me!” cried the Comtesse de +Pichegru-Picard; “he has his meaning! he knows Eve better than she +knows herself.” + +“You and others may _think_ so, Aunt,” called Miss Eve, snapping her +thumb and finger daintily up in the air, with a wheel on her feet. + +“But he may still be there!” said Madame Grammont; “is he still there +at the door, Gabriel?” + +“Monsieur Lepsius has departed, madame,” the gaudy Gabriel gave answer, +who through all this had stood there with a bowed brow. + +“What happened in the hall?” asked the countess. “Did Monsieur Lepsius +make any attempt to enter?” + +“Monsieur Lepsius desired to enter, madame,” answered Gabriel, “when I +gave him Mr. Vickery’s reply that it might be better for him to state +his business by letter; but on his attempt to force an entrance, both +Baptiste and myself barred his advance with our arms outspread, and +he then, after staring a moment into our faces, broke into a laugh, +hastily wrote the note that has been handed you, and drove very quickly +away.” + +“Did Monsieur Lepsius utter any remark at all?” Madame Grammont began +to ask, but before the words were well uttered, there had entered +another flunky, who came to proclaim the presence of Monsieur de Courcy +at the door; whereupon—a renewed flutter and flurry of consultation! +until the ladies rushed from the room, leaving Mr. Vickery to receive +the visitor; and immediately in came the Minister of the Interior +with his brisk and breezy air, but about his brow now a shade of +deliberation. + +They two then conversed together until the hour when the dinner-gong +began to sing out, whereupon the ladies in their bravery came sailing +in, smirking as superbly now as personalities translated beyond the +concerns of earth; and after a little small-talk the visitor stepped +away with them to dinner. + +However, they had not well moved out of the room when now the +telephone-rattle in the alcove started to prattle, upon which Mr. +Vickery with passion in his heart darted back to it, and Miss Eve also +doubled back to be near, though remaining far from her father in the +centre of the apartment, staring. + +“Who are you?” called Mr. Vickery, the receiver at his ear. + +The answer was “Lepsius,” and even Miss Eve, though hovering away off +in the middle of the room, could hear it in thunder, for the speaker +now no doubt lay in his whispering-gallery, where the sound-waves from +his mouth, focusing themselves upon his telephone, struck monstrous +rough, their grumble trumpeting unease upon Mr. Vickery’s ear-drum with +the gutturalness of some grum god thundering; and, “I want to speak +with Miss Eve Vickery,” grumbled the thunder. + +“It is Mr. Vickery who hears you!” + +“I know; allow one to speak with Miss Eve, Mr. Vickery!” + +Now with wide eyes hied Miss Eve on tip-toe nigh, hissing, “_Say I am +at dinner, papa!_” + +“Miss Eve Vickery is about to sit down to dinner,” Mr. Vickery cried, +with stricter accuracy. + +“She will not eat much!... But as for you, Mr. Vickery, will you have +me for a son-in-law?” + +“The proposal sounds abrupt, Monsieur Lepsius!” + +“Why so? How much waste of time is necessary? And what is your +complaint against me? I quite fail to gather this.” + +“It cannot be discussed over the telephone!” + +“Why can it not? Is it that you are offended with me for kissing your +daughter?” + +“_S-s-s-s-s, sir!_... But I am being awaited at dinner, Monsieur +Lepsius!” + +“It was not I who wished to kiss her, it was she who wished to kiss me!” + +“Eve, go! go!” screamed Mr. Vickery, warding his daughter away with one +arm. + +“Say, papa,” Miss Eve hissed, reaching far forward to her father’s +ear with her cheeks afire, “that I am affianced to a good and gallant +gentleman!” + +“My daughter——” Mr. Vickery commenced to call. + +“Tell Miss Eve, sir,” the thunderer rumbled, “that I can hear each word +that she utters, and that I know she does not mean one syllable of any +one of them.” + +“I have to wish you good evening, Monsieur Lepsius!” cried Mr. Vickery +with a high-pitched cry. + +“Go, if you choose; but you prove yourself a feeble and foolish old +pantaloon, you know.” + +“And you, sir, a courteous young gentleman!” upon which Mr. Vickery put +up the receiver, and went with one cheek-bone branded rosy, and one +blanched, Miss Eve smiling, with her eyes alight, by his side. + +The meal was then eaten serenely by all, after which, in the midst of +Parisian chat in the salon, it was found not impossible to bring about, +without intention, a _tête-à-tête_ between Miss Eve and the Minister +of the Interior; and Monsieur de Courcy, having come through this with +success, remained still on, the merriest of ministers and men, until +close on eleven o’clock, when, hunted down by a mounted officer with a +cipher, he made his bows, and went away. + +And now anew the family sat in council to discuss the situation of +affairs, though Miss Eve now took no share in it, seated far aloof, +with her cheek on her palm, looking out into the dark of the park. +At midnight she bid good-night; and, having gone up to her chamber, +having been prepared for her bed, and having prayed by her bedside, was +soon lying in the semi-gloom of a big bedroom, with her will bent upon +slumber. But sleep she could not, though two hours went by. One of her +jalousie-windows lying open, through this she could perceive trees, +mountains, and in the sky a moon moving in and out among mounds of +cloud, now drowning the countryside in shine, and now shrouding it in +shadow; until this growing into a grievance and a weariness, at last +she got up, swathed all that elongation of her form in a great drapery, +got her violin and bow, and in an arm-chair by the jalousie played. So +that she might not be heard, she had first shut the shutter and fixed +the bar, though, as her apartments were in a rather remote part of the +château, this was hardly very necessary, since it was Mendelssohn’s +Andante which she chose to utter in a low tone; and there during many +minutes she remained in a mood of drooping, moving the air of the room +with the mazes of the music, roaming over and over anew through the +same old moon-realms of melancholy, feeling even sleepy now, her ear +wearied out with sweetness; until on a sudden she had sprung upon her +feet, her cheeks struck white like a sheet, and her eyes wide with +affright. + +“Who is it?” she hoarsely hissed, for outside the shutter a tap had +sounded. + +“I! Open!” some chest panted to her, and she knew him, yet anew she +hissed with all her wild heart in her windpipe, “_Who is it? What is +it?_” + +“The staple to which I hang is giving to my weight,” the chest gasped: +“forty seconds and I fall a corpse.” + +In ten Lepsius had leapt within the window.... + +And now were boundless breaths! and the rough sirocco broken free, +flights for life, puffs, pantings, runnings to and fro, momentary +manias, aimless aims! “Help!” hissed her hoarse heart’s breath, +“this wardrobe, help!” whereat he, quite carried away by her rage of +agitation, hardly knowing why, caught hold of one side of a wardrobe, +while she bent and laboured at the other side, bearing it somewhither. +But it was a huge mass Henri Quatre, which, being moved, naturally +made some hubbub, so he threw the whisper across to her, “It makes a +racket!” whereto her pant replied “Never mind, help!” and finally by +tugs and effort they got one narrow side of it against a wall, one +broad side against the bed-foot; and now anew she flew, with “This +couch, help!” and he helped her to place the couch against the wall and +against the bed-head; and now it was “Now, this chair!” and he helped +her to heap an easy-chair upon the couch, feet up: which done, she +scrambled quick across the bed’s breadth, and now stood in the place +betwixt bed and wall, barricaded now from him in front by the bed, to +the left by the wardrobe, to the right by the couch and the chair. And +then immediately all that to-do was seen to be needless when her hand +happened to hit upon a key in the wall behind her, for there was a door +there in the wall, and a small window also by it above, and behind +the door some steps leading up to another chamber a little above the +bed-chamber; so immediately she scuttled through the door, locked it +within, skipped up the four steps, appeared at the window, threw the +key from her down upon the bed before him, and now succumbed to the +floor, panting, safe at any rate from herself. + +He, looking up to the window, threw out to her the whisper, “You are +wise! You are witty!” upon which she sprang up to throw out to him the +whisper, “Do not come across the bed!” for he stood now with one knee +on it, and she could see him in a ray of the moon as she had first +beheld him at The Towers in a red shirt loose about the neck and belt, +without any jacket or hat; and he, too, could see her in shadow at the +window. + +“Did I not help you to escape?” he asked her; and then disjointedly, +“Do you wear the half-coin which I sent you?” + +Miss Eve gave no reply, getting by degrees her breath again in silence. + +“Did you know in your heart,” he asked her, “that I would come +to-night? You were waiting up for me, playing the fiddle; it was that +Andante of Mendelssohn; you played it four times over.” + +“Lepsius, you must go,” Miss Eve said. + +“I will go near the peep of day, and you with me!” + +“No, now; and without me, I think.” + +“Oh, you are cold,” he replied, “and I hate your stone’s heart: cold +by nature, and colder by hypocrisy that penetrates your texture to +the core of you. Oh, I know and foreknow you to my agony, negative, +null, enigmatic, like a watch which won’t go, though one goads it, +and finally one crushes it under a rock; as frigid as that water of a +mortal quality which drips from a rock in the territory of Nonacris; or +like that bag——” + +But she stopped him with, “Lepsius, you should go!” whereat he leaned +keenly across to whisper her, “Cold! I am told that your mother was a +patrician of a most ancient race, so from her you have that faintness +of air, your rarity of blood, which makes you resemble lilies too +super-cultivated and rare to transparency, or resemble that aroma that +you exhale, or hoary old ages of Asia gone that give no answer to the +historian’s gaze. No, the mortal heart can’t hold you all, you are far +too large for me.... That superciliousness, all but Chinese somehow, in +the heave of your eyebrow’s arch, that rather-too-much of the eyewhites +shown below the irises ... though I admire, mind, the faintness of +it, the faint disdain, the dieaway disdain, so confirmed and hoary, +reposed and at home in the universe, with which you look out askance +upon the world; and now dark circles will be under them, for I vow you +shan’t sleep, and that will please me to be conscious that you are +marked with dark underlids because of me.” + +“I did not think,” Miss Eve rejoined, leaning both her elbows on the +window’s sill, “that you were such a silly boy.” + +He during some seconds did not answer this, drew back a bit from the +bed with a bent head, reflecting, and then said, “Well, it is silly, it +is self-sacrifice; and yet—curious! while I fought against you, since +it is silly, I thought it sillier than after I gave in to you. Silly, +indeed, I still see it, for these feelings of love make the blood to +flow from the front of the brain to other caves of the frame—ruinously! +so that loving is a reverting to lower-animal natures whose brains are +less largely furnished with blood, the sense of romance and poetry in +loving being due to some umbra of remembrance in us of old brutes, +moons, and moods, of the geologic ooze, the deluge, the roll in the +Jurassic morass, the rufous Vesuvius, the gloomy lagoon, when the +moon glowed more big and close to this globe. Love is thus a fall and +relapse; and yet—curiously——” + +When he paused, she asked, “Well?” upon which he said, “My +consciousness has been enlarged by it. I see, in fact, that though it +is a fall toward the past, and silly, it is the one silliness that one +may partly pardon oneself in view of its use to the future, because man +will not always be man, and ages forward I see the sons’ sons of you +and me a multitude, shining like stars in the sky, vaunting John to +George in voices of joy. No other children instead of ours, if ours +are preordained to be born, will do for this evolution: for, since we +observe that the perfection which is purposed by the earth can never be +accomplished but by a preordained marshalling of atoms, we know that, +if this or that atom fails of its place, nothing can be done: far less +if this or that baby fated to be born fails anon to be born.” + +Miss Eve, her face half concealed with her palm, asked, “But _what_ is +fated? that is the question. We imagine that what we wish is fated.” + +“Love is apparently an instinct of fate,” Lepsius replied: “the lover +prophesies in a kind of trance of triumphs to come. True, he is +silly, since he sacrifices his time and life, but when he succumbs +in his fight with the world-typhoon which whirls him to the moon, +he can excuse his infirmity with a sense that this time it is worth +while. I find that I have a tendency to reflect upon you in reveries +extravagant to grotesqueness, comparing you with galaxies, fragrances, +graces, fairies, lilies, with Dewildé, and Helen of Troy, and the boy +Crobylus of Corinth, and that purple of Hermione whose wool was combed +with poison-honey and oil of lotus; and though this is not strictly a +truth at present of you, it is strictly a true instinct and prophecy +of princes to spring through you. The line of your profile has a hint +of hollowness to the eye, owing only to a most slight jutting of your +chin’s point, a nothing which has overjoyed me with emotions the most +poignant, with a sense of brotherhood for you, with a sense of the +earth from her furnace-birth to her furthest sunsets, when the sun +shall shine much nigher her, and the moon loom hugely: and I have +compared you with ages, and with the Lady in the Chair of Cassiopeia. +Or, looking sideways at you with your legs crossed, I have been +struck by the great prolongation of your thigh-bones—so great that you +could hardly run on your toes and palms, as I and apes may, since your +kneecaps would doubtless graze the ground—so evolved, patrician: and +I have cried extravagantly that, at their greatest stretch, the very +galaxy would find space and to spare ’twixt their gaping gateway—an +extravagance merely in appearance, since it is in a trance-dream of +graces great even to _infinity_ in types fated to grow from you that +I thus exclaim; it is my subconsciousness, nay, my consciousness +somewhat, all bewildered with a blaze of the world-wonder, and how, +darling, but in boundless words may the mortal heart blurt out a little +that burden of the Eternal? Or when I think of my love’s upper-shape, +so _élancé_, like the racer’s stretch of waist and neck, like one +escaping, dodging, eluding upward—dodging, eluding the ape-shape—the +very revelation of evolution——” + +Here Miss Eve smiled, remarking dryly, “Lepsius, you are full of apes.” + +“Aren’t you? Isn’t the world?” he asked; upon which she said, “Yes, +I know your low view of men—and of women, I suppose, still more; but +beside my _élancé_ upper-shape, my thigh-bone, my chin, my faded old +air and hoary disdain of iris, I have a mind, which is jealous of your +omission to mention it.” + +“I meant to mention it!” + +“Oh?” says she, “that was too sweet of you. Last but not least?” + +“By no means least!” he answered earnestly: “a mind, I am certain, +better than mine.” + +“Ah, now you are insincere,” she said. + +“I to you? As if I could be!” Lepsius replied with reproach; “I only, +of course, mean a mind better than mine in possibility, since yours is +uneducated, and mine more or less educated.” + +“Mine un——! But what, then, is ‘education’ in your view?” she wished to +know. + +“Education,” he told her, “is a waking of one’s subconsciousness to +consciousness. I, for instance, know nothing that you do not—or not +much; but I am much more conscious of what we both know. Tell me, +now—whereabouts were you twenty-four hours since?” + +“Where?” repeated Miss Eve: “I was—here,” whereto he replied, “You see, +that answer and its tone shows that your education was never initiated. +You know, no doubt—are subconscious—that you were a thousand thousand, +and half a thousand thousand, miles from here, flying at the speed of +fifteen times a rifle-bullet’s rabies: subconscious, but not conscious +of it. I, now, could never say ‘_here_’ in that fashion, without +compunction, as though a million miles or two were of no account, +Eve, since now and at each instant I can hardly but be conscious of +this horse that jaunts us, and his ardour.... Oh, this race of man +suppurates in dullness, you know, and I am sometimes most—lonely: I +mention this to you that you may compassionate and come to me. I ride a +star, inhabiting the unbounded as my house, and the rest, more drowsing +than the dormouse, Tortoni’s; their glance of a morning darts no +surprise of gladness at this romance of time, space and game of balls, +the Grand Boulevard their galaxy, pigmies grey, phlegmatic, unflushed, +unconscious of their contemporaries in a myriad realms of the creation, +among whom are at this moment taking place great crises, hegiras, +revolutions, doomsdays, moonfalls, vast marches, everlasting partings; +they little know that Venus is uneven and severe in scenery, nor does +the thundering of even the nearest sun stun their ear-drum; uneducated; +not polite citizens of time and space.” + +“But you remember——” Miss Eve started to say, but now, startled by some +sound, breathed eagerly to him, “_did you hear something_?” + +“It is a mouse going down the right sound-hole of your violin,” he +replied; and now Miss Eve anew leaned her elbow on her window-sill to +continue saying, “But you remember that all this you started to utter +of _me_, then continued with ‘they,’ ‘they’; since then, as ‘they’ are +so _I_, why are you there by my bed?” + +“But are you not in all things far above me?” he asked, “save in this +of a wakeful consciousness?” + +“But this of a wakeful consciousness,” said she, “is everything, is it +not? It is this which makes the difference between a genius and an ape, +a god and a dog, you believe, do you not? And you have it, and not I. +Only a thigh-bone I own, let me be thrown to a dog.” + +Upon this Lepsius bent well across the bed to throw to her the whisper, +“Hypocrite! Colder than the coldest Kydnus! It is your mind that I +esteem, and in speaking of your thigh, implied it.... You should +shun the mood of the modern woman of the West, ever touchy as to her +footing, as to the spirit of the marriage-law, and men’s estimate of +her mentality. Men _must_ admire the mind of woman, for since we know +that we all get our wit from our mother, as our grit from our father, +therefore I, having my mind from a female, must needs love the female +mind with home-longing, as you, having your grit from a male, must love +the male grit with home-longing; so it is not for my wit that you love +me, but because you are instinctive that I am gritty and good; nor is +it for your grit that I love you, but because I am instinctive that, +if educated, you would be witty, and will make witty babies. Give up, +then, I beg you, for ever, the idea that I despise your mind, since I +do so idolise it; and believe, too, that, for each one of these reasons +which I can discover for my love of you, myriads of other reasons +exist, ineffable, unknowable to us, but in some manner known to that +Man to whose behests men may at no moment but submit.” + +“What Man is that?” Miss Eve asked, frowning, her wits rather winded +now and flustered at the speed of her speaker’s thoughts. + +“I mean, do I not,” said he, “the genius of our species? In every crowd +of a thousand there are present, are there not? not a thousand, but +a thousand and One, which One we can speak of as the ‘genius of the +crowd,’ since it leads each of the thousand by the nose, making him +behave in a totally different way than when alone—especially in such +crowds as French crowds, which rush into action like one individual, as +in ’92. So in _séances_ where those gathered believe that a ghost tilts +their table, there is indeed a species of ghost-Man there, an eighth +in a meeting of seven, a ‘genius of the crowd,’ compounded, no doubt, +of the brain-rays radiated out from the seven. So, too, of the crowd +who make up our human race: a Genius-of-the-species, his escutcheon +and escheats mentioned on no census-sheet, leads us at each moment, +teaching me to know and adore you, and none below the sun but you: to +know you well: the very mood of the tune which, if you could be turned +into a rhapsody of music, you would produce, a tune with some alto +undertone, more old-eternal than the world. Beloved. But I fail to +utter half, beloved, my heart faints....” + +“Do you love me?” Miss Eve asked him in a whisper, leaning now far out +of her window to him, who leaned near to her. + +“Beloved,” Lepsius groaned, and again, “beloved.... When I came home +from the Quai d’Orsay last night, I dropped down in a drowse, and, +with the feast of your kiss still warm in my mouth, I thought in my +dream that your feet walked with mine athwart fields of asphodel in +future far, far off under a forlorn and morphia moon—I could not tell +you. Then in the dark of the morning I awaked, and you were not there +in my arms. I passed my palm thrice across my bed of straws, but you +were nowhere there; so I had the thought that my darling might be in +the garden, among the lilies by the lake, gazing up at my casement, a +thought half-crazy, half-drowsy; but up I bounded and raced all round +the palace-walls, gazing down into the gardens in order to spy you out +and call you up, and you were nowhere there. If one of the spokes of +the kite-contrivance on which I fly had not been broken, I should have +flown to you. But I ran down, got out, and began to run to you; and +the _sergents de ville_ must have asked themselves where Lepsius was +rushing to under the morning stars, with half a thought, perhaps, in +their heart’s heart of a _coup d’état_.” + +“You didn’t come,” Miss Eve observed. + +“No,” he answered, “I turned back; four leagues to Versailles, and I +had already lost a good deal of time on your account.... Eve, I have +lost hours.” + +This he avowed with a bowed brow, and “Dear me,” breathed Miss Eve with +irony; then, suddenly, like one whose will arises and triumphs, added, +“It would have been so fruitless, too.... Lepsius, you should, perhaps, +be given to know—can you see? this one is the ring: I am engaged.” + +“Bomb of _poudre Rachel_,” Lepsius mumbled with a chuckle; “so you came +to an arrangement with de Courcy this evening?” + +“Yes, then,” Miss Eve said, _her_ left shoulder, too, shaken a second +by a chuckle. + +“And the same night you admit another lover to your bed-chamber!” he +said, chuckling. + +“Oh, well,” she muttered with lowered lids, chuckling within one +shoulder, and they chuckled one with the other. + +“Are ladies, then, restrained by no scruples as to justice?” Lepsius +asked. “Delighter in lies! enigma! through what abstruse movement +of your bosom did you get yourself into this embroglio? Not that it +matters; but you will inflict a sense of injury upon this man, who +has done you no injury,” a speech at which in one instant Miss Eve +flew into a passion, and, leaning forth, thrice struck the window-sill +imperiously, crying through a gruff throat, “As God is my witness——” + +“Sh-h-h,” Lepsius went. + +“Let me speak!” she imperiously hissed: “I mean to marry him, do you +hear it? Heaven be my witness!” and up she threw her eyes, trembling as +she held them bent on high. + +“Eve, no,” said Lepsius gently: “you do not mean to do that; you +believe that you do, but meantime in your subconsciousness you firmly +confide in me never to permit such an absurdity, and so can afford to +boast and be wayward.... Dear, would it not certainly kill us both?” + +“If it kills a host I will do it!” Miss Eve heatedly replied; “never +through life have I broken a promise, nor now shall begin with a vow; +given and pledged is my troth; God be my witness in this.” + +“But _why_ did you give it and pledge it? I can’t guess!” + +“Because I chose!” + +“Cogent waste of three words!” + +“I shall never have _you_, anyway!” she said with a nod and threat of +the head. + +“And why?” he asked in a bewilderment. + +“Because you despise my mind!” she sharply replied. + +“I have already explained why that is quite impossible,” he made answer. + +“Oh, woman knows her own secret, and people’s explanations make no +impression upon her intuitions. You despise my mind; and there’s this +still deeper reason against any getting together of you and me, that I +despise yours.” + +“I despise it, too; yet I endure it.” + +“Oh!” she sighed, “that untrue humility of yours, it irritates me +to the soul, till I hate! ... doubly untrue because insincere, and +because, if it were sincere, it would be true to facts: for whereas you +regard yourself as far greater than all, all as as far greater than you +as you fancy them smaller, since your greatness is bedraggled rags that +prevents you from being good. Oh, why are you not some ordinary wight, +a young workman, Lepsius, a mason, a sailor, who has never learned to +spell? Then some girl would so gleefully desert all her father’s—— But +now, ah, _il desir vive, e la speranza è morta_!... Do you, by the way, +still believe it fine to steal?” + +“Successfully, you mean?” he said quickly; “stealing seldom needs much +show of wit, but _swindling_ is very frequently fine. You, I know, do +not appreciate its fineness, but to me it is evident; it is lying in +deed as you frequently do in speech.” + +That this would give the profoundest offence Lepsius had no grounds to +think, lying being to his philosophy no crime; but with that chastity +of the swan, which, being but brushed in her array of whiteness, frills +and ruffles awhile, then with majesty swims away, so she ruffled. + +“Not ‘frequently,’ I think,” Miss Eve repeated; “if I ‘lie,’ it is to +myself, unwittingly; and in every event differ from you in fancying it +‘fine.’ Anyhow, now you can see how what you have wanted is out of the +question.” + +At this Lepsius, looking at her under his eyes, said, “Eve, be sincere +with me!” + +“I mean to be sincere,” Miss Eve told him; “I do hope I am; yes, I +_am_. We hate each other, Lepsius, shockingly, like cat and dog, oh, +we _do_, do not gainsay it. _I_ lack a culture you have, _you_ lack +a culture I have—in my very marrow. Oh, I know that you are awfully +clever and all that, and you fancy that because you can deck me with +queenship I shall be dashing myself feverish and shivering upon your +breast, little dreaming that the more thrones you throw before my +feet, the more bitterly I’ll spurn and keep you groaning in purgatory +eternally. They say that just before the Exhibition you will be +shooting into the sky a kind of sun infused with stored-up moonlight, +which will make private lights at night useless through Europe, and +France the richest of the nations; and that then, during the business +of the Exhibition, you mean in a _coup d’état_ to seize the throne, so +as to sweep France off to overrun Providence knows what. It sounds +mighty grand—I don’t know if it is true; I only know—forgive my +outspokenness—that it is howlingly vulgar, that it is not Christian, +and that I should have far greater joy of a young mason or sailor-boy +who behaves graciously to his father—one with a belt, may be, and your +figure—that is——” + +She stopped, and he said, “I listen,” but as she added nothing, he then +said, “‘Vulgar,’ ‘not Christian’; your criticism, of course, interests +one, though it is curious.” + +“Tell me,” Miss Eve said, “for whose weal do you purpose all that +slaughter and upheaval—for the world’s?” + +“For my own,” he said: “the weal of the world is in the management of +the Genius-of-the-world, Who ceaselessly sees to it. I personally am +not concerned in it.” + +“Then,” replied Miss Eve, “that is what I mean by ‘vulgar’ and ‘not +Christian.’” + +“One idea or two?” he asked. + +“No, one.” + +Lepsius sat slowly aside on the bed, puzzling to understand her mind; +and he said that he should have called Japan a far less ‘vulgar’ land +than England, to which Miss Eve replied that if Japan was really the +less vulgar, that could only signify that Japan was the more Christian. + +“Clearly, then,” said Lepsius, “‘Christian’ bears in your mind some +meaning of which I am not yet aware, since Japan does not pretend to +be Christian. I will see one day in the month following the Exhibition +just what Christianity is; but, as I knew that religions have all so +far been infant fancies, and as the religion of Europe is so slightly +in the minds of the peoples whom I mean to govern, I have never given +myself the pains to investigate it. And you do not say for what reason +I ought to cease from my schemes because they are ‘vulgar’ and ‘not +Christian.’ Vulgar they are, since I am a man, and man is a temporary +and trumpery little race, ingrained, whatsoever it attempts, with +vulgarity. But put yourself, beloved, in my place: what can I find to +do with my life? I am sequestered in the world; and it has occurred +to me that that would entertain me to make a world-state. True, I +might have turned my life to the delights of research, with the idea +of laying the foundations of knowledge in the world: it is, however, +such a work! since I should have to begin quite at the beginning, and I +shirked it. You may have no idea what a mess your little knowledge or +‘science,’ as you say, is in! Without foundation, top-heavy, like the +education of a child who has been made to learn the Babylonish Talmud +by rote, but can write not one word of his own tongue. The so-called +‘scientists’ know the stars of the night, and talk in millions of +millions; but as to the elements of knowledge, as to, say, the nature +of gravitation, and what is the ground-reason why their candle-grease +dribbles downward instead of bounding skyward, or why it is that the +atoms in a twig or anything cling together, though when one breaks the +twig, and then again puts the broken ends together, the atoms won’t +any longer cling, they possess no more notion than the chimpanzee. +Knowledge without foundation; vague, then, foggy, gappy: so that one +may say, man knows nothing, and of that little which he knows he is +but subconscious, hardly at all conscious. However, when these schemes +of mine which you have called ‘vulgar’ are accomplished, I mean to +turn almost the whole vigour of the world toward research and the +gaining of some little ground-knowledge of the nature of things: for +undoubtedly the want of this knowledge is what is now chiefly unwell +with our species. But I mustn’t say to you, beloved, that men’s good is +my aim, my only aim being to bustle and bluff a little as the governor +of a globe in space.” + +“But if a million men are killed by it?” Miss Eve remarked. + +“Dear, it will not matter,” Lepsius replied. + +“Will it matter if you are killed?” + +“It will to you, to no one else, since everyone dislikes me.” + +“But _one_ will clamour and cry out, you think? One will bleat and beat +the breast?” + +“Dear, it will not happen; I am so easily the king of men.” + +“Better, may be, if it did.... No, it is all awfully low, Lepsius, I +say, even lower than Cæsar, as low as Napoleon, and proves how many +a thousand miles divide you from me and from men: for far at fault, +I can see, is what you said just now that Christ’s religion is but +‘slightly in the mind’ of the crowd! Deeply the world has breathed of +its atmosphere, yes, and the murderer Burke, guillotined in the week +gone, deep in its stream was immersed, everywhere save at his heel. +One sees that, when one hears _you_ speak. Do you know those words of +Julian as to that Jew workman, ‘thou hast conquered, O Galilean’?—so +scarcely true then, how greatly true now! You who can see, don’t you +notice how pity prevails like the flood, and how charity roars like an +ocean? Christs on the ’bus, at the ball, martyrs that saunter in clubs? +Firemen, nurses, the Red Cross; the blind boy pampered and spoiled; +the sweater and swindler inwardly worked with a qualm for the world’s +weal; the moon on her throne still ruling, seducing the rudeness which +roars in the tides with her mild smile, still by the touch of a Robe +virtue disbursed through the world; and with that hem of his vesture +encrimsoned, treading the wine-press of history, the white Christ +travels, or, riding his triumph, rides on the foal of an ass over +dominions and thrones. When you said, Lepsius, that self-sacrifice is +silly——” + +But here Lepsius stopped her with the whisper, “someone is coming!” on +which the lips of Miss Eve, going at once quite sheet-white, breathed, +“God! it must be my sister! Lepsius! go!” + +“Why should I?” Lepsius said. + +“Lepsius!”—she was beside herself—“would you compromise me? Lepsius? +For ever? Would you?” for she herself could now catch the sound of +something, a door moving open in an outer room. + +“If I go,” Lepsius whispered, “may I come every night?” + +“Every——” Even in that storm of her eagerness for his going Miss Eve +paused; but she breathed, “Yes, every night—the key!” + +In an instant the key was handed her, and he out of the outer window: +on which she, too, in some seconds was down, was across the bed and at +the outer window, all her breath breathing down to him fifteen feet +below, “Every night! But I shan’t ever be here!” + +She could just catch his ejaculation of “Wretch!” and as she snatched +her fiddle, dashed herself into the chair at the casement, and arranged +her drapery, soft footfalls came on the carpet, the elder sister +breathing, “Eve! not in bed. Oh, Eve!” + +“Dear,” said Miss Eve with languor, “I couldn’t get to sleep; I was +playing the fiddle....” + +“Well, I knew it.... I had a feeling that you were not asleep, so I got +up and came to you, and here you are. Poor Evie! Cast your care upon +God, will you, Eve?... But playing at this hour! And—where’s the bow?” + +“I put the bow over there.... Oh, Ruth, put your hand on my brow, +I have a headache,” upon which, her head now lying back on the +chair-back, she shut down her eyelids, and Miss Ruth, stooping, held +her hand over the brow of trouble, groaning now and again a little in +her soul, her cheek pressed against Miss Eve’s cheek, till presently +she breathed, “That better now?” + +“Yes, sweet, that’s sweet,” Miss Eve breathed.... “Sweet, Lepsius was +here.” + +“Eve, here?” + +And now, under the compulsion of that touch upon her brow, Miss Eve +breathed out the whole story. + +The sandals of Lepsius, meanwhile, were speeding away, till they +arrived at his phaeton awaiting him beneath trees at Viroflay by the +forest of Meudon, where, throwing himself in, under the setting moon he +went tearing by way of Sèvres, Boulogne, Passy, to the palace. There, +at the top of a stair, he was awaited by a man in robes of the Orient +with a scraggy grey beard, hollow cheeks, and a nose mostly nostrils +which gaped, who, with ever a wagging and nodding of his head, stood +gossiping and gassing to Shan Healy: his name, Nundcumar. And these +two, Shan Healy and Nundcumar, when Lepsius had mounted the stair, +hastened without speech after their master’s speed. + +It was when they three were in the midst of a corridor whose two rows +of cressets seemed to meet at its remoter end, that Lepsius suddenly +peered ahead, stopped, and murmured very low in Urdu to Nundcumar, +“Anyone new in the palace to-day?” + +Perhaps a second lapsed before Nundcumar answered, “One: a person who +can spangle silk-muslin with gold of Dacca for the women-folk.” + +“Tell! Man or woman?” + +“It was a woman. She——” + +“Name.” + +“I cannot at this moment remember her——” + +“Tell! European?” + +“Yes. She——” + +Lepsius walked on; but after some steps, without stopping, went slower, +and now beckoning Nundcumar to him, said low, “_You_ walk before.” + +Nundcumar’s eyes opened with some apprehension as he began to walk on +ahead, and immediately Lepsius brought forth from the bag of his shirt +a species of pigmy weapon which one fired off by pressure upon a button. + +The walls here had hangings of tinsel at intervals, between these being +daubs on the walls themselves by Hindoo artists in hues as warmly +gaudy to the eye as water flooded with the sun’s after-glow. And it +was when Nundcumar, having reached the middle of the corridor, was at +the extremity of a hanging, that on a sudden he cast up his arms, all +shivering, with shrieks which pierced the ear, vitriol eating now that +doughy nose-tip, streaming down his beard. Meantime, Lepsius had swung +forth by the elbow a woman who had been hidden behind the hanging, +and in the quickest demisemiquavers fired two pairs of bullets, one +into her right wrist, one into the left, one into her right foot, one +into the left. Then during a few seconds he peered with a curiosity +of disgust into the disfigurement of the squealing Hindoo, and was +gone, throwing behind him to Shan Healy, who was kneeling over Jeanne +Auvache, the order, “Call in the police.” + +He then made his way to the place where he slept: an apartment as broad +as the palace in that part, resembling a barn, but possessing no walls +on three of its faces, only processions of columns of marble which bore +up three architraves. Within this chamber a hound—a mastiff all but as +large as Lepsius himself—was pacing about; and when Lepsius had well +bolted four doors, had again loaded his weapon, had placed it on some +straw strewn over one angle of the plain of floor, had let his gaze +muse some moments upon the moon going down within a couch of clouds +which she flushed, and now had thrown himself down upon the bed of +straw, the hound moved to lie down by his side, and both soon dozed. + + + + + CHAPTER XII. + + THE WEDDING-PLACE. + + +The day of the opening of the Exhibition was coming near, so was the +day of the nuptials of Miss Eve and Monsieur de Courcy, which had first +been fixed for the 23rd of July, and then, by the nerves and eagerness +of the bride’s groom and friends, fixed for the 5th; and now orders +for the _gâteau de noce_ and other articles had already gone out, and +already the lady and her guardians were at Grönland, a seat of the +Comtesse de Pichegru-Picard near to Orléans, where it was arranged that +the marriage should take place. + +In these circumstances Shan Healy observed truly to the Hindoo +Nundcumar, “There be things brewing in his brain, as you’ll see before +too long—at work like six whirlwinds! And there’s a little smile +about’n somehow, and a something somewhere in his eye that spells +pestilence to somebody, I haven’t a doubt.” + +Healy was seated in the evening dusk by the Hindoo’s side, who, still +luxuriating in bed with his nose sore in cotton-wools, lay silent +awhile, but then lifting himself to hug his meagre knees, said with +that wagging of his head, “Let him run, let him go along; but one day +the whirlpools of destiny will decapitulate his head.” + +“Oh, you go to hell,” Healy muttered; “learn to speak Christian English +first, and then turn prophet.” + +The Hindoo’s loose tongue, in these weeks unusually quiet, was anew +silent, his silences as well as his speech filled with that movement +of his head which was as continuous as the neck-movement of Chinese +playthings, and as full of meaning and meditation; and presently he +observed, “And when he is done for, whirled up and filibustered for all +he is worth, I know who will be the doer of it.” + +“Who’s that, then?” Healy demanded, and the Hindoo’s bony little face +became animated a moment as he made answer, “The woman who threw the +vitriol in my face!” + +“Oh, she,” said the other, “safe enough in chokey for four years +anyway—‘_travaux forcés_’ they d’ name it here; and serves her jolly +well right, too.” + +Nundcumar, with his eyes shut and a head that wagged, said, “If she +stops there!” + +“Who’s to get her out?” demanded Healy aggressively. + +“I—do not know,” remarked the Oriental innocently, with opening palms. + +“Look here, you’re a nice one to be speaking in this kind of way,” +Healy suddenly said; “appears to me as if you’d like to see it done!” + +“Me?” said Nundcumar; “na, na, not me, my sonnies. What! me? Why, what +was I when he ascended me out of the gutter? A dog, a hungry wretch in +rags, just ready for the hangman to garrot by the throat”—he rushed his +forefinger across his scraggy throat—“and now, what has he made of me? +A king with slaves to ceremony my bathing, and everybody bowing himself +down to make me the how-d’-you-do. And why this? Because he liked while +at his work to listen with one ear to Nundcumar retailing wholesale +his anecdotes of past doings, times, histories, befallings, happenings +and epochs, and to hear Nundcumar speak his ingenious English; he +wanted me for his gas-bag, his gabbling ape! and he gave me garments of +shawl-goat wool, and dancing-girls of Persia with gold bells on their +ankles to play the kitar before my godhood, all because he couldn’t do +without his Nundcumar’s tongue. Na, na, not me. And then he made the +villain woman vituperate her vitriol upon the nose and mouth of his +good old hound-dog.” + +“Serves you right,” observed Healy: “what earthly right had you to +admit the woman into the palace without proper inquiries? And who was +to have the vitriol in the chops, you or he, I should like to know?” + +“He might have chosen _you_ to have it,” the Oriental quietly replied, +throwing an underlook at Healy, upon which Healy chuckled within +himself, saying, “Ey, but he didn’t choose, you see!” + +“No,” said the Hindoo, “he chose his Nundcumar instead. But never mind, +it’s nothing, this. Only that’s bad, Healy, my friend, when the evil +eye is thrown upon a man, for there’s not a god sitting on his throne +of gold can escape——” + +“And who’s thrown this evil eye upon him?” + +“That woman—that villain woman.” + +“Safe, thank God, under lock and key.” + +“May be; safe, thank God, under lock and key, may be: but did I never +tell and expostulate you the history and anecdote of the time and epoch +when I and my brother were in the service of the Maharajah of——” + +“Oh, I’m ill of your lies,” said the other; “you never had a brother, +nor he nor you never were in the service of any Maharajah in this +world. So help me God, I never heard tell of a nigger the like of +you: other men lie with a view to deceiving people, but you lie like +a lying-machine, just because you needs must, without the least bit +expecting that anybody will be believing you.” + +“Do they believe _you_?” the Hindoo demanded; “may be I know one that +doesn’t, since he has had every step of yours spied, vigilised, and +super-inspected ever since his sire has been over.” + +At this Healy, eyeing the floor, heaved a sigh, and then getting up +from his seat, said with the dignity of grief, “Well, you are right +there, no doubt,” and walked out. + +At that hour Lepsius himself, in an apartment without walls on a lower +floor, was speaking with Mr. E. Reader Meade, who reposed on a couch +at his ease, handing a moustache that rolled down like a weir, while +Lepsius himself, in a sudeyree and trousers of nankeen, stood close +to a telephone hung on one of the columns. In the midst a punkah, +somehow worked, fanned the face; a fountain which span showered whirls +of spray round flowers and ferns; two girls a good way off in corners +continually caused their typewriters to prattle, peering nigh their +work in the dusk; while here and there other species of machines +competed in making their workings heard. + +“Well,” Mr. Reader Meade was saying in English, “their scheme of +getting hold of your person, of course, seems to me, too, a bit +absurd—and you say you knew of it?” + +“Well?” said Lepsius to someone at the telephone, throwing immediately +to Meade the reply, “Yes, I knew,” and to the telephone-speaker the +words, “Where, then, is Monsieur le Duc de Rey-Drouilhet at present?” +and to Meade again, “Go on.” + +“I’ll wait,” said Meade. + +“I listen,” said Lepsius. + +“Let us take it, then,” said Meade, “that you will scarcely fail to +elude that plot: for that’s the sick spot of your Frenchman, he lacks +humour, is so pre-occupied with _ideas_, that he lacks nice adjustment +to facts, often fails to measure his new man or thing, and so comes a +cropper in practice——” + +“Precisely,” said Lepsius, “you are very shrewd—as usual. Say then,” he +added to his telephone-speaker, “that I can receive Monsieur le Duc de +Rey-Drouilhet for seven minutes.” + +“The castle to which you are to be inveigled,” said Meade, “is called +Château Egmond, on the Brittany coast, a league from St. Brieuc, +and fourteen from your own Serapis. It is the property of Madame la +Comtesse de Pichegru-Picard, has been leased from her by the League, +I hear, and de Courcy, it is said, means to make it his residence +immediately after his marriage, which takes place at Grönland, near +Orléans, on the 5th—or am I giving you all stale news?” + +“I knew,” Lepsius said, as he now flew through the room to drop some +words at the ear of one of the girls, who in turn eagerly spurted out; +and now, returning, he said to Meade, seating himself on the floor with +clasped knees, “Only I don’t quite understand by what means they hope +to get me to go to this Château Egmond.” + +“I am not too sure,” said the other, “but Saïd Pasha, who is always +at the bottom of the _dessous de la politique_, asked me at the +Palais-Bourbon last night to tell you that Nuncio _ad interim_ Montijo +will be of the company at the château, and as you are believed to be +eager to gain the Church-party, this may be intended to motive you to +accept their invitation. Then also Marshal Rémy will be there, and +your right hand, Schuré.” + +Lepsius was up, speeding off to peer into a little machine hitched +on to the telephone which fretted and roared in fits, saying as he +ran, “But do they imagine that one cannot negotiate with Rémy, Schuré +and Montijo without going down to Brittany? It is conspiracy of—let +us say of Bismarcks, all born on the first of April!” at which word +“Bismarcks” he chuckled maliciously within himself. + +“But a conspiracy having this peril,” remarked Meade, “that Isabeau +Thiéry seems to be more or less in it.” + +“Oh, Thiéry is a shadow,” said Lepsius, throwing himself flat on a +table, his hands under his head; “his characteristic is that he does +not exist.” + +“I should rather say,” said Meade, “that his characteristic is that he +is the half-brother of Fanny Schuré, who is the wife of Schuré, who is +the engineer-in-chief of the moon-machine.” + +“And that matters in your judgment, I see,” said Lepsius. + +“Much in my judgment,” the other answered very impressively; “you +don’t, I think, know the Thiérys well; they are one of those French +families who regard each of their members as something between a god, a +genius, and a pet-dog to be pampered; and Isabeau Thiéry in particular, +with his three volumes of Victor Hugo verse, is to Fanny dear no less +than Hermes Trismegistus. I tell you so, Lepsius. He is a ghost, you +say, and I say ditto; but his influence with this grande dame of a +Fanny must be great enough: if he is against you, Fanny is against +you. And you won’t undervalue this woman’s sway? A bit Brantômesque in +tone as the girl may be, with her ambition to say things worthy of +Esther Guimont, if not of Ninon de l’Enclos, she has quite earnestly +this further ambition, to revive the _alcove_, and, by pulling the +wires in the political drama, to be called a Chateauroux or a Genlis. +As to Schuré himself, you know him: _au fond_ he is a viveur living in +the _odor di femina_; his guts is his God, and his ‘fafemme’[C] is his +Devil. If she tempts, he attempts; she says go, and he goeth. And I say +that, if Isabeau Thiéry goes against you, then, through Fanny, Schuré +would agree to yield to the immense pressure of your enemies to tamper +with the moon-construction; and if there’s the smallest failure as to +the moon—ah! well, you know the consequence of that.” + +[C] Wifie. + +“You are always very shrewd,” said Lepsius, lying on his back with shut +eyes, “and but for your judgment I should surely miscarry in everything +that I attempt. All this that you say is quite true, and I have always +intended to bribe Isabeau Thiéry at the right moment.” + +“With money? Isabeau Thiéry?” + +“Why the surprise?” + +The Englishman got his limbs together, and sitting now on his +couch-edge, stared, saying, “You cannot do that, you know.... Bribe any +of them, the brokers, popes, emperors; but you cannot bribe a poet, +man! Don’t you know that for a fact, Lepsius? Frankly, you occasionally +bring your friends’ admiration of your brain to some sudden cropper...! +You, too, having that French fixity of idea and lack of humour, knowing +the human clock so minutely in everything, except just its divine +trick, its ‘eccentricity,’ as mechanicians say. You couldn’t bribe +Thiéry!” + +“Abundantly, I meant,” observed Lepsius. + +“But that’s worse! If you send him five hundred francs, there’s just +the millionth fraction of a chance that it might influence him, since +he is so jolly poor; but if you send him five millions, don’t you know, +really, what will happen? He’ll throw up the melodramatic right-hand +that crumples the cheque, cry ‘Cato!’ and rush off to Sister Fanny to +crush you. It’s the ‘eccentricity’ in the earth’s yearly journey: you +count ill if you leave it out.” + +At this Lepsius, springing up, looked at the other in the way of one +who is struck by what has been said, and he had begun to say, “What +grounds, now, have you——” when a negro, coming in between two of the +columns, announced, “Monsieur le Duc de Rey-Drouilhet,” and now Meade +said, “Well, I’ll be away,” adding, “you can bribe _him_, Lepsius.” + +“And all of you,” thought Lepsius within himself with a somewhat sullen +eye askance on his friend. + +The friendly Englishman and Lepsius, looking rather like cow and +calf together, now exchanged a hand-shake, and in soon stepped the +aged little duke, diffusing smells of perfumery, showing a youthful +streak of teeth which shook, to seat himself finically on the couch +which Meade had left, while anew Lepsius flew hither and thither, for +some time paying no heed to the fop’s presence, who meantime secretly +touched his teeth, lips, cheeks, and sucked a cachou; till at last +Lepsius, casting a look at one of a quartette of clocks, cheque-book in +hand, dashed to sit by his side, remarking, “Six minutes and a half, +Monsieur le Duc, and my admirable friend: tell.” + +“Why, it was you who sent for me,” the duke said, tittering in his +fluttering and fussy manner, “it is you, Monsieur Lepsius, whose rôle +it is to tell!” + +To this Lepsius made no answer, but stamping a cheque with a number of +francs, furiously wrote the duke’s name on it, and now threw the cheque +askew to the duke’s knees, without looking at him; upon which the duke +sprang up somewhat pallid under his rouge, muttering in a protesting +manner, “No, Monsieur Lepsius—your manner—I cannot accept—you forget, +monsieur——” + +Lepsius groaned. “We are such old cronies! And surely time is ever a +thing of some value. Can you _not_ see it? Tell, tell.” + +“I am aware that your time is valuable——” + +“Yes, of course: tell.” + +“But——” + +“No, tell.” + +“But are there to be no preliminaries? No pourparlers? You have handed +me a cheque, monsieur—I know not for what amount, since positively I +decline to inspect it——” + +“Twenty thousand, that being the first of several, the others to be +written out as you proceed in amounts proportioned to the worth of your +words.” + +“The figures will be big in that event!” + +“They shall be; you know that I am immense in generosity.” + +“But it is a bribe!—if you consider it. I was never, however, to be +bribed! You forget, monsieur, that I bear a name which I never have, +nor ever shall, stain by any real meanness; nor, if I have accepted +money of you in the past——” + +“It was not a bribe, it was a gratuity; a meanness, but not a ‘real’ +meanness, because of your secret ardour for my person and service. I +know it all, nor should ever dream of insulting that name you bear with +a ‘real’ bribe: tell.” + +“Well, provided we do thoroughly understand each other’s tone, monsieur +...” the duke now said, sitting down anew with a twitching up of +his trousers’ knees, “though in the present instance I absolutely +do not feel that I could touch your cheque with honour, since, +really, if you consider it, monsieur, it is a betrayal of comrades, +this, in which I am engaged—you cannot get rid of the fact by any +sophistry!—it—is—a—betrayal; nothing less!” + +“Not a betrayal, only an exposure,” said Lepsius drearily, “nor need +you actually touch the cheque,” and picking it up, he put it into the +peer’s pocket. + +“Well, say an ‘exposure,’ since everything, after all, depends on +the tone of an act, and everything is right that is done by the +right-minded.... At any rate, let me tell you, monsieur, that you stand +in a situation of even the extremist danger!” + +“I know; and Isabeau Thiéry is in it.” + +“Why, yes.” + +“Tell—deeply?” + +“Deeply enough, although not whole-heartedly, I know. Moreover, he +hasn’t a sou, so can at any moment be opened to you by the golden key.” + +“And Dr. Lepsius?” + +“He also ... I am in the dark, by the way, as to whether the doctor is +a relative of yours, although the question is being asked——” + +“No relative. But that man is actually in the inside of the inner plot +to kidnap and imprison me? Yes?” + +“Why, yes. He has attended each of the recent councils in the house of +Monseigneur Piscari, has even made suggestions as to the means of your +capture.” + +The left cheek of Lepsius went ashen a second or two, and all at once +he was up to fly with an eye on fire to a speaking-tube some distance +off, through which, when he had whistled, he murmured low, “33, you?” + +The answer was, “Yes.” + +“Telephone to P.,” said Lepsius, “asking if all is ready on his side, +in which case let him now wire to B13 to burn within an hour.” At the +same time, without looking round, he cried out to the duke, “You see +the amount is as I stated it, Monsieur le Duc!” for the duke was taking +the chance to scrutinise his cheque narrowly in the twilight. + +“I will see to it,” was the answer of the speaking-tube to Lepsius, who +then sped back to the duke, saying, “Two minutes more, monsieur; tell +details.” + +The old fop laid one forefinger on the other, and with much animation +of manner gave the details. Lepsius was to be got to Château Egmond, +a league from St. Brieuc, by means of an accumulation of inducements, +the chief being that Schuré, the engineer, without speaking with whom +it was assumed that Lepsius could not exist a week, would be present: +for Schuré, though not of the conspiracy—at all events not formally, +so far—had, however, promised to be of the house-party for two or +three days; and it was proposed that Schuré should fall more or less +indisposed while there through unwholesomeness in his wine for, at +any rate, eight or nine days, until Lepsius should be impelled to hie +to his bedside. Then Lepsius was to be shut up in the château some +days, until he could be taken to the bastille on the Ile de Bas, named +Château Labîme, which, too, the League had got on lease; and it was +moreover hoped to reduce Lepsius to penury by seizing a minute key +which Lepsius was believed to carry continually on his body. + +Lepsius threw a new cheque when this had been said, saying, “Their +names,” on which the duke, taking a leaf of paper out of his pocket, +and speaking now eagerly with a mean secrecy of voice, galloped out +a string of names, “Thiéry you know, Dr. Lepsius you know, and, of +course, Sauriau, de Courcy, Leflô, Piscari, General-of-Brigade Rabot, +Grand-Almoner Persigny; then there is Maspéro and Gustave Ghéon; +the big bresseur d’affaires Brückner, Aly of gas, and Huguette of +electricity; Captain Pertius; Pichot of Justice and Public Worship; +Léonce Pettit; Director of Fine Arts Rémy-Rehaut; and Maître Sorel—with +some provincials.” + +“Their names,” said Lepsius, smiling a little, toying under his vest +with that half a coin whose sister-half he had sent to Miss Eve Vickery +two years previously. + +“The provincials,” said the duke, “are obscure rich persons, not worth +your resentment, monsieur; there is a Monsieur Louis Jammes of Lyons, +a chocolate-maker, then a Monsieur Flammarion of Tours, a Monsieur +Brisson of Rouen—who, by the way, is booked to go to the conference at +Château Egmond.” + +“I do not know these people,” remarked Lepsius with no little alertness +of thought in his eyes which stirred fleetly from side to side like +sheet-lightning. He then asked if the provincials had attended the +Paris conferences, to which the other replied that they had not, being +but “associates” by correspondence with Sauriau, their secretary. + +Lepsius stamped yet a cheque, saying, “Make it your work to-morrow, +Monsieur le Duc, to discover whether this Monsieur Brisson of Rouen, +who is to go to the Egmond conference, is known by sight to any of +the Paris conspirators, and you become affluent for six months, as +already you are for three,” in saying which he threw the new cheque to +the duke, and dashed away to peer steadily at the picture of a château +colouring itself as by miracle in one of the electric machines. The +duke’s arm had half started out for a hand-shake of farewell, but drew +back without it; and now, after waiting some time, at last with a +raising of the shoulders in a shrug which lingered long, he first with +a grimace murmured to the four winds, “Is the interview, then, at an +end?” and now, doing a very exquisite bow to Lepsius’ back, withdrew +with bows. + +As he departed, Lepsius threw half a look at one of four clocks, their +staring faces of a largeness so exaggerated that they concealed, each +of them, four of the columns’ mass, and afflicted the air with the +click of their tick-tack; and with one tap of impatience on a chair he +went muttering, “Come, Sauriau.” + +Some seconds afterwards the name of the Abbé Sauriau was called. + +“Admit him!” called Lepsius in reply, at the same time darting behind a +screen, whence in scarce more than forty seconds he came out “dressed” +in clothes made for quickness, without any buttons about them, and a +second before the abbé came in had caught up, and was casting his eye +over, a page of a book of the abbé’s just published. + +“Monsieur l’Abbé Sauriau,” he murmured, shaking hands, “I was at this +moment deep in _Hellenic Idylls_.... But what are you, then, Monsieur +l’Abbé Sauriau. A re-incarnation of Plato? For surely, only a Greek +could so utterly know the soul of Greece!” + +Monsieur l’Abbé Sauriau had shy eyelids. “I am glad.... Ah! you have +seen _Hellenic Idylls_.” + +“Seen and devoured ... and what charm! How airy! What daintiness of +manner! Oh, truly, those gross fingers of the Abbé Sauriau know how to +engrave with a fairy’s grace.” + +“Why, this is well,” said the abbé; “have you, by chance—finished the +book?” + +“Not quite, yet, monsieur: I am now at the myth of Leda.” + +“It is the end that is the best,” breathed the abbé with downbent lids. + +“Let us sit here, monsieur, and speak about it,” and now he led to +the couch a spirit so bludgeoned and kidnapped by the scoop of this +typhoon of flattery, that Lepsius might possibly then and there have +made the abbé his slave for ever. This, may be, was actually his aim: +for the Abbé Sauriau, owing to his amiable personality, his learning, +and his well-deserved celebrity through the whole world of letters, +was an individual of no slight influence in the under-currents of the +life of the Paris of his time, both within and without the sound of +the Palais-Bourbon bell; and not only was his brother, Louis Sauriau, +a general-of-division, but the engineer Schuré himself was believed to +be deeply under the influence of the abbé’s fascination. This being +so, Lepsius, in his gross way, continued with a smile of amusement to +eulogise to the skies the volume of which he had perused only one page, +nor found any praise too gross for the poet to gulp down, while the +poet eyed his right red sock which continually shook up, and struck the +crossed leg with his glove. Unfortunately, Lepsius never knew more than +forty-nine of the fifty parts of man, and as for man’s vanity, he was +himself so exempt from any iota of it—his tone being that of a broker, +wholly pre-occupied with the facts of things—that he little recognised +to what a degree vanity, in its government of the soul, may famish +such grosser passions as avarice. Hence, not content with praising the +abbé’s book, he went on to mention his intention of buying an immense +number of copies, and at once was aware of change in the abbé’s air, +for at once the abbé was offended, reflecting within himself, “It is a +bribe; and since he has a desire to bribe, _perhaps_ what he has said +as to the worth of the ‘Idylls’ is just humbug with a purpose?” and his +bush began to burn. + +Lepsius, who did not much care, leapt up just then to answer the +telephone, and before he came back to the abbé peered into the machine +in which a château was slowly painting its shape on a pane of paper: +upon which his visitor called to him, “What a fuss of mechanism you +have squalling in this hall!” + +“Come, I’ll let you see them,” said Lepsius in a humour of devilry, to +humiliate the spirit that he had lately praised; and he led the priest +from little machine to little machine, teaching him something of the +meaning of each—things of steel acting in the manner of rational and +ingenious creatures—into which those bushy eyes of the Abbé Sauriau +peered near-sightedly, and though he uttered hardly a word, from +time to time a “humph!” would start from him. When, however, they +came to the one where the château was coming out in colours, Lepsius +nonchalantly said, “This one you could not comprehend, however much I +explained it,” and dropped a handkerchief on it. + +In this manner, half by carelessness, half in malice, he made for +himself many enemies, by contempt; and in the abbé’s eyes came a flame. + +“However, to come to details, monsieur,” he said as he sat down +anew.... “I have bound myself to sound you in advance on behalf of +Monseigneur Piscari, who met me last night in the Salle des Pas Perdus, +as to whether you would be likely to feel inclined to make one of a +party, mainly political, to meet in the country in a fortnight’s time.” + +Lepsius span round to the abbé, saying, “I wonder?... Whereabouts?” + +“The name is Château Egmond——” + +“I didn’t know that the prelate had a palace of that name.” + +“He has lately taken it on a——” + +“Where is it?” + +“In Brittany, not twenty leagues from your own Palace Serapis, and a +league from——” + +“Ah, too far. Time, Monsieur l’Abbé,” and off Lepsius dashed anew to +the machine of the château-picture, snatched the handkerchief from +it, peered, and now beheld midget people rushing about it, and the +château at four places wrapt in flames; upon which he flew back to +the abbé, who was observing, “Well, certainly, it is a long way off, +but then everywhere is near to Dædalus; moreover, everybody will be +there—Schuré, Montijo—many charming dames——” + +“Ah! Who, for instance?” + +“Madame Schuré for one,” replied the abbé with a flash of the eye. + +“Unfortunately, monsieur,” remarked Lepsius very rashly, “I can’t be +expected to make love to a _rat d’opéra_ like Fanny Schuré when it is +well known that I am already in love, and with a sovereign lady. If, +now, you had informed me that the Comtesse de Pichegru-Picard and her +charming relatives would be there, that to a great extent would have +abolished the distance.” + +The abbé sat up at this, staring like one who is struck by a new +idea, then muttered with some spite, “I was wondering if that could +be managed, just to please you. It seems, however, to be out of the +question, since one of those relatives of the countess is to be married +on the 5th to Monsieur de Courcy at Grönland, in the centre.” + +“And Monsieur de Courcy has not asked me to be a guest!” crowed Lepsius +with gross sarcasm, adding, “Forgive me—forty seconds,” and anew he +flew to the machine of the château-picture, a “living” picture, in +which could be seen the leaping of flames that now surrounded all the +place, and crowds rushing all about, and fire-engines spouting out +waters in the night, all such mites as are the images which walk tiny +in the eye of an ox. Lepsius gazed at it through a magnifying-glass, +and when in a group of eight moving down a terrace in disarray from the +house of flame he could make out the faces and shapes of the Misses +Vickery, back he rushed to the abbé, saying, “That, then, must be my +answer, Monsieur l’Abbé, to Monseigneur Piscari, with my thanks; nor +will anything earthly alter my decision—unless, perhaps, it be some +temptation in the shape of the eternal feminine.... You see, Monsieur +l’Abbé, I become dissipated in mind like the rest, and oh, believe me, +it is a relaxing thing to live among men.... What’s the time?” + +The abbé stood smartly up at the hint, and, as always after being +with Lepsius, hobbled away brisker than he came, braced in spirit and +pricked to be a man of the same height and stride as that model that +he yet disliked; and with that baggy skin of his brow twitching with +cogitation, gazing at the ground, he went quick of gait, galvanic-young +again, making sounds with his great stick, down to a carriage, where +he gave an address in the Rue Jean Gougeon. + +It was the home of the Count de Courcy. The count, however, was out, +but might be found, the abbé was told, at the Ministère, or else at a +house in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré. + +To the Ministère drove the abbé; no de Courcy was there; so thence +he drove to the Faubourg, where the Comte de Courcy rose from dinner +to go to him at the head of a stair, and there the abbé said, with +a scantness of breath, “I have been chasing you—am fresh from the +individual whom—that is, from the young Lepsius, and shall be surprised +from his mood at present if anything which we can devise will get him +to step into the Egmond trap.... Would you believe? he is love-struck +with _Hellenic Idylls_; it appears, my friend, that the young man +dreams of it at night!” + +“_C’est vrai?_” said Monsieur de Courcy (i.e., “By Jove,” touched with +irony). + +“Yes, you will find him turning author before long in order to vie with +us others! But, believe me, monsieur, he is destined to discover that +it needs a deeper brain to create a true and poetical book than to +imagine machines of steel.” + +“As Phœbus beats Hephæstus; but—you see—I am being awaited——” + +“Yes, forgive me—only to tell you that it will be most difficult, as +I can already see, to get him to go to Egmond, unless—may I express +myself? it is delicate....” + +“I even pray you to do so.” + +“Unless Madame de Pichegru-Picard and her—nieces are of the party, in +which event he will agree——” + +The Comte de Courcy’s neck stiffened. “My friend, the suggestion would +be ingenious, if it were not impossible.” + +“I see that,” breathed the Abbé Sauriau, “especially its ingeniousness.” + +“To me its impossibility is no less obvious, monsieur,” said Monsieur +de Courcy. + +But now steps were mounting the stair, and a man bearing a document +and a telegram came up to give them to the count, who, having read the +telegram, grew pale, and every second paler, and presently observed to +the abbé, “My God! Grönland house burned to the ground!” + +“Burned!” exclaimed the abbé; “why, accept my sym—— But where, then, +monsieur, will your wedding take place?” + +“It may now _have_ to be at Egmond,” the count said slowly, with +meditation dwelling in his underlook. + +“Why, then, this may be a Providence in view of the individual whom we +have in our mind!” cried out the Abbé Sauriau. + +“We will see how Heaven works it,” the count observed, now suddenly +holding out his hand to bid _bon soir_. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII. + + AT EGMOND. + + +Within ten days everything was settled: the Comtesse de +Pichegru-Picard, burnt out of Château Grönland, came to an arrangement +with Monseigneur Piscari (who had already got from her the lease of +Egmond in Brittany on behalf of the League), to go down there for the +wedding of Miss Eve without interfering with the prelate’s house-party; +and Lepsius, for his part, on hearing now that Miss Eve would be at +Egmond, agreed to go down, too, to meet the other political intriguers. + +By the last day of June all the party were there, except a Monsieur +Brisson of Rouen, and Lepsius, who had arranged to come on the 2nd of +July for two days, the date of the wedding remaining fixed for the 5th +of July. + +As for this Monsieur Brisson, who lived not far from Brittany, why he +did not appear was not very clear, for though he had been written to by +Monseigneur Piscari, he had sent no reply. + +However, about an hour after dinner on the 1st of July, Monsieur +Brisson was announced just as a council which met to consider last +details as to Lepsius had sat round a table in a chamber in a tower. +The door was already locked when the card of Monsieur Brisson was +brought, who, on being admitted, was seen to be the embodiment of the +_bourgeois_ in glasses, one of his legs bowed and booted with a sole +inches deep, on which he steeply limped. As he was unknown by sight to +the others, he had to produce some of his notes from the League before +being given leave to assume his seat; and the conference then began +in a gloaming still unlighted by any lamp, present being Monsieur de +Courcy, the Abbé Sauriau, Monsieur Leflô, the Duc de Rey-Drouilhet; the +bent back of Dr. Lepsius sat sideways to the table, dumb; Monseigneur +Piscari, a lank and stark inquisitor, presided; Isabeau Thiéry was +absent; but there were some ten more, men of wit or weight. + +The difficulty was to get Lepsius into Egmond without scandal: for +if he once came in as a guest, and was seen, his disappearance would +naturally excite comment and unrest; but after much discussion one +Captain Pertius, a spark of the _beau sabreur_ type, who had five +_pioupious_ (privates) at command in the château, proposed that as +Lepsius came, his capture should take place outside a summer-house in a +south avenue, and Lepsius there kept till everybody was abed; and this +was carried. + +But now Monsieur Brisson of Rouen, with a rasping throat of the +_nouveau riche_, at last gave a croak, saying, “It will be a great risk +to keep him idling there for hours in that summer-house.” + +And now, too, for the first time, Dr. Lepsius breathed a weary word, “I +agree.” + +However, their votes were overborne on the authority of Pertius, who, +having thoroughly examined the summer-house, had found it strong and +sound. + +Then, till it was almost dark, many details were discussed, many +proposals put to the vote, everybody knew what his own duty was to be, +and the council was now about to be broken up when anew the throat of +Monsieur Brisson of Rouen was croaking, “But I feel uneasy.... _Who_ +chose the chamber in which Lepsius is to be kept?” + +“It was Captain Pertius,” said Monseigneur Piscari. + +“And you have all inspected it?” asked Monsieur Brisson. + +“Most of us,” remarked Monsieur de Courcy; “it is a good, good place, +monsieur.” + +“It may be good,” said Monsieur Brisson, “but is it the best? Oh, +believe me, messieurs, in everything there is a bad, a good, a better, +and a best, the best ever more grievous than the rest, but so greatly +better than the better.” + +“True,” murmured the Abbé Sauriau: “_is_ it the best?” + +“I propose that we search the château in a body first,” suggested +Monsieur Brisson. + +“I agree,” murmured Dr. Lepsius, and after some talk this was done. +Monsieur le Duc de Rey-Drouilhet took with alacrity a blue candle from +a candelabrum of ormolu, and with it led the procession, first up the +tower’s stair to the chamber prepared for the prisoner’s sojourn, and +then down and through almost the whole building, down to the vaults, up +other towers, through crowds of halls and corridors, now with sounding +footsteps, now with muffled, everyone chattering with some other in +sets nonchalantly, Monsieur de Courcy and Monseigneur with their heads +together before, and, behind, the Abbé Sauriau with the good bonhomme +Brisson, whose right side, as along he stumped, stooped at every step +of his right bow-leg. He was giving the abbé a reason why he must +needs leave Egmond that very evening, having come merely to attend the +committee-meeting, when for the twentieth time he stopped to stare at a +painting; and since he had already explained that he was then buying, +he was left to pursue his hobby by the abbé, who did not observe that +behind each of the pictures that Monsieur Brisson peered at he left a +certain little object resembling a night-light; and behind one picture +he left a vial and his handkerchief. + +After all, it was found that the tower-chamber which Captain Pertius +had chosen was the most eligible; and, everything at last arranged, the +committee separated to come among the ladies. + +At this hour, with the moon in the clouds, and groups of ladies and +their gallants moving round the grounds, and sounds of music in the +_salons_ and galleries, Egmond looked a stately and picturesque place. +The Misses Vickery were strolling with Monsieur de Courcy along the +brink of an oblong of water that stretched far-slumbering in boscage +from the bottom of the terraces to a mosque of marble at its far end, +when there came up to them Dr. Lepsius to take part in their walk; but +presently a messenger from Monseigneur Piscari came to call Monsieur de +Courcy, who with his lips just touched a finger-tip of his future-one +with a great parade of grace, and went away; soon after which Miss +Ruth, too, was called by another party of promenaders—a Schuré group, +Fanny Schuré burnished in coloured fires like mother-of-pearl, with +whom Miss Ruth stopped to gossip, the innocent with the guilty, Dr. +Lepsius and Miss Eve meantime going on to the mosque. + +And there, sitting alone in a casement, they two spoke some time in low +tones, while more and more the moon imbued the night with the mood of +her beauty and her quietude, and communed sleepily the lily-leaves of +the pool. It was when they were getting up to go away that Dr. Lepsius +said, “But I mustn’t trouble a bride with an old man’s sorrows—in three +days’ time you will be a bride, and I rejoice in your choice, which I +think a wise one.” + +Miss Eve had risen, seeming in her white evening-dress, with whitest +cheeks, even weird in that sheen, and she replied with a chuckle, “It +was prophesied me that I should not be a bride for some time to come!” + +“By my son?... Well, he has no little might in this lower world,” the +old man murmured, “but have no fear, he is by no means omnipotent, and, +as I have hinted, he is at this moment in extreme peril for his own +skin.” + +Sharply at this, with a haughty heave-up of her chin, Miss Eve asked, +“Who could touch him?” + +“Ah! it is dubious,” the old man said musingly, bending over his oak +stick; “still—I believe—by many eyes, and by many hands, and by the +agreement of many wits and wills of men and God, it shall be achieved!” +and now he struck the stick sharply upon the _perron_ of steps down +which they were now passing to the path, Miss Eve laughing a little +with a meaning that was hardly understood, saying, “And his father, if +I am rightly informed, is with his enemies?” + +“That is so,” said Dr. Lepsius with an inclination of his head, whereat +she stopped walking to face him, asking, “With your eyes quite open, +Dr. Lepsius?” + +“Well, I hope so,” the doctor answered. + +“You have thought, then, of what will certainly happen, if—after—I am +married on Friday?” + +Dr. Lepsius glanced up at her, having noted her tones go shaky, and on +beholding her face bony with agitation, said with some astonishment, +“No, what will happen?” + +“Your son will _kill_ himself.” + +And while the doctor with an eye of scare stared at her, she with a +certain roistering and hilarity added, “And since royalty should have +servants rejoicing to join in its voyages, _two_ you may see, if not +more, go to attend on his ghost.” + +“Two—I do not quite——” the doctor stammered. + +“I meant my poor father for one,” she sighed, continuing to walk. + +But since her “kill himself” the doctor had but absently heard what was +said, and “kill himself!” he cried suddenly, crimson with anger, “let +him! let him! I will go to his funeral! For I’d sooner follow him to +the tomb——” + +“Now, Dr. Lepsius, a father ought not to be down on a son,” Miss Eve +said, “though I know that he has been beastly to you.” + +At this tears gushed to the old man’s eyes. “Oh, it isn’t that, dear +Eve—it isn’t the bitter ingratitude, the bruise, the gash in here: but +how shall I not be against him in what he undoubtedly aims to bring +about, when the mouth of every gash which he gives our race will shout +out in rage against me? You see, do you not——?” + +But now the old man, touched on the shoulder, looked about, and saw +Monsieur Leflô, who had come down an _allée_ in the leafage as a +messenger of the Count de Courcy, seeking the doctor; so the doctor +went off with Monsieur Leflô, while Miss Eve, spying Miss Ruth in a +group ahead, moved to go to her; but suddenly became aware of a stump, +stump, of one limping in an _allée_, and in some seconds was accosted +with a murmur of the word, “Mademoiselle.” + +It was Monsieur Brisson of Rouen. + +And when Miss Eve looked at him without seeming to know him, he, though +undoubtedly agitated, said with a coarse chuckle that she and he had +been shoulder to shoulder at the Quai d’Orsay that evening when a +particular individual had dared to take a liberty with her lips: at +which thing Miss Eve stood like a queen who stands astonished at so +much insolence under the sun, then silently went on her way. + +But this Monsieur Brisson was not one who could be banished with a +chin; he followed to breathe near Miss Eve’s ear, “I wish to speak to +you of him, he may be here to-morrow, and I have a message....” + +“_Here?_” + +“Let us go down that _allée_.” + +She hesitated, and he glanced like lightning at his watch. “Only three +minutes to be with you—come.” + +Now she walked with him into the dark of the _allée_, looking down at +the ground, like one magnetised, drawn with a cord. + +“For what reason will he be here?” she breathed. + +“On business.” + +“You are to inform your master, monsieur,” she then said in a haughty +manner, “if Monsieur Lepsius happens to be your master, that I know him +to be in much danger, so that he should have a care.” + +“Oh, trust in him!” said Monsieur Brisson imploringly, stumping along +by her side with dippings of his right shoulder; “do you imagine that, +loving you, he can miscarry? He feels that the breath of his love is +vibrant enough by itself to heave mountains out of their beds, and bear +them as bubbles to the sea. Nor is his danger so much; it will be +nothing, if you will consent to fly with me this instant.” + +“This instant?” she whispered furtively: “to fly? Away? With you?... +But what, then, am I? A beast, with a beast’s soul? Evil to the core? +Reckless, furious, moon-struck? Is there no Christ for me on high, I +wonder? No right? No wrong?” + +“If you came,” said her companion with some bitterness, though touched +by her trouble, “it would save much time; and you would come, if +hypocrisy was not your breath and bread,” upon which she rushed into an +irritation not to be restrained, crying, “That is monstrously untrue +and unkind! I mean well!” + +“Well,” he said, “I did not expect you to come with me, for I know you. +But you have to show me the windows of your bed-chamber.” + +Now she stopped walking, standing tall, gaunt, her heart galloping up +in her gorge, asking, “Why my windows?” + +“Oh, nothing: just show,” he muttered; and when she had stared a little +while at him, she paced on in silence. + +Presently she went down another _allée_ which led them to the terraces +at the front and south of the house, and hence went on to the brink +of a lake which laved with its waters a platform of marble at the +château-back. Not a soul was thereabouts, no sound, only the spirit of +the moon brooding upon the face of the lake and down the solitude of +avenues of yews; and here immediately Monsieur Brisson stooped to whip +off that thick-soled boot of his, whipped off his frock-coat, wrapped +his two boots, with his top-hat, his spectacles, and his waist-coat in +the coat, and cast all into the water, where they sank; in doing which +very hurriedly, he asked, “Well, which are your windows?” + +She, with her back toward the house and toward him, her brow bent +downward, replied to the ground in a proud guttural that trembled, “I +am sure I do not know why such a question should be asked of me.... My +windows happen to be those two on the first floor immediately over the +balcony-end near by the statue—since it seems that the knowledge is +desired.” + +The plash of the coat with its weight sounded now in the lake, and +“Monsieur Brisson,” that bow of his right leg quite gone, stood now +limber on his bare feet, his elbow suddenly about Miss Eve’s waist: +whereat she, feeling his lips stealing near her face, went fearfully +pale; nearer, and she shivered with sickness; nearer, and she sucked in +her breath as at luscious juice and shooting pangs, sighed “By heaven,” +and had his lips. + +He put her to lie on a bench of marble by the waterside, whence she +through her half-shut eyelids watched him run away with a deer’s ease +up an avenue of the park, and disappear in darkness. + +Some way down that avenue was a summer-house in a bower, and there the +runner stopped his career some seconds to conceal beneath the seat +some sheets of paper, a piece of pencil, and two tiny tools of steel +like keys, then shot on. And it was there that at 6 p.m. the next day, +as Lepsius was driving from St. Brieuc station to the château in a +carriage of Monseigneur Piscari, the carriage stopped, and was at once +surrounded by a crowd of _pioupious_ and others. When he demanded of +them what was the matter, they answered that he was a captive, and +Captain Pertius, who was with them, then proceeded, with a perfectly +ashen visage and hands which shivered like leaves, to search each nook +of Lepsius’ costume, even his shoes, searching especially for a certain +little key, which, however, was not to be found. Lepsius’ trunk was +sent on to the house, and everything taken from him. “Oh, let one have +his watch,” he protested, but without effect. However, by an act one +might say infinite in deftness, he contrived as he was being hustled +down out of the carriage to snatch behind him the watch of Shan Healy +who attended him, and was not seen. He was then imprisoned in the +summer-house with a sentry of some ten mounted upon him; and in there, +having taken the paper and pencil from their place of concealment +beneath the seat, he threw himself, face down, on the seat, and in a +brown light began to draw diagrams. + +On the day commencing to dim, he took out his collar-stud, touched it, +and it shed round his sheets an electric sheen. + +Soon after two in the morning he was removed to the room fitted out for +him in the tower; the same hour the members of the League being met in +council to congratulate each other and resolve on the next measures. + +But early the next day their joys suffered much alloy through the +turning up at the château of a certain Monsieur Brisson of Rouen, who +had no resemblance to that first Monsieur Brisson of the conference! +this new Brisson having the story to tell that, on going to a bogus +business interview in Rouen, he had been imprisoned in a room by a gang +of men, his papers grabbed, and he made to write a letter to his family +saying that he was safe, and in Amiens on affairs. Only after four and +forty hours had he been set free. So now the problem arose—_who_ could +have been that Brisson-of-the-limp who had attended the conference? + +Lepsius, however, was there in the tower, safe enough, which was +everything.... It was an eight-cornered chamber where he was, arranged +with some little luxury, and large; but he suffered, being unaccustomed +to be between walls, and here was but one window, with bars in it, +while, as to the lush carpet, the eye of his consciousness was at every +moment open to the microbic hordes that must be at barracks within it, +nor could he bathe with ease, he who bathed frequently each day, nor +was the food such as was usual with him, being much too luscious. + +This was first served to him by a person who had a beard and appeared +to be a man, but was not so loosely costumed but that certain curves +of the womanly could be observed in him—or her. On seeing her when she +bore in his breakfast, Lepsius moaned, and flew to the other extremity +of the chamber, where he held a chair-back, ready if she attacked; but +when she had put down the breakfast without glancing at him, and had +gone, his brow reddened, and having begged one of four guards for pen +and ink, he wrote to Monseigneur Piscari, asking whether monseigneur +was privy to the fact that one Jeanne Auvache, a convict with a mania, +who had been aided by his, Lepsius’, enemies, to evade prison, had been +sent to attend upon him. He received no answer to this, but the woman +ceased to appear at meals. + +It was a superb day—the third of July—and by springing up to his little +window-ledge, and hanging on, as he twice did, he could see groups of +elegant folk moving remotely over the terraces or gossiping in retreats +of greenery, appearing pigmy far down below all that half-globe of sky +and tabernacle-hall of cloud, like spirits idling in paradise; and +once he was able to make out the face of Mr. Vickery, and once knew +Miss Ruth, but of that form that his eyes sought saw no sign. + +Most of the day he spent on his face on his table over plans of +buildings and machines, which he concealed when the meals came in +at one o’clock and at seven in the evening—for it was not suspected +that he had any pencil and paper; and when the meals—none of which he +touched—had been cleared away, he bathed at a basin of delf ware that +stood on a tripod of iron under the window. This window looked toward +the west, though the tower itself formed the south-east corner of +the château, which looked eastward. So as the afternoon’s heat waxed +fierce in the room, he drew down his blind of dimity, and now continued +his labour cooler in a cave of shade which the blind’s maroon colour +imbrued with a blush of ruby; but when the sun had well declined, he +anew drew up the blind, sprang up to the window, and, like a monkey +peering keenly into something never previously seen among its trees, +clung on long to peer into the scene of the sunset—a sight rather high +and tragic really for the heart of a man, the sun going down all among +bars of crimson, the brow of God drooped, disgloried, His arms far +outcast in gory crucifixion. Then the door opened and the meal of the +evening came in, to be immediately taken away untasted; and now with +feet of impatience, frowning, the prisoner paced about the chamber. No +light was brought him when it became dark, for his jailers, having an +apprehension that he might turn objects to unusual uses, took care that +as few objects as might be should be in the chamber, not even a knife +having been taken him with the meals. But by the aid of an electric +stud, he spent some time in prying into the make of the lock of the +door, though he had already looked into it two nights before, after the +conference, in his rôle of “Monsieur Brisson”: which done, near eight +o’clock, shunning the bed with its bed-clothes, he chose a part of the +floor where no carpet was, cast a look at Shan Healy’s watch, and went +to sleep there. + +He knew (having been at the council), that at the hour of two he was to +be roused to go on board a brig, bound for the bastille on the Ile de +Bas; so he had commanded Shan Healy to conceal himself in the château +and come to the prison-door exactly at 1.50, so as to help Lepsius to +carry a load which Lepsius conceived that he would have need to carry. +Ten minutes, then, before that 1.50, at a moment when preparations were +being made in the château below to take him to the ship, Lepsius awoke +to act. He was still at the lock of the door with the two little tools +that he had hidden in the summer-house before his capture, when howls +of “Help! help!” broke out without the door, and he was made aware that +Shan Healy must be engaged in a struggle with the greenhorn _pioupiou_ +on guard out there; but the _pioupiou’s_ howls were at once drowned in +the sound of a disturbance resembling the bursting of some tremendous +drum somewhere, which just then made the château to tremble through its +breadth and length; and before that roaring was well over, Shan, who +had felled the _pioupiou_ with the _pioupiou’s_ lantern, broke blithely +with the lantern-light into the room, the lock of whose door had at +that moment opened to the key of Lepsius. + +But the poor fellow’s blitheness had no long life. He did not enter the +chamber alone—at least, scarcely less closely than a shadow follows +did the feet of a female follow him in. No word had yet been uttered +between Shan Healy and Lepsius, and Lepsius was just going to call +out “Come!” (in a din now as dreadful as all the guns of Armageddon +mouthing, the house racking its frame to fragments, the ground quaking) +when he changed his “Come” into a shout of “Out with the light!” at +the same moment bolting to the other side of the chamber. But either +Healy did not hear, or stood in a condition of mind too flurried for +sprightly action (for he, too, had spied the woman as she had slammed +the door after her); at all events, nothing was done as to the light, +and Lepsius, as he pelted, moaned, the ogress after him, staring, +her hair cut close, ugly, ghostly, grim as the very grave. “Shoot!” +shrieked the fugitive to Healy, who, too, was in hot pursuit; but, even +assuming that Healy was able to hear in the blare of that tumult, he +must have perceived that he lacked the time to fire—unless, indeed, he +was quite wondrously quick—because at that moment the woman’s arm was +drawn back to throw her liquid; he saw it; did not see that by this +time Lepsius was safe, having a chair with which to hide his face; and +as the fluid was starting from the vial, wildly Healy flew between, +receiving the bath of vitriol all over his right cheek and throat. + +He could not help shrieking...! + +“Idiot!” hissed Lepsius, who, as he now darted away, caught a weapon +out of Shan’s pocket, sent with one glance backward and a nervous +gurgle of chuckling a bullet into the woman’s bosom, which, however, +chanced not to end her, and was out and away. + +Right through the howling hell of the house from east to west he had +now to hie: and fleet were his feet and alight his eye. Twice only he +stopped a moment, once when, in pelting up a stair, he met flying down +in a nightgown a girl whom with his lowered head he felled by butting +her, knowing that if she descended she would be butchered; and a second +time he stopped in a corridor to take the vial and handkerchief which +as “Monsieur Brisson” he had placed there behind a painting. No want +of light anywhere: for at various places the building was already in +flames, which flames, serving as flambeaux, reddened the chambers +where no flame burned; but as he spurted onward with his vial, the +flooring violently sprang beneath his feet, and he was thrown against +a wall, where he remained rather aghast some moments, until smoke in +his throat caused him to cough, and anew he flew, though at one point +forced to win his way with toil and patience over floorless joists. +And afresh every forty seconds or so all the house started at a sound +which opened its mouth to appal the heart and astound the darkness +with the message of its solemnity, after each of which deep-mouthed +sounds count one second’s pause and waiting, and now came downfalls +crackling, like the brittle outbreaks of arrays of rifles prattling: +for the bombs resembling night-lights that “Monsieur Brisson” had left +behind statues, etc., had been timed to fuse, not in a mass, but one +by one; and though he had so placed them in the below-stairs as not +much to imperil the lives of the château slumberers, they were many, +and were meant by him thoroughly to wreck the structure wherein men in +their vanity had ventured to hem him. Anon he was aware of fugitives, +single or in groups, staring, conscious of sin and of doomsday come: +the Duc de Rey-Drouilhet, all toothless now, his nightshirt aflaunt, +flying down a curving stair, calling out upon the rocks and hills to +cover him; then the stout Abbé Sauriau clambering over a mound of +débris, his trousers unbraced; then through the fumes that rolled all +round a courtyard Miss Ruth Vickery in a dressing-gown on a gallery, +dragging her father faster than he could go, Monsieur de Courcy, too, +with them, Lepsius himself then flying along a lower gallery on the +opposite side of the court; and as they were going west—to see to Miss +Eve, he guessed—and were well ahead of him, never did his feet so +fleetly speed. The delay of some seconds occasioned by the invasion +of his chamber by Jeanne Auvache had disturbed the course of events +as forecasted by him, and he had hardly burst into his darling’s +apartments and turned the outer key, when her father’s poundings were +sounding at the panels without. + +Erect on her bare soles in an alcove, robed in a bedroom-robe of lace, +a stone stone-still, her hair a rope plaited to a bow of ribbon at her +knees, Miss Eve stood, waiting, aware of his tumults, but beauteously +dead, as one who has interviewed the stare of Medusa; and all in a +tick, like a cat fawning, Lepsius was cast at her feet, kissing them, +pleading, “Dear, will you come with me?” + +Her friends were pressingly clamouring at the entrance; they screamed, +“_Eve!_” + +She took no notice of them, if she heard; as to Lepsius, she hurled up +her right hand to strike him dead, crying, “You brute!” + +“Oh, do—for us two—beloved——” + +“I bitterly hate and abhor the pair of us!” + +“But you will get us both killed——” + +“Thank God!” + +Now he started up, an arm about her. “I have to make you faint,” his +handkerchief at her face; and like fate she took it, did not fight, or +very slightly, resigned herself, smiled, sighed, closed her eyes ... +and in some moments, by means of a sheet, he had reached the platform +of marble thirty feet beneath, heard through the turmoil in his rear +the noise of guns booming before—a signal from his yacht in the +bay—leapt the balusters with his burden into the lake waters, waded, +swam a bit, obliquely north-westward, reached the lake’s bank, and +there among reeds and bulrushes sat down to breathe and rest, her brow +on his breast. + +Southward, a smoke that soared to the clouds was being poured +out steadily from the château, which ever throed inwardly with +loud-bursting noises and sounds of rumbling like poisoned bowels and +Etna boiling; and that plume of fume-and-fire slanted continually from +point to point of the compass, for a wind boisterously blew, drizzle +sprayed the face, and the moon, while suffusing the night wildly with +the whiteness of her light, was herself quite hidden away out of sight +in cloud. + +Lepsius was soon up and gone again with his load, knowing that pursuit +would not be slow: but it was a great labour; the country there is +rugged; Miss Eve, drugged, could not, or would not, keep on her feet; +Healy, with whose help the load would have been easy, moaned in his +agonies somewhere; and the bay lay nearly a league away. + +However, half-way to the shore he found waiting in a gorge where the +gloom was gross under crags the Hindoo Nundcumar, together with four +of his mariners, their eyes raised to the inflamed sky; nor was it +long before a little half-harbour snoring in sleep between the arms +of beetling crags, a brig’s green and crimson beams, a steam-yacht’s +three beams, lay before them, and near a little pier of stone the men +of two boats who lay on their oars for him, one a boat of his foes, +one his own; and flushing the vault of heaven, even here, a false dawn +flung far abroad from the château, and over the shore the breakers +making their snoring, Miss Eve’s feet bleeding, and streamlets of +drizzle-spray in haste on her face. + +They lodged her, still unconscious (as it seemed), among cushions, +and plied to the ship, which, lying with steam at a moment’s notice, +immediately steamed away, turning toward the west: and rushing +she went, urgently churning the sea—a long boat burnished with +Tobin-bronze, burning the eye like a strip of the sun; and as the dawn +worked and began gradually to overspread all the world of waters and +of coast, Lepsius, prying a port on the stern, spied like pearl the +pinnacles of Serapis. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + AT SERAPIS. + + +Lepsius, to the amazement of men, remained at Serapis for weeks, to the +very eve of the Exhibition, though he quickly established a system of +posts and telephones with Monsieur Schuré and other men of importance: +as to which the Hindoo, Nundcumar, remarked to Shan Healy, “It is a +piece of slackness, this; once he would not have done this: but when +a woman comes in, great minds begin to go rotten, and look a little +ahead, my sonnies, and you will see their catastrophe head-over-heels.” + +It was then the turn of the Hindoo with his burned nose to drone by +the bedside of Healy; and Healy, who had conceived a fever from his +vitriol-dose, said with a moan, “Won’t she let him see her yet?” + +Nundcumar wagged his head meaningly-meaninglessly, going, “Not she: +true-blue British and A1, a queen of queens! keeps him dewrithing in +the deepest depths of hell! That morning when she landed, he thought +he had her, my sonnies; but, if he is artful, she is a bit artfuller +still: peeped through the rose-curtains of her palankeen, smiling +with him like any dancing-girl, gabbing and gossiping with him about +Serapis, and how he built it; then when she was in and saw Serapis, +and what it is, her nostrils spread a bit, her breath stops a bit; +but by the time he had got her into the west ivory seraglio, and gave +her to know that that was to be her special palace, she had come to +herself again, looking as compleased as Sir Punch himself, smiling +with him, and he with her, and she with him, all very fine and large; +so she halts before one of the bashi-bazouks guarding a hall, gaping +at his get-up, his thises and his thats, his whys and his wherefores, +makes him draw his sword to show her, all marquetry of little gems and +gold, his dagger, all marquetry of little seed-gems, a real pleasure, +delight and comfort to man’s ophthalmoscoptics; and, says she, ‘How +pretty, Lepsius!’ she says, drawing the dagger out of the guard’s paws; +‘oh, I mean to keep this; may I?’ So Mr. High and Mr. Mighty he looks +at her quick, then lowers his eyes, and at last he mutters, ‘Yes,’ +reluctantly. Then she begs him to go, as she has a migraine-ache, so he +hands her over to her ladies, and goes; and the moment he is gone she +squats to pen him a note: and what do you suppose was in it?” + +Shan Healy tossed for ease, moaning. “Anybody can easy enough guess out +what was in it; but how the deuce do _you_ know?” + +“I know and I know,” said the Hindoo with a moving head, “and what I do +not know is what man knoweth not, for that which is is shown unto me. +And in the note, word for word, she says, ‘Lepsius, I admit myself your +prisoner here in Serapis. You understand though, I think, knowing me +armed, that I instantly die if you venture to enter anew any part of my +palace; test me, I woo you, to see whether I mean it or not.—EVE.’ That +was her scribble, my sonnies, and the wording and reverbosity of her +constructing.” + +Healy opened and closed anew his sick eyes to reply, “_If_ it’s true.” + +“What, don’t you suppose I ever let slip something that’s true, for +form’s sake, in the hey-day and prime of life?” prated the utterly +senseless ape-tongue of the Hindoo that ambled blandly in a monotone +along, with the obscurest meanings anon, if meaning it had. + +“So he ain’t seen her since?” Healy asked. + +“He has seen her every day, though she little thinks it! for she is +artful, but he is artfuller still——” + +“Old gas-bag,” Healy moaned, “you said just now that _he_ is artful, +but _she_ is artfuller still.” + +“Both are artfuller than each one, my chum Healy,” Nundcumar said: +“_he_ is artfuller than she because he is of the guiley ones and artful +dodges, the beguilers and the wilers, and _she_ is artfuller than he +because she is a woman, and the guilt of womanhood is in the juice of +her gall-bladder. But he sees her when she little believes it: his eyes +have their peep-holes and their spy-places to weigh her and dwell upon +her when she’s wantoning on the water with her poet and her ladies, or +when she is walking under the arcade of the courtyard gazing at the +gauderies and the graces of her Persian and Delhi girls dancing with +their carcanets of pearl in the moonshine: for she grows every day +more luxuriatingous, which is the curse of Serapis for everyone who +enters it, from the lord of all to the low-cast coolie who polishes +the porphyries; and in these three weeks she has grown into a regular +begum-queen, true-blue old England as she is, and if he only waits a +bit, he will get and win her, be certain—that is, if she does not flirt +off abscond and run away first with the young poet Pershorez——” + +At this the sick man looked at Nundcumar to sigh, “Oh, you scandalous +tongue—if I only had the strength——” + +“Why, my friend Healy,” said Nundcumar, “have your ears not heard how +she pets her little Pershorez? Cannot stir without him near her! Feeds +him with sweetmeats, conserve of roses, orange-honey of Kauzeroon, and +all delights, almond-patés, and amusements! her eyes musing on his +eyes all an afternoon in that small hall of red andem-wood, while he +recites to her from Hafez and Ferdousi, sir-poets of Persia whom she +cannot understand a word, though she can well understand the face of +Pershorez, my sonnies, which is only made of cream of gazelle-milk +and rose-leaves fading, and his little figure more perfect in grace, +symmetry, curves, and very hungriness of perfecting than Thammuz, the +love-god that Syrian girls go thin for fancy of, and sigh for very +hungriness of delight, and die of. And that other one, the lord of +all, he knows, he knows, of this, because Barova, the little Arab +slave-maid, who is thin, faint and gaunt for love of lord Lepsius, +she pushed her way one night right into his private hall in the north +palace, and told out of her mistress, how the grossness of the sap +of womanly hungriness grows wanton in the arteries of her gall for +Pershorez; and first he could not grasp what the girl wished to say to +him, but then for very anguish of jealousy he cast back his head-piece +and laughed wild——” + +“Laughed for fun,” sighed Healy—“if any of it is true.” + +“For fun, may be, and may be not for fun,” the Hindoo said with a +moving head: “though not much fun in Serapis going on these days. Wait, +wait: for that’s bad, Healy, when the evil eye is cast upon a man, +and the villain woman with the vitriol is not yet dead, for first it +was poor old-boy Nundcumar on his oil-factory nose, and then it was +you, poor boy, and the third time it will be—another one of the ones. +That’s bad, that’s bad. And the seeds of disease spring and spread in +Serapis; he loses hours now in peeping and dreaming and brooding about +her—loose! looser every day; and when the woman comes in greatness +goes out and out, for the race of man would be a crowd of gods, but +the presence of woman relaxes his screw and corrupts his entrails. +Peeping, dreaming, like any Pershorez poet! and his Exhibition that +is all the talk coming so near! Several times he has passed hours +hanging about her: once stood guard disguised as a Mamaluke under that +cupola of enamels of her outer hall to see her pass close; and he has +fanned her face disguised as a slave-girl, where she sat listening +among her cushions to her Persian girls singing to the vina, with the +zels clashing aloud, and the kanoon-lutes making music and all sorts +of sounds, alarms, loudness and howdedo of melody; and he has come to +embalm her musk-baths, attended her bathing, painted her nails with +henna, and she with her weapon none the wiser——” + +The sick fellow whined at this, sighing, “Pity you’re quite so vile an +old liar, after all.” + +“Who—me?” said the Hindoo, a finger at his breast: “why, some of it +is true, my friend Healy, as the four and fourteen gospels! And how +about the letters that go between them, have you not heard of this? +For every day he writes her three-four times, and every morning that +dawns she writes him a line, though for two weeks she would not, but +when he raged, prayed, raved, consought and implored her with so much +squalling, pain, despair and foaming, she said at last that she would +write him one line every morning, giving him a puzzle-problem to solve, +since he is so witty, wise and witful in all wiles and witticisms, and +if ever once he failed wittily to answer her, he must agree to let her +go from her prison in Serapis to her parent, who is sick to death for +lack of her, though Sir Lepsius sends her daily the report that her +parent is in health and roarious spirits. So every morning that dawns +her note goes as regular as the milk-carts and the market-gardeners +all the way through from the west to the north of Serapis, wrapt in +satin in her poet’s hand; and one day the lady has written, ‘Lepsius, +tell me to-day if the spirits of men live ever and ever.—EVE’; and +one day she has written ‘Lepsius, write me to-day (with a why) which +wild-rose is sweeter and wilder: those all white on the weald, or those +which are washed as with shame.—EVE’; and one day she has written, +‘Lepsius, tell me to-day how the heavens and star-dust were formed +out of nothing.—EVE’; and he to her writes the most fantasticalest, +whimsiest, witticismest answers, replies and respondencies, as she has +shown them to her old Nundcumar when she sits listening with delight to +my tales, faries, frivols, and other lip-froth; and as to that of the +forming of the heavens and star-dust, he wrote her that, once upon a +time of the times, One Who Is, wishing to compose an oratorio of music, +brewed oceans of ink in a bowl of gold, and, holding in hand a pen of +gold, began to compose and throw off the notes of his oratorio; but +soon, when the beauty of the music stressed and throed in his soul, +so that he pressed well upon the pen, the pen splintered, and the ink +spattered, blotching with spots and splashes all the blackness of the +vault: so One Who Is roamed more remotely into the womb of gloom to +compose some more glorious oratorio. So they toy and coy, and bill and +coo together, my sonnies; but wait—let him go on: the seeds of disease +spring and spread in Serapis, say I; he gets slacker and laxer with +his idol-lady; wantonness and riot is growing among some of the scum +of the domestics; many of the men, and their commanders, too, are +grumbling with discontent because of regulatings and strictness; that +villain woman——” + +Here, however, the entrance of a sister-of-mercy, Healy’s nurse, whose +frown the Hindoo knew, interrupted and drove him out; immediately +whereupon Healy begged to be permitted to pen a note, and on gaining +the battle, wrote as follows: “Master Hanni, I beg to be forgiven for +writing to you, but as I do not much fancy now that I shall ever be +getting up out of this again, that’s why I take this liberty, which is +to say that I wish to God, Master Hanni, you would get that dog of a +Hindoo Nundcumar from being near about you, for he means you no good, +I doubt, and under the ridiculousness of a parrot this man hides ten +times the craftiness of a fox. Dear Master Hanni, you may not be aware +that thirteen years since Nundcumar was two years in Wormwood Scrubbs +Prison, near by London, for stealing two bicycles. And, Master Hanni, +that you may never cease to remember with any breath you breathe that +Jeanne Auvache remains alive is the dying prayer of yours till death, +Shan Healy. I’d give fifteen years, if I had fifteen days, to lay my +eyes on your face once again for one moment on this side, but that may +be a bit more than I can expect of you: and, if not, good-bye to you.” + +A little slave of Healy’s was at once sent out with this letter, which +two hours later reached the hand of Lepsius in the north-east regions +of Serapis, where he lay in a diwan-i-am, or hall of audience; and +his glance having lassoed in one swoop the significance of the note, +he threw it among other notes into an alcove of the throne in which +he lay, saying to a gentleman (a commissaire) who sat with him, “No, +Monsieur Hugonnet, you have my assurance: she is not in Serapis; she +perished in the collapse of Egmond.” + +“Not so, monsieur, I think,” said Monsieur Hugonnet, a big bureaucrat, +who ever struck the wind with his eye-glass in his fingers: “that +theory is no longer tenable, for it is now established that some shreds +of her body must have been found. Moreover, you do not forget the crew +of the brig’s boat who saw a lady carried into your boat?” + +“It was another lady,” replied Lepsius, smiling, “as ten days ago I +gave myself the pains to prove to Monsieur Leflô and Lord Rawlinson.” + +“Monsieur, I admit it,” the commissary replied: “you have conclusively +proved that Miss Vickery is made of air; this, nevertheless, seems a +matter in which frankness, reasonableness and right feeling might well +be invoked on both sides. Think, monsieur—the lady’s father lies half +dead of it; and the English Government, I give you my word, monsieur, +grows every day more earnest, more urgent——” at which Lepsius, jumping +up with a rather reddened brow, went walking about a hall all pillars +of marble, between which stretched screens of perforated marble and +filigrees of gold, screens low enough for one to overgaze, away below, +the crags of the Brittany coast, and, away beyond these, a streak of +sea, indigo corruscated with snow-glints under the sun’s glare. + +“_Let_ the English Government grow urgent,” Lepsius, returning to +Monsieur Hugonnet, suddenly said: “what then? What would you and it +have? Have I not allowed your troops to enter and ransack every crack +of Serapis? Have you found Miss Vickery? No. So, then, she is not +here? Nor is she made of air, monsieur, believe me, but of flesh and +blood, and her palms, if you palpate them, will be warmer to you than +the bark of the maple. So, why have you not found her? And how much +more of my time shall I have to lavish on this matter?” + +“Serapis is not so much a palace as a town——” the commissary commenced +to say. + +“Still, you have searched it throughout!” + +“Let us search it again, monsieur, for certainty’s sake!” + +“Again? And when?” + +“Say to-morrow, will you?” + +“Well, it is ridiculous; still——” + +“Scribble me a pass, monsieur!” + +Lepsius scribbled a pass for the following day, and the commissary went +away. + +As for Lepsius, he had no fear of the legal visit, since his reason +for giving Miss Eve her (west) palace was that in it were rooms so +curiously and astutely concealed, that no keenest wit could suspect +them; and on the previous visit of the police Miss Eve was easily +induced on some excuse to step, unsuspecting, into one of these. So +Lepsius smiled, as he once more stepped up to recline in his kind of +throne, little thinking that that commissary was more cunning than he +looked. + +He was about to sound for the following interview, but instead put out +his hand to Healy’s letter: did not, however, lift it; but, his hand on +it, reflected a little; then sprang up, and ran out, down the length of +three corridors, across a hanging gallery, guards making him salaam, +down a stair, along a lake, southwestward always, knowing his way +without fail, slaves and dignitaries, going on their various duties, +standing agape, saluting his tunic’s glare, his turban’s egrette of +heron’s feathers aburn with seed-pearl, and up a curved stairway to +a certain curtain: and Healy’s Ursuline nurse stood up amazed to see +him peer in, and wished to wake Healy, who lay breathing strangely in +sleep; but Lepsius restrained her. + +Lepsius stood about two minutes, looking down at that rash on the sick +brow, the bandages on the breached cheek; took up, looked at, smelled +two of the medicine bottles; took up and held the sick hand; and, +holding it, gazed out with a brow of trouble through a great window +which was hollowed out in Moorish ogives, out into a court where +the whiteness of a minaret in the midst of a lake was reflected far +down in the water, with zephyrs flirting along the water’s surface: +an afternoon in July in which all that Brittany country slumbrously +basked, and bumblebees, as air-boats trading, tromboned a moment, as +through steamboat throttles, their boom of music across the ear-drum +dreamily, and cruised to some other ear. Somehow Lepsius sighed. And +whispering the sister, “Tell him that I came,” he went away in haste. + +But he had hardly passed beyond the door’s hanging, when a French +functionary with a wild and white face, wringing his hands together, +raced to him with the hiss, “My God, monsieur, all is lost! Monsieur +Hugonnet has gained admission with a squad of gendarmes, and is now +searching Miss Vickery’s house!” + +Quickly Lepsius’ eyes stirred from side to side. What had happened +he saw: Hugonnet, aiming to take Lepsius by surprise (as he did!) +had adventured to present to the guards at the great gates the pass +intended for the morrow, and they had not noticed the date; nor was +there any possibility of inducing Miss Eve at a moment’s notice to +move into one of the secret rooms, nor any possibility of checking the +officers in their search, nor any possibility of keeping her a prisoner +in Serapis, if she was once seen, nor any possibility of living without +keeping her.... + +Lepsius flew.... + +Not toward the west palace, but back toward his own north, and not the +way he had come, but as the bird flies, one eye on the watch on his +palm, one on the way he went, once swinging over a wall, once swimming +an oval of water, trampling flower-beds, routing men, making one bound +of stairs, while the fowls of the air cried out their affright at his +flight; and now like whirlwind his fingers were scattering among masses +of trinkets and things in a certain mahogany, he groaning in his soul; +got what he wanted; and now was gone again, going straight as the bird +goes, west and south, swinging, swimming, bounding, and now at last was +in the south-west house. + +Standing within a doorway under a dome, he heard above-stairs the sound +of the troop; and stealing in a tick up sixty steps on the belly, his +wet streaming on the alabaster, he spied the troop, who, he saw with +spite, were just moving from one of his secret rooms, proving treachery +in Serapis. And on they went, Monsieur Hugonnet and ten gallants in +gaudy garments with swords, walking with a swagger between two white +walls with lines of doorways in them that seemed without any end, he +hiding behind, wriggling with eagerness as a tigress wriggles about to +spring, hearing now a sound as of the harp far off (which, however, the +gendarmes seemed not to hear), and aware now where Miss Eve was. So the +moment that the commissaire, examining a plan in his hand, went into a +doorway with his men, Lepsius sped on to slip ahead of them, but before +he could get to the door heard the sound of the searchers coming out +again, a glance having shown them that no one was in there: and he had +to shy into a side-corridor on the right. And now on a sudden the sound +of the strings of an instrument struck to the ears of the seekers, +too; they looked alive; “Come on!” cried the commissaire, and on they +stepped. Now Lepsius sped ten-footed to the right down the length of +his side-corridor, turned at its end down a second corridor, turned +left down a third, and in this last spurted through door-curtains +into a room, before ever the troop had attained the bottom of their +corridor—a room of monstrous circumference, domed with moresque-work in +gold, and, though looking a ghost of marble, cool, too, and balmy, its +circle of rose-curtains being all closed, embarring a grotto of umbrage +within, which was pregnant with fragrances of frankincense burning in +urns and cassolets. Two fountains wheeled about its centre, between +these in the wilderness of floor being one flush of colour and odour of +woman, cushions, stuffs, rugs, for snugly grouped there lay an oasis +of ladies making music, Miss Eve seated in their midst, cuddling a +gazelle which lay chewing the sugar of its cud with lids of indolence. +All at once she was up, tall! a weapon started out of her breast, yes, +and was brought down, and would have been driven to her heart, if the +feet of Lepsius had been by one whisp less fleet, or his eye less wise. +He had her in his arms, the ataghan-dagger cast far, she struggling +against a handkerchief which he held on her face, with stifled cries +of “Let me go! Lepsius, let me go!” He, however, clearly hearing now +the near-coming of the steps in the corridor, pressed heavily, had +her senseless, laid her down on the yatag (ground-bed) where she had +been sitting, and drew to her chin a coverlet over her. At that moment +the troop stood at the door, and, had the music not ceased on his +entrance, Lepsius, however speedy-handed, could not have succeeded; he +had counted, however, upon the music ceasing: and during the seconds +that the troop remained out there in a state of hesitation as to which +was the chamber of the music, his raging hands had her face brown with +some ulmin or umber-stain, had his turban bound about her brows, her +mouth, cheeks, submerged beneath a snow of beard. “Say ‘_sh-h-h_’ if +one enters,” he whispered, “fan her,” and he vanished. + +Some seconds later Monsieur Hugonnet and his troop rapped, came in, +inspected the group of Oriental maids, the poet (lone male among women) +with his lute, the gazelle, and the old Ulema, Imam or Cadi taking +siesta on the yatag in his turban, softly fanned by his girls. The +gendarmes cast glances at the group of girls—could hardly be got to +move on; but presently searched through the hall, and spent the rest of +the day in searching Serapis in vain. + +Nor did Monsieur Hugonnet go out as he came in. In passing down a stair +in the north palace, he and several of his men slipped down it, three +spraining their legs; in one place he got an electric stroke; and in +his going out of Serapis a grate gave way under him—a grate that had +sustained all his men—nor was it without difficulty that he was raised +up, half-drowned in filth, out of a drain. + +Thus ended the final attempt of the two Governments to find the +prisoner in Serapis. But no sooner did the Governments begin to give +up than her sister, Miss Ruth, said, “_I_ will find her”: and two +days after that failure of the police, late in the evening, Lepsius +received a request to admit Miss Vickery, for no one was admitted into +Serapis unless permitted; and he at once sent for her. + +“Alone?” said he, with his elbows laid on a table to stare at her paled +face upon which a lamp shone, she seated with her luggage (a hand-bag) +at her feet, a pretty sprig in her hat, for she liked little fineries +and vanities, provided they were very cheap. + +“Yes,” she replied to him, “quite alone.” + +“You have come to see—Serapis?” + +“Why, what a question—for Eve!” + +“If I had Eve, do you imagine that I should give her to you?” + +“I am even sure that you will, if I beg you.” + +“Beg me, and see.” + +“You admit, then, that you have her.... Tell me whether she is well!” + +“No, she is not in Serapis. I fancy I know where she might be traced, +but she is not in Serapis.” + +“Oh, fie, you tell lies; why, I have seen her here.” + +“You?” + +“Yes, three afternoons ago, in a dream. I hardly ever go to sleep in +the day-time, but somehow that afternoon about two sleep overpowered +me, and Eve lay before my feet. She lay asleep, and she was an old man +with a beard somehow, and yet she was Eve, and a goat with its forelegs +doubled underneath it fed by her feet, and it was here in Serapis, I +knew very well, in a room with a dome over it.” + +Lepsius, staring at her, remained dumb. + +“So you see,” she remarked with an underlook, “there are more kingdoms +than you have visited.” + +“Myriads more,” he mumbled. + +Now all of a sudden she brought down her fist masterfully upon the +table, bending forward. “Let me take her back to her poor papa!” +whereat he laughed with a sort of wrath, crying, “_I!_ I have her for +ever and ever!” + +“Have you married her, may I ask?” + +He, his gaze on the table, mumbled, “If I even go near her, she raises +a dagger to pierce her bosom.” + +“Good old Eve,” breathed Miss Ruth, staring in surprise; but added +immediately with veiled eyes, to soothe the agonies which she guessed, +“that is not because she loves anyone less, but because she loves God +more.” + +“You are an unintelligible family,” he remarked with half a shrug. + +“Oh, but well-meaning, I think, well-wishing,” she said. “Anyway, +if—since—she may not come with me, I will stay with her.” + +“No; if you stay, you stay a captive; and, if I allow you to, I thereby +avow that Eve is here.” + +“No one will know but my papa, who promises you, if you will let me be +with her, never to tell anyone.” + +“So, then,” asked Lepsius, “you imagine me sufficiently childish to +rely upon your father’s promise?” + +“You do not? Really? How curious! Well, _I_ undertake, then——” + +“Your undertaking is without weight. Moreover, you once before broke a +promise that you made me.” + +“When?” + +“At The Towers, as to betraying my presence to Dr. Lepsius....” + +“Oh, but if one meant well! Look, now, into one’s eyes....” + +She looked into his, and he into hers, which had water and all her +heart in them—ten seconds, twenty, thirty—until his dropped at her +purity, with a murmur of the word “sweet” on his lips. + +Then he said, “But you are all against me; you would be speaking +against me to Eve.” + +“Well, then, I will undertake never again to do that.” + +“That is not enough; I say no, unless you will undertake to woo her in +my favour.” + +“Now, how can I? Is she not affianced to——?” + +“How laughable!” shouted Lepsius: “she shrieks with laughter at the +mere thought of such a farce! De Courcy is a gnat, a limpet in a hag of +peat-water! And since you, meaning well, could break your promise made +to me, why may not Eve, meaning well, break her promise made to this +ape-man?” + +“Oh, I,” Miss Ruth replied with her touch of flippancy, “I’d crash +through a promise like piecrust any day, if I saw fit, for I think +that a Christian is set free from rules, and in the pure every crime +is pure. My sister, however, regards herself as more bound by laws and +modes, and as to departing from a promise once given, it has always +been her way, I know, to regard that as rather a ghastly business. But +suppose that somehow the fact of her espousal could be overcome, how +can I ever possibly cry back to your cause, knowing that you are not a +Christian?” + +Lepsius smiled. “If that be all, regard the knot of Gordium as cut: I +become a Christian this night.” + +“How will you—‘this night’?” + +“Isn’t there something about being plunged into holy water?” + +“To be plunged into holy water is hardly to be a Christian, I think.” + +“What, then, is?” + +“To wish well to the world, I think; to live to serve it; to stand +piously alert to suffer and die for it”—with down-turned lids she +uttered this, and, as he heard it, his brow twitched once; then +bringing his mouth down to the table, he mumbled, as it seemed, to +nobody, “A lady here to be led away west,” and as a guard in gauds +appeared, he remarked to Miss Ruth, “You will hardly be able to +persuade me that you are a thinker, you know; but I am persuaded that +you are in some way the sweetest of sisters and girls, and a prisoner +whom Serapis will not readily let go.” + +“Have I won, then? Am I about to see her?”—Miss Ruth bounded +upright—“oh, but you are pretty good, after all, and I shall never, +never forget you whenever I lift my eyes to the hills of God.... How is +she? How far is it? May I go now?” ... Lepsius was whispering to the +guard, who soon afterwards turned to Miss Ruth, and it was in quite +a gush of girlish flutter and flightiness of glee that she went with +her guide’s steps, inclined to prattle, crying anon, “Why, Serapis is +all like a white metropolis swimming on water!”—for all the lights of +Serapis had by this time been lit, and beamed star-wise far and near in +myriads, as it seemed—white, crimson, green—streaming on negro waters +that gleamed like steel, so that it all seemed of the drama of some +teeming dream. But when at last they came to the west-end, it was only +to be told that the lady of the place was away on the west lake with +her playmates; and making their way to this with haste and impatience +through alleys and courts, an increasing roar now sounding in their +ears, the pair of seekers stood on the lake’s shore and shouted. During +some moments, however, Miss Ruth screamed “Eve!” without result, +inasmuch as the gondola of gold-moresque in which Miss Eve rowed was +close under the gross roar of a cataract that rolled with a hoary +angriness, Niagara-like, over crags near a hundred feet deep at one +end of the parallelogram of water that made the lake—a lake surrounded +with towering house-walls and crags. But soon Miss Ruth was seen from +the boat, Miss Eve screamed, and before many moments the sisters were +breast to breast, uttering breathless syllables, broken with kisses. + +“But—let one look at you!”—and when Miss Eve exhibited herself, “Is +this Eve?” the other asked, for Miss Eve was in a garb all of flimsies +of the Orient as gaudy as rainbows—silk-muslins, gauzes—her ears gross +with ear-rings of coral-rock and gold, a kefie-cloth draping her face, +with her gazelle, her maids, her boy-poet wearing his embroidered +sandals and strings of little pearls.... + +“Well, this is Eve,” breathed Miss Ruth, musing upon the other with her +bambino eyes, a smile of happiness chronic on her lips; “and whatever +can that be on your nails?” + +“Henna.” + +“Eve!” + +Miss Eve snapped her thumb and finger gaily up in the air saying, “Oh, +well, never say die, and in Rome let’s row with the Romans; once I was +queen of the Greeks, hundreds of eras ago. Come, sweet, to see the +seraglio,” and thither they hurried. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +TO SHUNTER. + + +Lepsius, the Exhibition being now about to begin, should have been +in Paris, but was at Serapis: and that was a true word of the gossip +Nundcumar that woman works a relaxation in the screw of greatness, +and taints its vein. Paris was strange; and the weather there +“treacherous,” as they say. Frequently each day Lepsius was in +communication with Monsieur Fautras, his broker, and with Schuré, his +chief engineer. A rumour was abroad that the last of the Moon Debenture +Bills (asking the sanction of the Chamber to the issue of yet new +stock to the tune of a milliard and a half) would hardly be carried, +because of another rumour that the moon-structure itself was fated to +failure: an event that must ruin very many investors. So the croakers +and screamers arose and mouthed: the scheme, they screamed, was +never sound; down all at once one day from par to 97 fell the stock; +speeches breathing rage were everywhere being made, in the streets, on +’Change, in the Chamber; newspapers furious with froths of abuse—true +Paris-babies, created to live three days—saw the light, cried, and +died; pamphlets, pamphlets, flooded the cafés; Lepsius, men said, had +fled. + +During all which a kind of riot one afternoon (the seventh of July) +sprang up in Serapis itself. As the old Nundcumar told it with a +moving head to Miss Ruth Vickery at the bedside of Healy that evening, +“Sir Lepsius was at the telephone when Captain Bréhat broke into his +presence with a face like volcano-ashes mixed with fire-flashes, to +bring him the message news and betidings that some two hundred and +fifty of the private troops had broken loose, and had wrecked two of +the barrack-rooms. So Sir Lepsius finished his talk and chit-chat at +the telephone, and then, starting off with a malign light in his eyes, +though smiling ever his smile of the smiles, caught up a weapon of +queer and dark appearances, and ran away to a square in the north-east, +where the crew of them stood—all picturesque rascals of Spahis, mixed +with Turcos, Mamalukes, Zouaves, Uhlans, Don Cossacks, some of them on +horse-back, but most on foot in their half-dress, all under arms, so +that the heart, missie, paused under the bosom-bone to see it through. +Three-four of them said ‘Bravo,’ on beholding Sir Lepsius come, but +the brows of the rest only scowled blackly at him, and one big Spahi +spurred out to him with his grievance-list. Never a word breathed +Sir Lepsius from first to last, but as the grievance-list was going +to be presented, all at once he sprang like a flea of the fleas to +the ringleader’s horse-back—a great Hungarian horse, all rings and +piebalds—and he began to stick the horse with his penknife like a pig, +here and there, till the creature in its raging, plunging, prancing, +and very arrogance of arrogances dashed down the ringleader on the +ground. Then Sir Lepsius shot his gun-shot up in the clouds, and +down upon the crowd of them a shower of shot dropped back broadcast +and hard-hitting; at the same moment he aimed the gun at them, drove +the Hungarian mare at a gallop round about, pressing them, and on a +sudden they were gone in a rout with bowed backs, as a crowd rushes +out of a shower suddenly. Then he came again to the north palace, and +later in the afternoon got the news that all was well, as the troops +had resumed their duties. But wait, wait, it is not done with yet——” +He stopped, Miss Ruth rising to wipe the lips of the dying man in +silence.... + +But it was, in truth, not “done with”: for the very next forenoon the +troops anew broke into mutiny, and Lepsius was told that one part of +the soldiers’ quarters was being burnt. He had already observed the +redness of it in the sky, spent twenty seconds in dire reflecting, and +then sped away, intending this time to be terrible. It was a morning +of storm that spat dribble and brine, the strip of sea seen from the +higher parts of Serapis had an appearance of wrath, a league to the +east a brigantine had been wrecked in the night, the sky was all grey +and hurried like a current, and all pools of water darted darkling +continuously under the swoops and pursuits of the squalls. Lepsius +was making headway in the teeth of it eastward to the scene of the +_émeute_, when, to his amazement, a maid came pelting to meet and +present him a line scribbled on the fly-leaf of a Bible, “Pray, sir, +do not come to the men. It will be well.—RUTH VICKERY.” Nevertheless, +he ran on; and presently, peering through a wicket, saw Miss Ruth with +the mutineers in a court, moving to and fro before them, her hair blown +loose over an old cloak of faded blue that enfolded her, flapping, +on her head a forage-cap of the men, she haranguing them loudly in +French against the sounding of the gale. Lepsius stood too far off to +know what was being said, but saw Miss Ruth laughing anon, the troop +laughing also, soon became aware of a rumour of voices raving “Bravo!” +then of Miss Ruth pointing at the flame, as if enjoining the troop +to hasten to help in its suppression, then saw them press pell-mell +through a gate and go, taking her in the current of their haste. + +In truth, Miss Ruth was at present no more a prisoner in Serapis, but +roamed whithersoever she chose in and out of it, visiting the Breton +peasants round about, the sick in Serapis, and corresponding whenever +she chose with her parent, to whom she wrote that the angel of the Lord +had broken the bars of her prison. On the whole, she was so well known, +and with so much respect, to everyone in Serapis, that it may have been +beyond the wit of Lepsius, had he willed it, to keep her strictly a +prisoner. At any rate, the _émeute_ thus suppressed did not recur; and +Lepsius pondered this anon. + +Little enough time had he for pondering, however. That forenoon of +wet and wind the slump in moon-stock continued from 97 to 95, and +at nine that night a crowd that had waited for hours outside the +Palais-Bourbon in the storm, unharnessed the horses from Monsieur de +Courcy’s brougham, and brought the Minister home with hurrahs, because +his thunder at the Debenture Bill had resulted in its overthrow. + +“Thrice on the eighth,” writes Saïd Pasha in his Notes, “I raced across +to the Rue de la Chausée d’Antin, on each occasion getting wetted to +the skin, in order to talk with Lepsius through Monsieur Schuré’s +private telephone. On each occasion I had to wait, since others were +before me. The first time I saw Colonel Doumic, Monsieur Leflô and +Cardinal Dampmartin talking together, standing in a corner of the +drawing-room; and two hours later when I returned they still stood +in the same place, talking. The house, in fact, was much frequented +throughout the day, people coming, lingering, going, and coming +again; but no sign of either host or hostess. The Abbé Sauriau, who +for some time sat alone on a sofa with his legs crossed, perusing +with quite evident surprise and delight an old book of his own—it +was his _Pindar_—told me that Monsieur Schuré ‘was supposed’ to be +at home, but abed, in a condition of alcoholism; while as to Madame, +Colonel Doumic, who had a cold in the head, and trumpeted persistently +through the nose, told me that the lady was spending three days with +her sister at Meudon. To Monsieur Favre, the Procurator-General, +and to me the colonel also made this remark, ‘My friends, let the +politicians do their worst, but what can un _tas de pékins_ do to the +individual in question when the name of Lepsius still raises a cheer +in each company of _pioupious_ through France?’ I wished that I could +share in his confidence, but to me who knew the under-currents and +each secret wire which each of the puppets obeyed, it appeared quite +beyond the ingenuity of a Nestor and a Richelieu in one to save the +situation. ‘Nothing has happened!’ exclaimed General Le Goffic, the +Prefect’s aide-de-camp, to me at Bignon’s near eight in the evening, +‘and yet what a revolution in public opinion within these two little +weeks!’ ‘_Mon ami_,’ added the old Orléaniste, who was a descendant +of the mulatto Ducs de Dornis, and still at seventy a gallant figure, +‘the individual in question thought to inaugurate an empire on the +race-course at Longchamp, as the Prince de Condé is said to have +begun the battle of Lérida to the cry-cry of a dozen violins: but the +fantastic soon ceases to amuse at a cost of three milliards. As to “La +Lune,” since the word means also the part of the human person on which +children are spanked, it was always certain that this fact, by itself, +would doom the scheme to failure. At the actual moment, what hope +remains, monsieur? since we know that when Belleville, St. Antoine +and Ménilmontant have pricked the ear, _le plis est pris_, and Heaven +itself is helpless. In passing down the Boulevard Majenta just now, I +encountered a crowd bounding south, to the Palais-Bourbon, no doubt, +singing “Conspuez Leps_ie_, conspuez Leps_ie_, conspuez”—the grave +sound on the last syllable of “Leps_ie_”—a truly gross and terrible +growl.’ + +“Well, at half after eight a messenger hastened to tell me that Isabeau +Thiéry was about to mount the tribune, and to the Palais-Bourbon Pierre +Huré and I set off in a fiacre, seeing on the way streams of people +who were speeding to join the crowd that loitered round the House, +without seeming to heed the showers and the noise of the wind. Having +reasons of my own for not desiring to be seen within the Chambre des +Députés itself, I strolled in the Salle des Pas Perdus, while Thiéry, +ever the _enfant terrible_ of the Députés, rolled his periods in the +interior. Among us outside in the Pas Perdus the question was, ‘Is +Thiéry speaking for or in opposition to the Debenture Bill?’ and +managing to seize upon the old Major-General Dauriac, one of the three +Quæstors, who came rushing in, I put to him the question. He shrugged +both his shoulders on high, giving me the reply, ‘Who knows, my friend? +In the former half of his oration Thiéry has denounced the Bill, but +now is no less loudly sounding its praises. _C’est un homme nul, ce +monsieur-là_’—and he hastened on his way. + +“I did not remain during the oration of Monsieur de Courcy, who +followed Isabeau Thiéry in the tribune, but hurried back northward +in order to have direct speech with Lepsius himself. I now found the +_salon_, the stairs, the passages of Schuré’s house actually crowded—I +am unable to state why, since Schuré himself remained invisible—men +of the Bourse, newspaper-men, men-of-state, besides a number of mere +well-dressed _badauds_ and _désœuvrés_. Monsieur Fautras, the broker +of Lepsius, was speaking with General Figuier, the Military Governor +of Paris, and with Graf Bobertag of the German Embassy, which last +arrested me thirteen minutes with conversation of a secret nature. To +Lepsius I then spoke of the tone of Paris up to the present, and was +surprised that, though I had come at full speed, he already knew the +gist of Thiéry’s speech. It was said, indeed, that he had mysterious +instruments by means of which he could see and hear that which takes +place at a distance, though I myself have never seen any such with +him: at any rate, I now freely revealed my fears, reading to him some +headlines from the evening papers, and even venturing to say that the +air of Paris was believed to be bearable even in September! He took +it coldly. But did he ever know his friends? Was Lepsius ever capable +of appreciating the nature of friendship? Yet how he was loved by a +few! and how he was abhorred by all, even by the few who loved him! +‘I knew,’ he replied to everything of mine. ‘The Debenture Bill will +undoubtedly now be thrown out,’ I told him. ‘I knew,’ he answered, +adding, ‘it is of no importance, if Schuré be kept staunch: I rely upon +you to keep him staunch.’ This astonished me. ‘How can I?’ I asked. +‘Keep close to Thiéry to-night and to-morrow,’ he replied, ‘influence +him, and you will find out how I can repay.’ ‘Monsieur,’ was my answer, +‘I will do this with much pleasure without the prospect of any such +discovery.’ ‘Many thanks,’ said he. ‘I have,’ I then said, suddenly +remembering it, ‘to deliver to you this message from Mr. E. Reader +Meade, that it might be most inadvisable at the actual moment to try +to tempt Thiéry in a monetary sense’—a suggestion which (unless I was +mistaken) had the effect of strangely irritating Lepsius, for he made +me the amazing reply, ‘Monsieur, the oak is hardly the highest form of +life,’ and closed the interview. + +“I at once set out on the quest of Thiéry, wondering within myself +how it was that Lepsius was not that night in Paris! Was it _because_ +of the very hardship of combating the storm from the place in which +he happened to find himself that he decided to remain in it? Some +stiffness of neck? Some arrogance? For he was arrogant. Nothing was +greater than the grossness of his arrogance, save the glory of his +lowliness. Seeing men, he felt himself a deity; but he was saved from +even the least taint or vein of vanity, because his consciousness was +so quick and large, that no less nearly and clearly than he saw men +he saw stars, and felt himself a flea. At any rate, he could never be +induced to take the human race quite _au sérieux_; he abided in his +Brittany. + +“Thiéry I did not light upon until nigh on eleven in the night, and +then in the unexpected quarter of his own tiny _apartment_ in the +Rue de Rome—a two-roomed den, with a _cuisine_ and a vestibule; and +it was necessary for me to sit waiting in the vestibule, since the +Abbé Sauriau was there in the _salon_, engaged in talk which it was +altogether impossible for me to escape hearing, since nothing separated +us save an aged green drapery, which the gale, penetrating between +the beams, waved in my face. Thiéry was going up and down wrapped in +a greasy dressing-gown, a fez on his head, the abbé being seated, +speaking ceaselessly; nor was it long before I knew that it was a +question of offering Thiéry the portfolio of Justice as from Monsieur +de Courcy, who that day could have foreseen for himself nothing less +than the Chief Magistracy of France. Thiéry did not accept, did not +reject it. The abbé coaxed, quoted, fawned, exhorted, flattered. ‘The +destinies of France rest this night on your shoulders’; ‘it is for you +to-night, my friend, in rocking the tocsin of enfranchisement, to toll +once and no more for ever the death-knell of despots.’ ‘But the Army,’ +said Thiéry, ‘the Army.’ ‘Can the Army rescue a ruined man?’ asked the +abbé; and he added, ‘Listen, my friend, you are not a financier, but +you know that the company started with a capital of three milliards +in 1,200,000 shares of 2,500 francs each; you know, too, that 800,000 +ordinary shares were offered at par to the public at the first issue, +as to which the individual in question not only gave his guarantee to +pay four per cent. interest during construction, but to repay every +ordinary shareholder at par, if the venture should prove a failure. +And if it does!—as it is in your power to make it! Could revenues so +countless really come out of any private fund and not leave it dry? And +how in the day of his failure may the Army avail to save him from the +wrath of France?’ But numbers always dropped like water on a duck’s +back upon the skull of Isabeau Thiéry: and the breezes penetrating +beneath the door chilled my shins, and still he remained in his +indecision of mind. Finally he undertook to deliver his reply as to the +portfolio before twelve the next day, and the Abbé Sauriau then went +away. + +“It was then my turn to convert the poet, and certainly I worked with +no little fervour, throwing off reserve. I blessed with my hands +upon its head the bust of Cæsar on the mantel-piece; I spoke of the +offer of the portfolio as a bribe, and as unpatriotic in spirit; +I said ‘as in 1814,’ and ‘the destinies of France’; I spoke of the +crowd of crowned heads then in Paris to be present at the opening of +the Exhibition, and of their exultation to behold the overthrow of +that being who was the hope of France; and, sitting on his table’s +edge, his face glowed gallantly when in glaring hues I sketched the +glories of the future. Lepsius, I saw, occupied a place in his heart. +Unfortunately, just as 12.45 struck, in came Monsieur Josef, formerly +a _mouchard_ of the Rue de Jerusalem, then a man who to Lepsius was +‘P.2.’ The moment I beheld him I had a boding of trouble; and, certain +that the envelope that he delivered to Thiéry derived from Lepsius, I +kept my eyes fixed upon Thiéry while he read. Thiéry at once turned +quite worm-white; one could observe how his fingers quivered; and, +getting down from the table, he began to move about the room in an +absent manner, with a bosom somewhat breathless, and a visage at once +flushed and blanched in patches. I muttered to myself, ‘Lepsius must +have tempted him with some momentous money-offer.’ He walked presently +near to me, and with his arms quivering and somewhat spread appealed +rather piteously to me with a ‘Mon ami!’ He then began to walk about +again; till now again he halted to frown piercingly into the bust of +Cæsar on the mantel-piece; and now, beating his palm with his finger, +he breathed, ‘But no, but no, the Eagle does not blink’; and all at +once he was scarlet, cast up his head, letting slip a little ‘Ha!’ and +suddenly all in a hurry and flurry, muttering to himself, ‘Stop, he is +going to see,’ he was gone away. + +“He very soon hurried in again from his bedroom, dressed, drawing on +a glove, begging me to forgive him, since he must necessarily go. I +ventured to ask him whither, and his answer, ‘Ah! to Meudon,’ convinced +me that all was lost.... + +“When I flew to tell Lepsius of it, he during two seconds or so stood +mute, then very hurriedly said, ‘Thanks. I’ll look to it’....” + +What Lepsius did on learning of the disaster was urgently to telephone +a certain course of conduct to an agent in Chantilly; he then at once +summoned to his presence the Due de Rey-Drouilhet, who during two days +had been staying at Serapis; and he took two pilules out of a cabinet +and put them in a pill-box. + +As soon as the duke came in he was struck staggering a step or two +against one of the pillars, for the hall, all open to the four winds, +was all vocal and haunted with the storm, and half its area of floor +was as washed with rain-water as a ship’s quarterdeck. Lepsius seated +the old man near him in the middle, and speaking as low as the sound +of the winds allowed, said, “I wish to pray you to set off for Paris +for me by my next special at 1.6; for if you wish to prove useful to +me, and at the same time to make yourself affluent for life, this is +your chance of chances. I may tell you that Thiéry has just taken train +from Paris to Meudon to see his sister, Fanny Schuré, with a design +unfriendly to me. Well, he will not see her to-night: for an agent +of mine in Chantilly, where Schuré is, is at this moment telephoning +her the false news that her husband is dying, and either fifteen or +four minutes before Thiéry reaches Meudon she will have left it for +Chantilly; nor will he be able, I see, to follow her thither to-night +for want of a train. But to-morrow he will see her, unless I prevent +him; hence I ask you to assist at his _premier déjeûner_ in the +morning, and deftly to drop these two pilules into his coffee or +chocolate. You are his friend—— What is it?” + +He turned to a servant by his elbow who bore him a leaf of ivory +scribbled with these words: “Healy can live only a few minutes +more.—RUTH.” + +Lepsius sprang up, pestered at this the third missive of the kind +received that day, he having been too busy to pay any heed to them, +though Healy was at this time, by his orders, near him in the north +palace. He walked away to the columns, and cast a look out: no stars +out there, no vault of heaven, only darksomeness mixed all with water +and winds wawling; and back he bolted to the duke, saying, “Excuse me +two minutes,” and hastened away. + +His own motive in going he hardly knew, since that was hardly very +rational that he should go: but something that is in the breast brought +him. However, he did not enter, only stole nigh, and, standing outside +a door-hanging, listened, spied. + +The two windows looked toward the coast, and though these were well +closed, everything movable in the room moved to a breeze that ever +breathed through it—the bed-curtains, the skirt of an Ursuline who +kneeled near the bottom of the bed, telling her beads, the skirt of +Miss Ruth who kneeled at the bed’s head, reading, the beard of the old +Nundcumar who sat leaning forward on a sofa between these two. + +Miss Vickery held under her eyes on the bed’s edge a Greek Bible from +which with a poignancy and grieving in her voice she was translating, +the gale battering anon great breaches in her speech in the ear of +Lepsius. + +“Nor be called masters ... but he that is greatest among you will be +your servant ... and he that humbles himself is high.” + +The bed was low and small, in the north-west corner of the chamber +under a window—the window which was opposite the door where Lepsius +waited, there being two doors in the length of the room (which was +longish and narrow), and two great windows, under a groined roof; and +though an Arabian boy, crouching on a rug in the south-west corner of +the marble floor, made a fourth watcher in the chamber, there was an +air of loneness in there, an odour of death. This little Arab, indeed, +but increased this feeling: for, though kneeling, he was so doubled +on himself, so stone-still, that he seemed to be dead, and a greenish +sheen gloating on his cheek from the lamp-globe just above his head +increased his appearance of death. + +“And they came to a place named Gethsemane, and he said to his +disciples, ‘You wait here, while I go to pray.’” + +The light of the only lamp was somehow a local halo about itself, +throwing the remainder of the room in some obscurity, so that the +clicks of the nun’s rosary arose from shadows in which she was herself +no more than a shadow; nor could Healy be seen, nothing but his toes +sticking up beneath the clothes, though anon that keen ear of Lepsius +could hear his throat croaking the death-ruckle, pouring it low, +hurried, like a purring rolling; and, still more pressed with haste, +rain-water outside struggling darkly down spouts, with gulps and sobs +and goblin sounds; and again that poignancy and break in Miss Vickery’s +voice.... + +“And he went a little onward, and dropped down upon the ground, and +prayed, saying, ‘Abba (papa), take away this cup from me; still, not +what I want, papa, but what thou.’” + +Loudly from across the sea came the sound of the gale, flapping with +the sound of a navy of argosies going down in some archipelago of +gloom, with all their great sails whooping loose, and all their sailors +wailing. + +“And again he went away, and dropped down on the ground, and prayed, +saying, ‘If it be possible, let this draught pass away from me; still, +not what I want, papa, but what thou.’” + +The hand of Lepsius tightened on the box that held the two pilules +designed for Isabeau Thiéry’s breakfast; at the same time the +death-ruckle on the bed came on a sudden to an end; the happy saint +raised herself from the bedside with a smile and a light in her eyes; +and during some moments nobody moved in the room, until now the crony +Nundcumar rose to move to the bed’s head, and, bowed over the dead with +a moving brow and body, crooning, he said, “He is dead. But his head +is not yet thoroughly dead and done, and he lies reflecting dimly in +himself, thinking: ‘I am dead: no more to view the sight of the sun, +nor any light of the moon at night, nor all the stars: for I am dead, +and this is death; and what I long saw falling upon others, and was +long in awe of for myself, is fallen at last this day upon me, me, +also: for I lie dead, and this is my day.’” + +As for Lepsius, he was gone; not so swiftly as he had come. + +When he got back to the hall where the duke awaited him, he halted +two seconds betwixt two of the columns, struck with hesitancy: until, +suddenly running, he muttered, “Forgive me for being longer than I +meant; and now, to catch the train, you should be in haste”—he held out +the pill-box. + +The old man was very tremulous; his hand that rose to take the +box hesitated midway. “I assume, monsieur, that the dose is not—is +innocuous....” + +Lepsius’ lip of disdain deigned no reply. + +“I know it, of course,” remarked the old fop piteously in a flurry, +“and asked only for form’s sake.... On those terms I am entirely at +your service.” + +“Rey-Drouilhet, be certain and deft,” said Lepsius impressively; and +within eight minutes Rey-Drouilhet was on the way to the railway. +Before 7.40 the following morning he sat, in the Rue de Rome, at +Isabeau Thiéry’s bed’s head. + +He pretended that pressing Serapis-gossip had thus brought him at the +matin-gun; but he had hardly any need to invent the gossip, since by +this time Thiéry could speak of nothing but Lepsius’ bribe. + +“My friend, what was the amount?” the duke questioned with a screwed +countenance. + +“It was two millions, monsieur.” + +“_De Dieu de Dieu!_... I who am no more a youth would undoubtedly have +refused it without difficulty, but how could you, a young man?” + +“Ah, mon cher ami, noblesse oblige,” remarked Isabeau Thiéry in an +absent mutter. + +He was now about to get out of bed to get on his clothes, when his +_gouvernante_ bore him in his coffee and little loaf; and during +the minutes that he took to fling on his things, the coffee stood +cooling on a commode close to the duke. The flesh of the duke’s face +during this became very blanched and aged, his manners nervous and +fluttered; but, though he had the two pills in his hand, and had +many opportunities of dropping them into the coffee during Thiéry’s +dressing, he did not. He now thought to himself, “No, Thiéry must be +out of the room,” and presently he passed the remark that he had not +breakfasted. + +“My friend, pardon me!” cried out Thiéry, and darted out half-dressed +to order another cup of coffee. + +Now was the duke’s opportunity. Yet he did not drop the pills into +Thiéry’s coffee. He started! First athwart the whirl of his thoughts +flushed Isabeau Thiéry’s words, “_noblesse oblige_,” the example of +that generous blood: and away he rushed, bent, from the coffee; and +then back to it he rushed, fleet and thievish, to dash in the pills; +and away from it afresh, without having dashed them in. And now he was +casting his arms on high, his rickety eyes, distracted; and now he was +creeping on his knees, sneakingly, to drop the two pills into a pot +beneath the bed; and now he was at Thiéry’s bread, sneakingly kneading +two pills out of the pith; and _these_ he dropped into Thiéry’s +coffee.... + +Later that forenoon he misquoted Shakespeare, despatching to Lepsius, +in English, the telegram, “The deed is done.” + +Nor did Lepsius need the coming of this telegram to be perfectly +certain that the deed was done, though he could scarcely still have +been ignorant that very many threads congregate to make the mental +texture of modern men. Anyway, till late in the day he was securely +acting upon the fact that the duke could not fail; and then, suddenly, +he knew—too late.... + +The next night, the second of the Exhibition, was the night on which +men had been given to hope that a strange glory would change the look +of the skies: but no such glory arose upon the eyes. + +And now more in number than the messengers of Job crowded upon Lepsius +the recorders of his downfall; French laws and procedures were tortured +in order to reach him swiftly; during the midnight of the ninth the +offices of the moon in the Rue St. Honoré, as well as the offices of +several newspapers in his pay, were wrecked; on the 11th the troops +of the 67th, posted to protect his palace in the Elysées, could not +prevent it from being sacked and burned; by the 13th he had been +accused, and had been convicted by the Sixth Tribunal, of fermenting +civil strife; by the 15th the decree of his banishment from French +land, posted in every commune, had been gaped at as old and usual, and +glared from the gates of Serapis. + +Lepsius smiled, but bitterly. He was lying on his belly on a bed of +straw, reading the life of Jesus of Nazareth in the book of Matthew +when the news of the destruction of the moon-offices reached him; and +at once, throwing away the book to run out with a reddened brow, he +said within himself, “I will blot out this name of France.” During the +rage and deluge of the few days following, he yet more hardened his +heart. To Miss Ruth Vickery he refused an interview, and to Miss Eve +Vickery, who wrote “I am sorry for you,” and entreated him to be meek, +to cease from scheming, and to bend his head before the tempest, he +condescended to send no answer. + +Indeed, he was now too busy to heed anything but what he was now about +to do. In his resentment he had resolved to stretch out his arm in +terror, of each and all of his enemies to make a clean sweep in one +heap, and immediately to leap into a throne, some months before he +had previously proposed. Of the Army, which regarded him as its hope +of glory, he was still certain; and on the morning of the 15th the +first of his thunderbolts bewildered the world, when from his rostrum +at the Bourse, Monsieur Fautras roundly denounced the downfall of the +moon-structure as due to the schemings of paltry politicians, and to +the treachery of the engineer Schuré. He was authorised, he said, +by Monsieur Lepsius, to present as a loan to the company a sum of a +milliard and a half of francs, not to be repaid till ordinary shares +should be earning a dividend of 8 per cent.; and, further, he was +authorised by Monsieur Lepsius, who was prepared to finance the concern +entirely from his private purse, to purchase back, if desired, every +ordinary share at par from that morning; and, further, he had to say +that by midday of the 17th instant Monsieur Lepsius proposed to be in +Paris.... + +Never did Lepsius loom so hugely upon the universal world, luminous +as some angel of the welkin, as that afternoon, France, for her part, +casting upon her head the ashes of contrition. As for the foes of +Lepsius, they saw only instant loss of place and power, only ruin, +degradation, disgrace, knowing that now the decree of banishment +against him was nothing but a dead letter. Hence the Count de Courcy +took a hurried trip down into Brittany that day, and contrived to talk +a little with the prattler Nundcumar outside the walls of Serapis.... + +At five on the morning of the 17th all was in order for the departure +for Paris, and Lepsius, not having slept through the night, went to lie +a little in his bath, his big dog, Argo, and the old Nundcumar, going +also with him. As he locked the door, he noticed that the dog, going +up to a coffer of cedarwood, in which it was usual to keep towels, +etc., sniffed at it; the dog, however, did not growl, and, as his head +was now crowded with cares, he gave it no heed. It was an apartment of +marble with a row of round windows in one wall up near the ceiling, and +in the centre of it a sort of well or cistern, with a tower of marble +about it as light and beautiful as a flower, whose whiteness bloomed +again down in the water’s gloom, and it had a bell in it; otherwise +the apartment was without any ornament, except for the coffer in one +corner, and the bath in the corner opposite, this being a mass of +augite and gold, so big that one might swim a little, with lumps of ice +floating in the water that almost filled it. Lepsius’ pieces of raiment +dropped from him, he was in immediately, dived, and remained under a +long while. Argo, the dog, was walking uneasily to and fro, but if one +had looked narrowly at him, the dog might have been seen to be not +quite himself, to be drunk or drugged. Nundcumar, for his part, stood +by the side of the bath, his knees weak beneath him, but with no sign +of this to be seen in his lean looks; and the air in there seemed to +wait for somewhat, and to wait, a dusk air, for though it was now fully +day outside, in there the light was scarce. + +At the moment when Lepsius went under the water for the second time, +Nundcumar, suddenly grabbing the dog by the collar, coughed twice: and +the next moment the dog broke roaring from his grasp to drag down a +woman who rose out of the coffer and flew through the room.... Lepsius, +hearing the row, reared up his head, and even as the woman went down +under the hound, received vitriol about his brows.... + +He at once dived.... + +Later in the day he discovered that one of his sandals, in a chamber +of which he kept a little key, was missing. It was the Abbé Sauriau +who told him so, kneeling over Lepsius on his bed of straw, as the +gloaming began to grow deep. “It is intended that your hoards shall be +distributed among charitable institutions,” the abbé said; and he cried +accusingly, his body convulsed with sobs, “Lepsius, you are blind! and +it is I who have been the cause of this.” + +Lepsius lay with a band covering his eyes, his limbs cast all asprawl +at random, tossing for ease; and presently he bleated, “I am blind!” + +And now Isabeau Thiéry, waiting for hours at the far end of the +chamber, dashed both his palms to his ears to shut out the sound of +that bleat, which each three minutes was repeated, and rushed with the +stare of a maniac away. + +Lepsius could get no rest, for though the ravage of the vitriol (thanks +to the rush of the dog and to the bath-water) was local about the +brows, and he was hardly at all disfigured in his face, yet the agony +was great, and the heat of the atmosphere every moment growing greater, +since a reign of licence and riot had kept carnival during all the +afternoon, and at several places Serapis was flaring. + +“You must not stay here much longer,” blubbed the Abbé Sauriau, with +two big tears streaming on his cheeks.... “I have a little cottage in +Chantilly, and thither you will come to abide until my death by my +side. You are poor, you are many millions in debt, you are utterly +destitute, naught can be more utter, more boundless, than your +downfall. So you will come, my friend, to my breast, and in the cottage +we shall be, we two, dwelling in a shaded leisure and seclusion of +literature, for I shall be reading my books to you, and you will be +dictating books to me, which I shall write for you.” + +“I am blind!” bleated the blind boy to his obscurity, neither heeding +nor hearing him. + +It was at this point that the blind boy’s father arrived after a voyage +from London; and, lying on the straws, the old man rubbed his cheek +on his son’s cheek silently, a sob in his throat keeping him from +speaking; whereat the Abbé Sauriau and some others who were there +stole away; and presently, when he had wept plenteously, Dr. Lepsius +said to his son, who kept shrinking from his touch, “You have yet your +yacht at anchor yonder in the bay; let’s cut back to Shunter! you and +me; only no Shan any more, no Shan: back out of the dirty world, to +listen to the waups whistling, what? Don’t you remember the old castle? +And the old coble-boat on the north coast? And the long, low old shed, +centuries old, all encrusted with peat-smoke, which we could see from +the east castle-turret far off in the heugh of the crags? And all the +gulls, and the bog, and the hags of water with the buckies in ’em, +can’t you recall it all, and the sea? Say that you are coming....” + +“I shall never run again!” complained Lepsius to his gloom. + +“You may! You do not know yet! God may will to give you back your eyes, +or one of them! But say that you will come this night with me.” + +“Are you not still against me?” asked Lepsius in pain. + +“What, against my own? Was I ever really against _you_, do you dream? +Oh, fie, hard heart, to let yourself utter those words!” + +Lepsius now turned a little to put his arm about the old man’s +shoulder, and water washed with a whey of blood wound all down one side +of his nose, while the old man moaned. + +“So, then,” the old man said, “you will come, for I feel that it will +do you good, and I’ll go at once to see to it.” + +He stood up; and he had scarcely gone away when with eager feet Miss +Eve Vickery came in, and fifteen feet from Lepsius stood looking +at him, her father halting far off near the pillars, his eyes all +alight with excitement. Having come for his daughters, he had ordered +them both into a brougham, and they had started to roll away in +it through the ruelles and courts of Serapis, lurid at this time +with conflagrations glaring in the gloomy night, where groups of +distinguished men from Paris and elsewhere stood to watch the flames +and fumes, and, like devils in fire, troops of luxurious rioters roved +with uproars to and fro. But when about to pass out of this scene, Miss +Eve had seen a wing of the north palace in passing near it, and had +leapt up. Nor could anything stay her. “I will see him once,” she had +said over her shoulder: whereon her father, ordering his other daughter +to remain where she was, had followed Miss Eve’s speeding feet; and +Miss Eve came, and stood, and looked at Lepsius. + +“Eve, I am blind!” bleated Lepsius aloud, perhaps having caught and +known the sound of her walk, or probably invoking her without any +knowledge that she was present; and what pen of poet or seer of the +soul can disclose the olio of her whole emotion then, sketching with +what fiendishness of hell-spite her whitened lip touched her lower +teeth, as she flung at him, “You should have been good!” and then again +how the bowels of her woman’s ruth moved and rued, beholding him so +low, when he rose on his elbow, but tumbled back, calling, “Eve! you +are here!” + +“Lepsius, I am going for good from you!” + +“Eve, do not leave me!” + +“Eve!” her father now called out in a sort of whisper. + +She crammed her mouth with her handkerchief to bite on, and letting +fall her arm behind her toward the bed of straws, wafting it a +good-bye, tried to get away toward her father, but half-way gave up, +smiling, her knees going feeble beneath her, and lapsed, seated, upon +the floor; whereat Mr. Vickery came, raised, and carried her away to +their carriage. + +The carriage then went on its way toward the station two miles distant +through a dark night unlighted by one star in the sky, with wild winds +blowing. But they had not advanced half a mile when the driver suddenly +halted, having noticed lying right athwart the road a woman whom, but +for the light radiating from the blazing of Serapis, he must have +driven over. Mr. Vickery, getting out, gave a hand to raising her up: +and now, to his consternation, she turned out to be his old servant, +Jeanne Auvache. The woman, her life-work now performed, was now all +maudlin, and desired to die—hence had thrown herself on the road. She +instantly dashed into chattering (against the grain of her hearers) +as to the various phases of the day, on her face a rain of tears, +Miss Ruth and her father induced to hear, Miss Eve, for her part, +reclining in swoon with her lips parted like the dying, not appearing +to hear. One piece of the chatter, however, appeared to pierce to her +consciousness; and now her eyes unclosed, she sat up. It was when +Jeanne Auvache was recounting how she had been arrested at St. Brieuc, +and how at about 3 p.m. she had been brought back to Serapis in order +to be presented to, and identified by, Lepsius, the officers not then +knowing that Lepsius was entirely sightless. “He is good, he is very +good,” the hag groaned, “so that I regret at the actual moment to have +done it, and have a desire to die. He lay there on his bed of straws, +all solitary, calling to nobody ‘I am blind’; and when the two officers +asked him if he was able to say whether I was the woman, he answered +them, ‘Let her say something’; so I said, ‘Monsieur Lepsius!’ and I +said again, ‘Monsieur Lepsius!’ and he gave no answer to the two men +for some time, but lay still, frowning, passing his palm over his brow +and his bandage; and he then said gently, ‘No, it was not she; it was +not a woman who did it,’ and then——” + +Now, however, a crazy stare was gazing out of the carriage window, Miss +Eve leaning out, saying, “Do you say, woman, that he forgave you? Oh, +tell me the God’s truth!” + +“Why, yes, since you see me here——” the hag began to say: but now Miss +Eve was gone. + +“Eve!” howled her father after her, “remember your vow to——?” + +Miss Eve threw her hand backward without looking round, and went +fluttering on her way, her frocks quarrelling with the winds; nor was +it possible to pursue her with the brougham, since she took a shortcut +path through a meadow; and though her father and Miss Ruth ran after +her, calling, her youth and long legs soon got them pretty far behind, +she slipping back to Serapis like a spring which, pressed the wrong +way, is of a sudden sprung free. In some fifteen minutes she lay on her +love’s bed, shuddering on his breast, her teeth chattering feverishly +into his ear “for ever,” and anew “for ever.” + +“Eve, you are here!” he called to her in that voice of the blind which +has lost its way like a lambkin bleating in the void of the night; and +she in the fever of her joy said to him, “Here, you can feel it, the +half coin: where should I be but in you, but interned in your heart, my +eternal? I who eternities since yearned at the altar with you.” + +But now Dr. Lepsius walked actively in to announce that everything was +ready as to the vessel; and about half an hour after this, a small +crowd consisting of Dr. Lepsius, Lepsius, Miss Eve, Miss Ruth, Mr. +Vickery, a Dr. Proudhomme of Serapis, the Abbé Sauriau, Isabeau Thiéry, +Saïd Pasha, and Mr. E. Reader Meade, paced to the quay of the little +bay named Petit Bazaine. Yonder on the sea the yacht’s three lights +glared tiny in a darkness made rather Tartarian by the conflagration of +Serapis, the glows from which, glaring on the slopes of the billows’ +blackness in dabblements, gave to the bay the goriness of Aceldama. +A boat lay at the end of the quay; but as the sea was very rough, +and trouble was looked for in embarking Lepsius, all the party went +forward to see the boat, leaving him seated alone on a block of stone. +The boatmen, who lay on their oars, called that they would wait for a +calmer moment; so it was some minutes ere Miss Eve ran back to bring +Lepsius, and then to her amazement, met him on his knees—the roar of +the breakers and of the gale in his ears, the sprays raining on his +face, or his engrossment, may be, in his prayer, preventing him from +hearing her approach. She with an uplifted hand, stood hushed a little, +listening, catching some words, the bursting of his sobs.... “Who +hearest, but dost not heed, the bleatings of brutes ... yet if just one +human wish for once may move thee ... let no speck of grit ever prick +her eyes to agonise her; oh, I was sick and she visited me pelt her; I +am reft, despoiled, and she makes choice of me ... chase, infest her +every hour with fresh showers and astonishments of joy——” + +She touched him, saying, “Come.” + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77484 *** |