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As Related by Ethel Archer
from
The Hieroglyph Snuggly Books, 2023 (extracts)
[Aleister Crowley speaking] "Are you a Sadist or a Masochist?"
Iris Hamilton [Ethel Archer] appeared to reflect for a moment; then lifted the cigarette with which she had been absent-mindedly about to burn the wrist of the man beside her.
"I don't know," she said lazily, "possibly both, it depends on the circumstances." Then turning to look at her companion more carefully, "What is a Sadist?" she asked.
"A Sadist," he said slowly, and she noticed the slight drawl and the still slighter nasal twang—"a Sadist is a person who likes to hurt, a Masochist is a person who likes to be hurt. Most women," he added maliciously, with a twinge of evident satisfaction in his voice, "are Masochists."
"Which accounts for the fact that most men are Sadists, I suppose?"
"Of course. But it doesn't always follow that this is the case. Newton [Victor B. Neuburg], for example, my subeditor and Chela, is a hopeless Masochist. I give him as much as he can stand," he added grimly, "sometimes a little more, but it's all for the good of his soul. If he didn't work it off in this incarnation he'd have to in the next.
Vladimir Svaroff [Aleister Crowley], poet, philosopher and occultist, exhaled the smoke of a peculiarly fragrant cigarette and smiled to himself. The expression of his mouth was suggestive of one who has just sampled a rare and delicious wine. His eyes contracted tightly and a scarcely perceptible squint appeared. He looked at Iris with a curiously blank expression and she felt a slight shudder pass across her. For a moment she saw him as a prosperous monk whose grandfather had been a Chinese god; the god predominated. Then the picture faded as quickly as it had come, and she saw in its place a rather good-looking man of about thirty-six years of age, sunbaked with travel in foreign lands. A man with a good-shaped head, small, well-set ears, a singularly sensitive and beautiful mouth, and curious hazel eyes. The hands, she noted, were small and delicate as a woman's. She had heard much about him; she wondered if all she had heard had been true.
She decided that he was interesting; which was the highest compliment at this stage that she could pay to any man. All her life she had longed for male companionship; most of the men she had met had bored her by making love. At such times a segment of herself seemed to stand apart, coldly analytical, critical. She was utterly indifferent to it all; it left her unmoved.
Svaroff promised to be different. At the present moment he looked extraordinarily young; his mouth was slightly pouting. Iris thought it was the most beautiful mouth she had ever seen; his eyes invited her. Bending down she kissed him on the lips, softly, daintily, deliberately. In just such a way she would have kissed a beautiful statue or passed her hand over some soft material whose texture pleased her. The action was curiously impersonal and, though sensuous, devoid of conscious sex.
It was the first time in her life that she had ever kissed any man but her husband. Had Svaroff responded she would have been surprised and disappointed. She was glad that he did not. Here, at last, was a person who could understand her. She felt stimulated and pleasantly intrigued. One does not ask permission of a rose before one inhales its perfume; in just such a way she had kissed him. The next moment she forgot.
As for Svaroff, the curves deepened at the corners of his mouth and his eyes grew a shade darker, but beyond this he gave not the slightest indication that anything unusual had happened. He realised with the unerring intuition that made him at once both dangerous and charming, that it was the artist in her, not the woman, which had just betrayed itself. The woman, he guessed and rightly, had never been awakened; indeed, he doubted if the sex were there to awaken. She suggested, he thought, a nymph or a dryad, something non-human, at all events, he reflected, and his poet's mind played pleasantly with the idea. He noticed the small features, classical but suggesting a spirituality seldom to be found in the Greek statuary; the morbid little mouth, the long hazel eyes strangely flecked with red (for the first time he realised that they were the same colour as his own), the cloud of dark brown hair, curling, electric, soft as gossamer, that framed the shadowy little face—and then he thought of the volume of her poems that he meant to publish: erotic phantasies and strange love lyrics that might well have graced the pen of a modern Sappho—both mystical and realistic, subconscious and unconsciously equilibrated.
She was certainly an unusual type and one that scarcely fitted in with his Weineger theories. Except that one does not think of age in connection with a nymph or dryad he would have placed her at about seventeen. Once again the curious blank expression came down like a shutter upon his face.
They were in Svaroff's flat overlooking Victoria Street and it was a hot June morning in the year 1912. They were lying on a low padded seat in the glass-covered balcony that jutted out from the larger room behind them. About them were scarlet cushions. The sun streamed upon the white woodwork. From below rose the roar of the street traffic. The air danced with scarlet vibrations.
"I think," said Iris, referring to his last remark, "that if one likes anyone very much one usually wants to bite them, but I didn't know it was called Sadism. I often bite the Boy's [Eugene John Wieland] ear, he likes me to," she added naively, "but I don't care to be bitten myself. I like to be hugged so hard that it really hurts. But the Boy will never do it hard enough, he says he's afraid of breaking my ribs. I think I should rather like to be killed by a grizzly bear or a boa constrictor. It's a lovely sensation, feeling yourself growing smaller and smaller until finally one becomes nothing or everything. I'm not quite sure which it is," she added vaguely.
Again Vladimir noticed the curious impersonal note—it was as though she spoke of someone else, and her body had nothing to do with her. Though speaking of such intimate things she was strangely remote; it was as though she had placed an invisible barrier around herself. He felt himself being attracted in quite a new way.
"And who is the 'Boy'?" he asked.
"My husband," was the answer. "Didn't you know? Hamilton is my maiden name. I use it for writing, but really I'm Mrs. John Strickland, though that also is a nom-de-plume. Somehow I never think about it, and I take it for granted that people know. I wear the badge of slavery round my neck."
Laughing lightly she showed him her wedding ring which hung on a little silver chain. He looked at her incredulously.
"I'm nearly twenty-one," she said, in answer to the unspoken question, "and we've been married for nearly two years. The Boy's the most wonderful person in the world and I've never known a moment's boredom, and we've never had a single quarrel."
"How very dull that must be," said Svaroff.
For a moment Iris felt that she hated him. Then she remembered.
"It isn't at all," she said. "When you meet the Boy you will understand."
The extraordinary enthusiasm in her eyes and voice made Svaroff suddenly old.
"Perhaps," he said.
They had started by discussing poetry and publishers, they had ended by talking of herself and Sadism.
Iris picked up a gilt-edged volume bound in white vellum containing some of Svaroff's earlier work, and for a few minutes completely forgot his existence. She felt hurt and annoyed. The Shadow of Isis claimed her attention.
When she looked up again Svaroff was watching curiously.
"I like this," she said, picking out the poem that he, too, had secretly thought the best in the book, though he had not told her so.
"I'm glad you like it," he said simply.
Taking a fountain pen from his waistcoat pocket he wrote her name in the volume and handed it to her with a boyish smile.
"I say, you are a brick."
Her delight and astonishment were unmistakable. It made Svaroff feel young again.
"Am I? Well, read your Shelley and Keats and you'll do some first class work yet, but you must read," he told her. "Don't be afraid of plagiarising, you are not in the least likely to, but read you must. Poetry is as necessary to a poet as exercise is to an athlete, never forget that. And by the way," he added, referring to a sheaf of manuscripts, "I see you end that sonnet on an adjective. Always avoid doing that; it is weak. Endeavour to end on a verb or a substantive. Another thing it is as well to remember, avoid inversions, and always write in such a way that if your verse were to be punctuated as prose it would need no correction in regard to grammar, and the sense would remain intact. Definiteness need not be rigidity."
So, quite easily and naturally, he restored the balance.
He glanced down at his dancing pumps. "I really think we might have some lunch. I'm starving. If you'll excuse me I shall only be a few minutes, and in the meantime if you want to look at any books there are plenty here." He took her into the adjoining room and indicated the well-filled book-cases: "These are mostly scientific; these are poetry and fiction."
Smiling enigmatically he walked across the room and let himself out by another door, closing it carefully behind him. She heard him walk across the inner room and a second door closed. Freed momentarily from the spell of his strange personality, she had time to look about her.
A room, she reflected, betrays the character of its owner and occupant, and this was far from being a common one. She noted with pleasure the perfect mean between luxury and restraint, the absence of unnecessary detail, with undeniable comfort, the semi-ecclesiastical austerity side by side with evidences of strange perversity and barbarity.
The floor was painted black, and, save for one enormous leopard skin before the fireplace, entirely devoid of rugs. The walls covered with a dull sugar-paper blue. The doors and the woodwork were white, the blinds were scarlet. On the wall beside the fireplace were drawings by Beardsley and Osman Spare. Above the mantelpiece hung a huge ivory and ebony crucifix, the figure carved from a single tusk, a magnificent specimen of early Byzantine work. On the mantelpiece itself were several images of Buddha, and Egyptian and Chinese gods, the latter of jade, the former of some dark greenish metal. Swinging from the centre of the ceiling was a wonderful silver lamp or censer. In the middle of the room were a couple of Oxford chairs upholstered in blue to match the walls, and a long, low, leather chair as well. Against the wall by the windows a large office table with revolving stool. At the north side of the room and facing the fireplace were the book-cases referred to, containing many first editions bound in white vellum. Verlaine, Baudelaire, Swinburne, Oscar Wilde, were a few of the names she noted. On the top of the cases themselves were some busts of Rodin.
On the wall facing the balcony was a long roll of scarlet silk, embroidered with gold Chinese letters, the scroll of a Thibetan temple. A large crocodile grinned from a far corner of the room—at the back of the book-case was a python skin.
This much she had time to notice when the door heading on to the landing and at right angles to the book-cases opened suddenly, and in burst a hatless, curly-headed youth. His eyes, which were wide open and very grey, seemed full of the lost memories of woodland places.
"I say, Holy One," he began, "I've just met . . ." then catching sight of Iris he stopped abruptly.
At the same moment Svaroff entered by the other door. He had changed his shoes and was wearing a fur-lined overcoat—in spite of the warmness of the day he shivered slightly.
"This, Mrs. Strickland," he said, indicating the new arrival, "is Newton, my mad sub-editor."
The new arrival collapsed into a chair and broke into a peal of irresponsible laughter that was somehow strangely infectious. There was something very faun-like about him; he looked absurdly young. Iris found herself smiling in sympathy.
"He is not really, is he?" she said. "He doesn't look more than sixteen."
At this the boy went into another peal of laughter, he doubled himself up, he appeared to think it was a huge joke. Svaroff looked at him with an expression half of pity, half of amazement; in just such a way he might have regarded some strange insect whose contortions pleased and puzzled him.
"Will you never grow up, Newton?"
"I hope not," answered the other.
"What about Clay?" said Svaroff.
"Oh, Clay's not so dusty," was the reply.
Svaroff turned to Iris. "Forgive my talking shop for a moment, but I must just settle a few things."
Then, turning to Newton, "Have you come to any arrangement with Clay? Did you explain the new type and the extra copies we wanted?"
"Oh, yes, I mentioned it, but he said he could not possibly let us have them before the middle of October. He began to explain to me why but I told him I was a poet, not a tradesman; then he said something, I forget what, so I walked out."
"What did you do with the extra sheets?"
"Oh, I left them on the table."
An ominous silence followed.
Svaroff looked steadily at the figure in the chair a full half-minute. His face was a mask, his eyes had contracted slightly. The other began to writhe uncomfortably, but he returned the look without flinching.
"Well," he said at last, with a strange mixture desperation and defiance, "what would you have had me say?"
"It's not so much what I would have had you say to-day," said Svaroff, "but what you'll have to say to-morrow, that matters. Of all the hopeless, doddering, drivelling idiots it's ever been my luck to encounter, you're the biggest, Newton."
He had quite forgotten that Iris was present.
They continued to regard each other antagonistically for the space of several seconds.
"Well," said Svaroff, "since you've made such a hopeless mess of things you had better get on with the other proofs, and you can add Mrs. Strickland's 'Felon Flower' and 'The Dreamer.' They're both to go into the next number."
"But I say, Holy One, I've just met the Brixton Flapper, and I've promised to take her to tea."
The look of withering contempt that Svaroff cast at his sub-editor would have shrivelled up anyone but the imperturbable Newton. For a moment he did not reply. Then he said in a dangerously quiet voice:
"I think you had better start on those proofs now. I shall expect to see them finished by the time I come back."
What exactly happened then, Iris does not remember, but she thinks Newton made a grimace. Almost before she could realise it Svaroff had made a dive at the recumbent figure, and, quick as a cat, had grasped it by the collar. A slight scuffle ensued, and the struggling Newton was borne ignominiously along the floor and thrust into the inner room, Svaroff locking the door as he did so. He threw the key on to an adjacent chair.
"Remember," he said, making a pause between each word, "I shall expect to see those proofs finished when I get back; V.H.O., Newton." He uttered the three letters with peculiar emphasis.
A kick on the door was the only answer. Iris wondered if he were really angry; it was difficult to tell.
"Come, Mrs. Strickland," he said. "We shall never get off to-day."
As he walked to the door, Iris noticed he was limping. Half-way down the stairs she turned to him.
"Isn't it rather mean to lock the boy up on such a beautiful day as this?" she said.
"Oh, he can easily get out by the other door." Svaroff explained. "Only he'll never think of that! You don't know Newton." He turned and looked at Iris with what she called his blank expression, then he chuckled. They had just reached the street door.
"If it's not a rude question, what does V.H.O. mean?" she said.
He smiled mysteriously but with evident enjoyment. "V.H.O. means Vow of Holy Obedience." He hailed a passing taxi, and they got in. "Drive to Oddenino's," he said shortly.
Whirling rapidly down Victoria Street, Iris remembered with cinematograph-like suddenness all that has happened that morning. How in answer to her letter Svaroff had written asking her to bring her verses, and how arriving a little too soon, she found him "reclining" on scarlet cushions in the glass-covered balcony or annexe that he called the sun chamber, a vellum-bound volume of Keats beside him.
How he had apologised for his apparent laziness, saying there had been a symposium the night before and really he was awfully tired, and how she had thought that he looked it. She remembered, too, the strange elusive perfume, faintly medicinal but wholly delightful, that has met her on the threshold of his rooms; incense evidently, she had thought, but quite unlike anything she had known in church, the merest shadowy ghost of a perfume, yet potent as an unseen presence. It had made her feel strangely excited and not a little frightened. How he had made room for her on the couch beside him, and how she had sat down noticing he was dressed in black in deference to some recent loss, and how nice the black had looked against the red. How he had discussed her work, sympathetically, as one who understands, and how he had accepted her three favourite poems, saying that he must see more.
How in the pause that she had said:
"Do you remember Laura?"
And he had said: "Petrach's Laura?"
"No," she had said, "I mean Laura Sinienski," and how he had looked at her blankly till she had said:
"I'm Laura's niece—she doesn't know I had written. I know that it's ages ago, but I thought you might remember," and how after that he had dropped all pretence and asked:
"Where is Laura now?" and she had told him.
How she had also told him of her youthful infatuation for Laura.
"She was always so gay. I used to send her all my earliest poems; I really think I was in love with her!" And how Laura had first introduced her to his, Svaroff's poems.
"She used to read me your letters too—some of them," she had informed him. "I thought they were wonderful!" And then she remembered his expression of amusement and horror.
"But you must have been a child!"
"I was twelve," she told him.
Then she had asked him: "What happened to John the bulldog and Ayesha the Great Dayne? Laura told me you used to wrestle with Ayesha—was she really six feet four?"
"I believe so," he had answered—"she was pretty big. They are both dead now. What a memory you must have!" He had looked at her admiringly.
"Well, I was interested," she had answered. "I believe you were a sort of magician, and I've often thought of that weird house in Scotland [Boleskine House] and of all the things I heard about it."
Then he had made a Latin quotation; and she had nearly burned his wrist.
She thought of it all, and then she thought of Newton. She turned to Svaroff.
"I see what you mean by V.H.O., but I don't quite understand it."
"Of course you don't," he answered. "I'll explain. It's a matter of discipline. Newton has promised to obey me implicitly for the next five months. It's an excellent plan and a very good way of seeing that things get done. Newton's the laziest, good-for-nothingest son of Israel that ever rejoiced in the name of Benjamin. He's the dirtiest too," he added as an afterthought.
Iris said nothing; she thought it was rather mean of him. Svaroff turned to her.
"Did you notice his hands?" he said. "They are just like a monkey's."
"But he can't help his hands; he didn't make them."
"No. But he can keep them clean! V.H.O. ensures his washing them at least twice a day; it also ensures his paying an occasional visit to the barber's. He'd never go if I didn't make him—he's as vain as a girl about his hair."
Svaroff, Iris noticed, had not much hair himself. She felt amused.
"I don't know," she said, "but somehow I feel rather sorry for him, he looks so lost; he belongs by rights to woods and forests, not to towns."
"He is lost," said Svaroff, "and I'm trying to save his miserable soul, but if that were not sufficient, he forgets everything I taught him, and the first time I let him go out, he talks of taking the Brixton Flapper to tea."
The unutterable contempt and disgust that Svaroff managed to throw into his voice was worthy of a better cause. Iris laughed. Svaroff looked at her obliquely.
"Wait till you know Newton," was all he said.
They had arrived at Oddenino's. Just outside Svaroff paused.
"If you prefer it we'll go downstairs," he said.
Iris said that she should. They found a table at the extreme end of the room not far from a counter where the waiter hovered with his dishes. It was in a direct line with the stairs. They sat down. If there were other persons there, Iris failed to see them. The place seemed to her to be perfectly empty. This was what she liked, for she had never yet accustomed herself to feeding in a restaurant. Being of an extremely sensitive temperament she found that the presence of many strangers around her invariably took away her appetite and made her feel nervous: had she been an occultist she might have said that "crowds impinged on her aura"; as it was, she merely felt it subconsciously. In the same way she had noticed that there were certain individuals who made her feel ill. She didn't know why, but crowds invariably devitalised her.
"Please don't ask me to choose anything," she said to Svaroff. "I simply can't understand menus, and when the Boy is with me he always chooses."
He saw that she really meant it, and chose for her the most delightful lunch imaginable. Starting with iced melon they ended up with Peach Melba and some wonderful soup of Svaroff's own invention. The waiter positively purred. The admiration and respect he felt for Svaroff seemed little short of worship. He kept discreetly out of earshot, but when wanted appeared as if by magic even before there was time to summon him. He reminded Iris of the genie in the Arabian Nights, and had Svaroff clapped his hands and the table disappeared into the floor, dishes and all, it would scarcely have surprised her. Once, it was towards the end of the meal she found him looking at her with his strange blank expression. It made her feel a little uncomfortable and she asked him of what he was thinking.
"Absolutely nothing," he answered. "As a matter of fact I was watching that man balancing the plates; it's marvellous—how he does it. Had he gone on the stage he might have been a second Cinquevalli! Are you ready? If so . . ." Svaroff rose. He paid the waiter, and the man helped him on with his coat.
They walked very slowly across the room. At the foot of the stairs Svaroff turned to Iris.
"May I lean on your shoulder?"
She remembered his foot suddenly.
"Does it hurt much?" she asked.
"It does rather." He spoke a little absently.
She lent him her shoulder willingly.
"I'm so sorry," she said.
He looked at her with quiet amusement.
"I really believe you are," he answered. Then he said: "Have you been to the Academy yet?"
Iris said that she had not.
"Well, if you think you can survive the awful strain we might go there. My late brother-in-law," he explained, "is exhibiting several portraits and I rather want to see what he has made of R. . . ." Svaroff smiled to himself. "Do you know K's work?"
Iris said she was not quite sure.
"Well, K. is a success. He ought to have been a journalist. He always discovers the thing that is 'going,' and goes just one peg higher. At present you can scarcely tell him from Sargent. He will always get his work taken," he added, "but I don't altogether know that I should call him an artist. He's too facile—too like a chameleon.
Iris enjoyed the exhibition immensely.
They looked at K.'s portraits and she began to understand what Svaroff meant. The man was a chameleon.
Referring to C. and problem pictures, "He's not even a photographer," he said.
Iris agreed with him—but she liked some work of Sims, and she told Svaroff so.
"Yes! Sims is all right."
Speaking of art generally, Iris said she liked Velasquez, and thought she should like to live with "The Buffoon."
"So, I imagine, would a good many persons," he told her, "but there is only one Velasquez—genius is solitary. Yes, I was in Spain three years ago," he said in answer to her question, "and I used to go every morning to the Prado and gloat over Velasquez."
At about four-thirty he suggested that they should have some tea, "And I think, too, we might let out Newton," he added.
They drove back to his flat. As they were going upstairs he chuckled audibly.
"I wonder if he's still there," he added.
Iris felt that they were a couple of conspirators. Svaroff was for all the world like a naughty schoolboy.
He walked silently as a cat; he opened the door slowly, and looked in. For a moment he said nothing. Sitting hunched up in a chair, his head on his knees, a far-away expression in his grey eyes, was Newton. His hair stuck out like a couple of horns, he looked more faun-like than ever. For a moment or two he remained gazing at Svaroff with unseeing eyes. Then suddenly, as though he had made a great discovery, he said gleefully:
"You forgot to lock the other door."
"Of course I did, you young idiot, but how long did it take you to find out?"
Newton ignored the question.
"I've finished your beastly proofs," he said.
"Oh! There's still hope for you, Newton."
"It's more than there is for you," said the other impudently.
But Svaroff refused the proffered bait.
He sank into a chair, and Iris followed his example.
"I believe," he said, speaking with exaggerated politeness, "that you said something about taking a lady to tea; if so, don't let me keep you."
It was an obvious dismissal, but Newton refused to see it. An obstinate expression spread over his face.
"Thanks, but I've changed my mind. I don't care about going now."
Despite his air of indifference Iris divined that he was very unhappy. Had such a being been capable of weeping she would have said that he was on the verge of tears—but as it was, in his case it would of course, have been laughter. She thought of him, boxed up the whole of that summer afternoon wading through oceans of proof—she had seen the enormous pile of them—and then she thought of the delightful time she had had with Svaroff. She felt sorry for Newton. Perhaps, too, Svaroff felt a little touched. Anyway, there was not a trace of V.H.O. in his manner when he next spoke.
He looked plaintively at Iris. Strickland is dying for some tea; aren't we to have any, Newton?"
Newton was up in a minute, his face cleared as if by magic.
"Good old Guru," he said. There was absolute affection in his tone. He went into the other room, and through the closed door Iris heard him singing: "I love Holy Guru his coat is so warm and if I don't hurt him he'll do me no harm."
"What can you do with such a being?" said Svaroff, but Iris noticed that there was a sound of protection and something very like love in his voice. She guessed that subconsciously he was very fond of Newton—certainly there was some strange sympathy between the two in spite of their obvious differences. Svaroff went into the annexe and brought out a small black table, upon which was a brightly polished silver tea-tray with a Queen Anne sugar bowl and teapot. It looked, she thought, as though it had been a wedding present. The cups, which evidently did not belong, were very beautiful. They were white, and the design was a golden peacock with spread-out tail. It was a dull Sevreslike gold, and the pattern spread right round the cup, the head of the bird being at the handle. The pattern was slightly raised. Iris admired it very much.
"I designed it," said Svaroff; "they were made for me at the Army and Navy Stores." He spoke to Newton, who was just coming in with the electric kettle.
"Are there any Bath Olivers, Newton? I can't have anything else."
"I'll see," said the other.
As he fixed the plug into the wall he spilt some water.
"Never mind," said Svaroff, "At least it's not in the circle this time."
Iris wondered what he meant and then for the first time she noticed a large red circle painted upon the floor, at the four angles of which were Hebrew letters.
Newton laughed. "You ought to have seen Arthur this morning," he said. "Ever since I told him the circle was to keep in the devil he has been afraid to come into the place. He walked round this morning as gingerly as a cat by a grating of hot bricks." Newton's metaphors had telescoped a little. "He has a very real dread of you, Guru," he added.
"Well, I wish he would keep the place a little cleaner, that's all," said Svaroff. "However, if you managed to get him to clean the silver, that is more than I can do."
"By the way," said Newton, "Harrington Hobbs looked in this afternoon; he's so inflated with self-esteem that one of these days he'll burst like the frog in the fable. I asked him how Buddha was, but Buddha has taken quite a back seat, he's Krishna now; when he reaches the Ain Soph he'll die of spontaneous combustion. Did I tell you of the lovely joke that Ivanoff played on him?" Newton went on. "I wish you had been there."
Svaroff gave a fat chuckle.
"No, what happened?—I noticed he had not been coming here much lately," he added, with a glance at Iris.
"Well," said Newton, "you know how he's been Buddha and the Universe and all sorts of things. A few weeks ago, when he was boasting that he had complete control of the elements, and nothing, absolutely nothing, could harm him, Ivan asked him if he would put it to the test. 'Of course,' said Hobbs, 'anything to convince you.'
" 'Well,' said Ivan, 'I don't want you to risk it if you have any important engagement—a wedding or funeral, or anything like that.' 'No,' said Hobbs, 'I'm only going to a tennis tournament to-morrow.'
"Ivan sighed as though a great weight were off his mind.
" 'All right,' he said, 'I'll give you something to take to-morrow morning at eleven minutes past eleven. It won't absolutely kill you, but of course you need not take it if you are afraid.' That made Hobbs swell himself out enormously, which was what Ivan wanted. 'I'll take absolutely anything.' he answered.
" 'Very well,' said Ivan. He gave Hobbs powder in a little paper packet." Newton smiled impishly at the recollection.
"Well, you haven't told us what happened," said Svaroff.
Newton looked hesitatingly at Iris.
"Oh, I forgot," he said. "Next time I saw Hobbs he was looking very pensive.
" 'How did the tennis tournament go off?' I asked him.
" 'I didn't go after all,' he answered. 'I wasn't feeling up to the mark.' But he doesn't connect it with Ivanoff even now," said Newton. "He's hopeless—you'll never teach him."
"What was it that Ivan gave him>" Svaroff asked.
"Hg CL, six grains," was the answer. "Hobbs is certainly unique."
By this time the kettle was boiling, Svaroff made the tea. They drank it in the Russian fashion, and Svaroff made it delightfully. Iris thought it was the nicest tea she had ever tasted.
"Yes. It's a special kind; I always get it at Fortnum and Mason's," he told her, turning to his faun-like companion, who was already miles away, gambolling in some lost Arcadian forest. "Newton, you son of Choronzon, pass Mrs. Strickland the biscuits."
She noticed that he did not get up to do so himself. Lounging in the depths of his long low chair he looked the very picture of comfort. She, too, felt very comfortable and most agreeably lazy.
Newton, returning for a moment from his Pan-Arcadian pastures, withdrew his calf-like innocent gaze and hastily passed the tin. He had been looking at Iris for the last five minutes. The expression of his eyes suggested that of a young child or untamed animal, there was a total absence of self-consciousness. Already he was busy reconstructing their pasts and a wonderful poem would be the result. But in the meantime there was tea.
"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Strickland, but I've got a very wonderful poem," he stated naively.
"Well, I hope it is better than the last," said Svaroff, but the expression of his eyes was very charming, and belied his words.
He refrained from disturbing the boy again—but without in any way making it obvious that he did so. Iris felt again the very strong bond of sympathy between the two. In spite of their schoolboy raggings they most undoubtedly understood each other.
He talked instead to Iris. They discussed Time and Space.
"There is no such thing as Time," he told her; "it is all a matter of point of view, and that rests always with yourself." He glanced at Newton.
"That's why some persons have such a very bad time; they have no sense of perspective. Have a right perspective and you are in tune with the Universe, but Do what thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law." He smiled mysteriously. "You ought to read Alice in Wonderland."
Iris thought of her father, the Rev. Cedric Hamilton, and of some of their early discussions.
"I've always thought that Time and Space were the same," she said; "because if you speak of Time you always think of distance and if you think of distance you always imagine Time; but it all depends where you are—but the Reverend says that though the two are inseparable in thought, they are not the same. I never could make him understand," she added.
Then, seeing that Svaroff did not answer, she continued "Of course there can't really be any Past or Future, it's all Present, because if you look far enough into the Future it's really the Past, and if you look far enough into the Past it's really the Future so that it all comes back to yourself. It must be———" the phrase came to her in a flash, "an ever-extended and eternal present."
She was rather pleased with herself.
"Yes, that's it," said Svaroff.
Then she told him about the Reverend.
"He was born." she said, "just exactly two thousand years too late—he ought to have lived in the time of Socrates—he'll never adjust himself. He turns day into night and night into day and you ought to hear him argue. But he is a most unsatisfying person to talk to, because whenever he finds himself being cornered in an argument, he always says: 'Define what you exactly mean by so-and-so,' and he goes off on a side-track; then he proves that you didn't say what you meant. By the time he is finished, what you meant to say has completely gone out of your head, and it leaves him in possession of all the field, which of course is what he wanted. Is that what is called a Sophist?
"It does sound rather like one." Svaroff smiled.
"Well, I think it is decidedly mean," she answered. "The Reverend says he is a metaphysician nut metaphysicians make me feel tired."
She told him a lot of amusing things about the Reverend. How when he had a special service he would set all the alarm clocks the day before, and how they usually went off at the most unexpected moments; and how once, when the Persian cat had got into the drawing-room in the middle of the night and had walked over the keys of the piano, everyone in the house had thought the same thing, that the Reverend had gone mad.
"They were such weird chords," she told him, "and we heard the same ones three times, and then an awful silence."
"I can quite imagine it," he said.
And then a neighbouring clock struck six. With a start of dismay Iris rose to her feet. For the first time in their married life she had completely forgotten the "Boy" for more than an hour. She felt positively guilty. But she would make it up, she thought hastily—she would tell him all about her wonderful day. How pleased and interested he would be!
She began pulling on her gloves.
"Why this sudden energy?" said Svaroff smoothly.
"I had no idea it was so late," she answered, "I'm nearly as bad as the Reverend; Blitzen will think I am lost."
"But I thought we agreed there was no such thing as Time," he reminded her.
"Yes, I know," she said, smiling, "but in the mean-time . . ."
"Ah! The mean is the very Devil, any extreme is better; but the middle path when it is merely the safe path is fatal—it is neither hot nor cold."
He was looking at her steadily; she began to feel vague.
"But mightn't it transcend them both?" she said lightly, yet scarcely knowing why she said it.
Svaroff squinted. "Verily out of the mouths of babes and sucklings," he said sententiously. "Yes, in the final test it might," he admitted. Then, questioningly, "I wonder how much you really know>"
But Iris was getting out of her depth, so she held out her hand.
"I've enjoyed to-day tremendously," she said.
"So have I," he answered, with equal frankness.
He walked with her to the door. Outside on the landing they paused simultaneously as each remembered something.
"To-morrow I have to go out of town," said Svaroff, "but the day after we shall be having a symposium, an experiment to invoke Isis. Will you come? Do! Who knows, perhaps you will see Newton as he really is?"
"I should love to," she answered, "but may I bring the Boy?"
"Of course—bring as many as you like," he replied.
Iris hesitated painfully as the recollection difficulties assailed her with sudden force.
"Can you give me any idea as to when the verses will come out," she said colouring uncomfortably. "You see we're in a frightful hole. We had a beastly blue paper this morning and I don't quite know what is going to happen!"
She tried to speak lightly, but the effort was more real than apparent. How she hated having to speak of these things. Why was money ever invented? It was the first time in her life she had ever had to discuss money with a stranger—for a brief moment she felt that she was unclothed. But Svaroff's expression was one of genuine concern.
"My dear Mrs. Strickland, why ever didn't you tell me before," he said. "I'm afraid it's too late to do anything to-night, but the cheque shall be sent the first thing to-morrow morning. The verses won't come out till September, but there's no reason why you shouldn't have the dollars in advance." He ignored her thanks.
"The book should go well," he said, "it is poetry—but you ought to write more, you know. Let yourself go, don't be afraid! You have found your moorings; try to write a long poem."
"Do you really think I could?" she said.
"Of course," he answered.
"I'll promise to try then, but I don't promise to succeed."
"Good! I shall keep you to it," he threatened.
"What, V.H.O.?" she said, laughing.
He looked at her gravely. "I'm not at all sure that it wouldn't be the very best thing possible for you. I'm not at all sure that you're not even lazier than Newton." The Chinese mask had descended upon his face. "By the way," he said musingly, "do you know that that clock struck seven just now, not six?"
"Good heavens, did it really?"
"Yes. But don't worry." He re-entered the big room and spoke to Newton. "Tell Arthur to call a taxi."
Ten minutes later Iris reached home.
. . . the letter bore the S.W. postmark, and had been posted shortly after midnight, also the seal bore the rayed triangle of The Hieroglyph. Vaguely wondering, she tore it open. It was from Svaroff and was accompanied by a small cheque. How amazingly like Blitzen's was the handwriting.
She put the letter down, and lay back in the low chair beside the fireplace. In a few moments she was asleep and dreaming of Svaroff—a vague and curious dream in which she had gone to the offices of The Hieroglyph against her promise, and had been a victim in some strange and unholy rite. She woke with a start, yawning exaggeratedly as Blitzen entered.
Meanwhile, after the fashion of the movies, let us revert to the evening before, to the offices of The Hieroglyph, and to its two strange occupants.
In the large front room, lit only by the light of the crescent moon, was Svaroff. He was seated at the large table before a strange book. He had been reading for several hours previously but was not now reading. He was dressed in a blue snake-embroidered robe that set off to perfection his smooth athletic figure. The air about him filled with a sweet and penetrating odour, as of ambergris and myrrh combined with camphor. He seemed lost in thought. At times he looked expectantly towards the door as though about to welcome some unseen guest, at times he seemed to listen intently. Then he again concentrated on the page before him. The book was a narrow one with black covers, on the outside of which was a square in red letters—SATOR, AREPO, TENET, OPERA, ROTAS. So read the words whether looked at horizontally from right to left at the bottom or from left to right at the top, also whether looked at from north to south or from south to north.
In Svaroff's right hand was a leaden-coloured cylindrical rod about half an inch in diameter and some ten inches in length. The rod was hollow and weighted at the end with mercury, the end at the moment was resting beneath his palm. "Queer," he said to himself, "it's never failed before. She ought to have been here by now." He turned the pages, switching on a heavily shaded electric reading lamp as he did so. A strange glint came into his eyes—the Chinese mask had descended.
A slight fusillade upon the door—one knock followed twice by three, was repeated several times. It was then varied by three knocks followed by four. Then, as Svaroff appeared oblivious, the door opened and Newton entered.
He took in the situation at a glance.
"I say, Guru, why not chuck it? You know she's not that sort, and besides, you'll be rottenly tired by to-morrow."
"Perchance she sleepeth, or is on a journey," murmured Svaroff softly, then he turned to face the intruder. "Did I ask you to interfere, you son of a he-goat by a bastard she-mule? No? Well, then, don't. As to 'not that sort,' we are not all on the qliphothic level of your beastly libidinous self. The girl has genius; she'll be invaluable. God in heaven! Do you imagine that if I wanted a whore I'd have to indulge in this?" Svaroff spoke with an almost brutal savagery. "What's come over you, Newton?"
"Nothing," replied the other, "only I'm glad that it's all right and that you're not monkeying around."
"Why?" said Svaroff, and fixed him with a blank stare. Then as a sudden thought occurred to him, "What about the Brixton Flapper? I'm afraid you've no sense of the fitness of things."
"Have you?" said Newton, and vanished into the next room before Svaroff could reply.
Svaroff again read the page that explained failure. Could it be that that was the barrier? No, he would never believe that. There was only attraction or the reverse. Love didn't exist, love as usually understood. Somehow she had seemed sexless, yet strangely tantalising. He thought of the kiss and his flesh tingled queerly.
Was it possible that for two years she had lived with Strickland and had never . . .
Well, he had heard of such things, but if it were so, this would be the first authentic case he had come across. How could one ever be sure? Most men couldn't, of course. But Svaroff had one infallible test which he divulged to none.
He thought of that amusing satire by Swift, the test of the lions. Would there be one who would pass the trial in the whole of London? She might, yes. His thoughts wandered on.
Certainly she was no prude—her chastity seemed as that of a child, yet she was surely as old as Eve.
His thought travelled from her to Tommy Fanshawe. Tommy, who dressed almost like a boy, had a deep contralto voice, wore her hair short, and played the violin. There was a girl who had always intrigued him; in a way he linked her up with Iris. He found himself in imagination writing a letter that might have been addressed to either:
The cylindrical rod clattered noisily on to the table. He pulled himself up with a shock. Most definitely he had been dreaming. This would never do. He remembered suddenly that he had not yet sent that letter he had promised. He scribbled a few lines and wrote out a cheque. Searching for an envelope, he directed it and then called for Newton.
"Are you dressed? Well, stick on any old thing. This letter must go at once. What? You've gone to bed? V.H.O. Newton."
Newton, a mackintosh over his green pyjamas, went out with the letter, and Svaroff, getting himself out of the blue embroidered robe, put on some black monkish garment. He curled himself up in a sleeping bag upon the floor, and in a few moments was once more dreaming, a faint smile upon his lips. Seen thus in repose, his features bore an astonishing resemblance to those of the sleeping cupid at the British Museum. Young he looked, and most amazingly innocent.
Newton, returning a few minutes later, looked in at the doorway. He closed the door very quietly.
"Good old Guru," he said softly, then he too lay down in the adjoining room.
All the world seemed to sleep.
Only the moon seemed waking as she travelled across the sky to meet the dawn.
Outside, in the deserted street, a sleek black cat stretched itself, then lay down again in the shadow of the kerb to await once more the advent of the early morning sparrows.
Verily, as Voronoff would have said, "Quod est superius sicut est infer ius."
The week that followed was for Iris and Blitzen [her husband] the reverse of pleasant. Blitzen was definitely sulky and Iris for many days had been in a state of repressed irritation. She wished above all things to go again to The Hieroglyph. Not that she was in live with Svaroff, not in the least she told herself—she would like to have seen again that strangely decorated room, to have felt again its strange and fascinating atmosphere, and to have talked again with Svaroff. How intensely alive he was! Beside him Blitzen seemed as one three-quarters dead, and he was not making himself more attractive by this constant exhibition of bad temper. She tried to imagine how she would have behaved had the situation been reversed and Blitzen had gone to the studio of some very nice and fascinating girl. Most probable, she told herself, she would have said nothing—pride would have kept her silent. But had she been unable to preserve that silence, she would have asked him quite nicely if he preferred the girl to herself. In the event of his saying "Yes," of course he would have been free to go, but if he had said "No," then she would have asked him quite simply not to go again if he wished to please her, or if he did go to at least take her with him. Yes, that is how she would have behaved.
And meanwhile a strange thing was happening. Between Iris and Blitzen a barrier was growing up that assumed at times an almost tangible shape. Iris mentally called it "The Black Shadow," for that is how she visualised it. It was something cold and relentless, a separate entity daily growing stronger, and driving them apart. Was Blitzen also aware of its presence? A week ago she could have asked him, and no doubt he would have told her and put her mind at ease. But with affairs in their present state he would probably raise his eyebrows and suggest that she paid a visit to the doctor. No,, it was no use asking Blitzen.
Had her love of the past been just a glamour? Had she as usual only worshipped her own ideal? All she wanted to do was to sleep and sleep and sleep. To forget everything. That is what she wished. A postman's double knock roused her from her lethargy and she went down to the front door to take the letter. It was a largish envelope, and the sight of the rayed triangle made her heart beat strangely. Why should the mere sight of a letter so affect her? Was it the strange elusive perfume faintly medicinal but wholly delightful that once again was frightening her? But she must go upstairs at once or Blitzen would be wondering. At present he was shaving, and the kettle would soon be boiling for their morning coffee. She went upstairs, tearing open the envelope as she did so. What jolly-looking blue paper was her first thought. Her second was a quotation from Edgar Allan Poe, "Over the mountains of the moon, through the valley of the Shadow, ride, ride, the Shade replied, if you seek for Eldorado." Yes, it must certainly be that strange incense. She would ask Svaroff about it. She would like to have some. It transported one straight away into the world of dreams. And such delightful dreams. Mysterious realms where were moonbeams, shadows—water-lilies, and blue lagoons, mountains, Aeolian harps, and through it all the voice of some Mighty Being telling of things before the Dawn of Time. "The Image of a Voice," "The Shape which shape had none." Where had she heard of these things? Blitzen entered the studio and she handed him the letter. "Are we to go?" she asked. "It's not until eight o'clock this evening, and evening dress is optional. The minimum fast if three hours beforehand, but five or eight hours would be better. I shall make it the latter as I'm never too sure of my 'tummy.' I want to go." The words had slipped out almost before she could realise it. The note of entreaty was unmistakable, but it was quite unintentional. Blitzen looked at her quickly, than, taking the letter, moved across to the other side of the room, so that for a moment his back was to her and he faced the windows. He raised the paper seemingly to examine the type more closely, but in doing so managed to pass the sheet below his nostrils. A puzzled look came into his face. "What could the fellow be playing at? Was it to be a drug party?" Well, at the moment he badly wanted some inspiration. If there were no harm in it, it would be amusing, and in any case he could always write it up for the Rostrum or some such rag! On the whole, thought Blitzen, he might as well go.
He turned to Iris. "Very well," he said, "we'll go. But there's no sense in fasting a day beforehand; we're not exactly going to Midnight Mass! Take my advice and have a good meal at least five hours before we start. Meanwhile, what about some breakfast? He seated himself at the table and poured out coffee. Already there was a subtle alteration in his manner. The Shadow was there, but he was trying to cloak it.
"If only he could realise that he has been mistaken, everything may yet come right," thought Iris. But she decided not to force the situation. "I'm so glad," she said in answer to his remarks. "I've an idea that it'll be awfully interesting." Blitzen looked at her musingly but said nothing.
For the morning and greater part of the afternoon he worked steadily at his drawing. Then, for a couple of hours he read Bauldelaire and de Quincey, whilst Iris rested in the big arm-chair. At seven o'clock he dressed himself most carefully and Iris did the same. Eight o'clock found them at the foot of the stairs which led to the offices of The Hieroglyph.
"I rather think," said Blitzen, as they mounted the stairs together, "that this is an experiment. It will serve them jolly well right if we tell them nothing. Keep close to me and whatever you do don't go to sleep. If you feel yourself growing sleepy use your will power."
Iris promised.
And now they had reached the fateful landing. The place was dimly lit, and Iris saw what at first she took to be a huge figure of St. Michael. It was a tall man garbed in a monk's robe of scarlet. Through the drawn cowl the blue eyes gleamed strangely. The hands of the figure rested upon a gigantic, two edged sword which gleamed bright as silver in the semi-darkness. The figure eyed them in silence then, suddenly raising the sword as though to strike or warn them back, it swiftly altered the direction of the weapon and pointed it at the door on their right. The door opened as if by magic, and in a veritable blaze of light they came face to face with Svaroff. He appeared at first sight to be almost nine feet high. He was dressed in a long black Tau-shaped robe of some soft cloth material which hung in the most delightful folds and which was bordered at neck and hem with a broad band of cloth of gold. A large gold cross was embroidered upon the garment back and front. His powerful neck bared to the base, gleaming above this priest-like garment, gave to the onlooker the impression of an almost superhuman strength. It suggested a granite column. Iris thought of Egyptian Gods and wondered whether Blitzen had noticed the resemblance.
The two men looked at each other with interest.
Iris sensed immediately intense antagonism on the part of Svaroff and admiration on the part of Blitzen. No word of greeting was exchanged, but Svaroff turning to the table beside him poured out some dark brownish-looking liquid into a little glass phial. He held the phial out to Iris. "Drink!" was all he said.
Iris automatically passed the glass to Blitzen, but Svaroff stayed her hand. He looked again at the latter as though taking his measure, then, "It's not enough for him," he said by way of explanation. "Will it make me sleep?" said Iris. The odour of the stuff was certainly not inviting, it suggested bad apples and laudanum, and for the fraction of a second she hesitated. "On the contrary," said Svaroff, "you will wake up as you have never waked before." There was a curious glint in his eyes, and he spoke with a peculiar drawl that had in it somewhat of menace. It made her think of a purring tiger that might suddenly snarl, but he was obviously enjoying himself. Iris drank the contents and handed the glass to Svaroff. For a few seconds she was conscious of a perfectly terrible sensation. It was as though a powerful motor-car had somehow got inside her body and the engines were working at top speed. Svaroff glanced at her obliquely, then poured out a double quantity of the liquid for Blitzen. As the latter drank it, "You will find plenty of cushions and smokes in the next room," he said. "It is best to keep quiet. Take things easy, later you may have something to report," and he turned to speak to some new arrival.
At this juncture Newton, barefooted and dressed in the white robe of a Neophyte, appeared from the further room and tool Iris and Blitzen through another door on their left. He pointed to some cushions close to the wall and near to the door by which they had entered, at the same time placing beside them a stone jar of Turkish cigarettes; then he went out again. The room was heavy with the haze of smoke and filled with the low murmur of many voices; except for the very dim light of a swinging censer they were in complete darkness, but as their eyes became accustomed to the gloom they could see here and there men and women in evening dress reclining against the walls.
Most of them appeared to be smoking, and all of them were talking. In the centre of the room was a square altar. Somewhere in the infinite distance as it seemed, a tom-tom was faintly throbbing, the strange rhythm rising and falling. There was a curious tenseness in the air.
Iris took Blitzen's hand in the darkness and he returned the slight pressure. How thankful she felt. The Black Shadow had departed.
"What do you think of him?" she said. "He's a tremendously powerful fellow," he answered in a tone of admiration. "I should have all my work cut out to tackle him, and he's a splendidly modelled head, almost Roman. There's something a little queer about the eyes, almost a squint I should say, but the mouth is definitely beautiful. It's exactly like your own, Kiddie. But we'd better not talk." They lapsed into the friendly silence of perfect companionship.
From time to time a black-robed figure paused beside them. "Anything to report?" it asked; and "Nothing" they both answered, and then a queer thing began to happen.
Time seemed at a standstill, or rather it was unwinding backwards: they were going back through the ages. That is how it seemed to Blitzen. Bronze Age, Stone Age, Glacial Age—dancing figures brandishing stone-knives, flints, clubs, antlers of animals, every kind of uncouth weapon, they were coming from a distance leaping down a narrow defile upon him. Again and again he kept them back by the effort of his will—but at every new approach they seemed to come nearer. Could he continue to keep them off? So long as he realised them for what they were—yes. "Rather transatlantic," she answered, "I seem to get nothing but water-lilies and stars—but I've got the last line for my sonnet."
And now it seemed that a number of tom-toms were playing, the music was becoming wildly barbaric; there was a patter of bare feet, a swish of robes, and Newton in a rhythmic dance was whirling round the altar. Faster and faster he went as though pursued by the very furies of Hell, and beside him was dancing another figure, a phantom shadow of himself. Suddenly he crashed to the ground and lay motionless in a huddled heap beside the altar, but the phantom figure continued the dance for several minutes longer, then it flickered out and vanished like the flame of a candle.
"Did you notice," whispered Blitzen. "Yes," Iris answered. The tom-toms were still faintly throbbing, otherwise the stillness was almost oppressive. Suddenly a rich contralto voice broke the silence. "I wish they'd bring us some whiskies and sodas," it said; "I'm going home." There was a sound of several persons rising, and a tall girl in company with an older woman and a man in evening dress moved towards the door.
"Is that you, Tommy?" said Iris. "Who is it?" came back the answer in a tone of surprise. "Iris—Iris Hamilton." "Good Lord, fancy meeting you," was the reply; "but you always were a weird little thing." The girl laughed pleasantly.
"Must you go, Rachel?" said Svaroff addressing the older woman; "we've not yet had the invocation." "Yes, we've to get to Eastbourne. But I'll see you during the week." They went out. "Hadn't you better leave the door open and let out some of this smoke," said Newton, who had seemingly recovered and Svaroff held open the door. "I've not seen Tommy for several years," said Iris, "we acted in a pageant when I was at school. I'm getting a bit stiff," and she rose to her feet, stretching her arms as she did so.
"Why not sit here," said a voice that had not yet spoken, and a youth in a scarlet robe indicated the tall padded fender-rail. He held in his hands a tom-tom which, from time to time, he thrummed softly. Was it St. Michael? She didn't like his mouth, but he had pleasant, careless, laughing eyes. Blitzen rose with her, and the three of them sat upon the fender rail—the tall youth upon the right of Iris and Blitzen upon her left. "How are you feeling?" he asked her. "Pretty awful." she answered, "but my head was never clearer. I feel as though my brain had been washed. I could read the thoughts of everyone in this room if I wished to." "That would be interesting," he replied, but she did not offer to enlighten him. "How much did you have?" he asked. Blitzen answered for her. "About one hundred and eighty," he said, "but I had two hundred and fifty. I particularly noticed the marking on the glass." "I suppose you've been here pretty often," said the youth.
"No," said Iris, "it's our first initiation."
"Well," he volunteered, "it's a pretty stiff dose for a first kick-off. I've been several times—it's quite good fun. But if anything should go really wrong, Dr. Olaffson can give the antidote." He indicated as he spoke a tall dark man standing by the doorway. Then he handed the tom-tom to Iris. "Play this," he said, "it will take your mind off." As he spoke several other persons went out.
Then the door closed and Svaroff came up to them.
"Brother Capricornus, what is the hour?" he said solemnly.
"It is the hour before the dawn when the stars take council together," answered the other.
"Well, hadn't we better get on with it?" said Svaroff; "the profane ones no longer disturb the sanctity of our peace and Anubis guardeth the portal." "Even as you will, Great Magus," said the youth, and leaving the fender-rail he joined the Master. They moved off together.
There was intense silence, then a bell sounded. The sound had a most curious effect upon the nerves; it was an intensely fine tingling sound, much like the bell at the elevation of the Host, and although not too loud, there were eight octaves which echoed round the walls of the room, each octave growing finer and more penetrating. Iris found he flesh becoming goosey. Then there was the flickering of a sword in the darkness, the swish of heavy robes, and Svaroff began to intone in some strange tongue. He moved in turn to the four corners of the room, starting at the north and going round by east, south and west.
Once more facing the north he intoned anew tracing upon the darkness with the point of his sword some geometrical figure. It seemed to Iris that the room became many degrees colder, the blackness palpable. Then, through a silence which could be felt, there was a distant rumbling and a strange vibration of the floor as when the bass of an organ is playing or some distant locomotive passing—a column of greenish smoke was rising from the ground, a crocodile-headed god was faintly visible.
Her hand was upon the collar of Blitzen's coat—for safety's sake he had advised her to keep it there. Was it her disordered imagination or was the coat moving towards her?
A heavy body slid behind her, there was a crash as the coat wrenched itself away from her grasp, and with a dull thud Blitzen fell. His head struck the steel fire-irons and he lay motionless. The lights went up even before she had time to scream, and Svaroff came over, looking with a curious mask-like expression at the fallen figure, which had every appearance of death. "You devil, you have killed him," she said. He did not answer. Then to her great relief and the obvious relief of Svaroff, Blitzen spoke. "What's all the fuss about?" he said; "I suppose I must have fallen asleep." Before Iris could speak, Dr. Olaffson and the tall youth had escorted Blitzen out. "Leave him alone for a few minutes," said the youth; "he'll be all right." Then Newton came up to her. "He's pouring water over his wrists," he said in a tone of wonder, "and he wants to know the time. He says the fire-irons brought him round. Lucky he's got thick hair." And then Iris was seized with a deadly nausea. Dr. Olaffson came up and gave her a white powder, and the next thing she remembered was lying back in a chair in the inner room and Svaroff pouring her out some tea. In doing so she spilt some on her wrist and immediately wiped it off with a blue silk handkerchief. "I'm so sorry," he said. "It didn't hurt," said Iris. "I wondered if you would feel it," was the somewhat cryptic answer. "Oh yes, I felt it," she said, "but it didn't hurt." She lay back in the chair and allowed her thoughts to drift. How entirely one she felt with these people. It seemed that she must have been there since the very dawn of time. With the exception of the tall youth and Dr. Olaffson, the remainder of the guests had gone. Blitzen was still studying his watch when the latter re-entered the room and asked the time. "Three-thirty," said Blitzen. "But it must be more," said the other, "I've been in the next room for at least an hour."
"When did you light that cigarette?" said Blitzen.
"By Jove, you must be right," said the doctor, "but it is the longest cigarette I've ever smoked in my life." Newton and Svaroff laughed. "He's not had any," said the latter, "it's the fumes, but it's given him 'time-extension' for all that. I once remember writing a letter with a pen that was a mile long; and, needless to say, I covered leagues of paper. Each letter took an hour to form. It was quite a lengthy business I can assure you." And then Blitzen rose to go. "It has been most enjoyable," he said "and we must have given a lot of trouble, but we really ought to be going now. We have to get to Barnes."
"Why not stay to 'brekker'," said Newton. "The night is yet young and you won't be working on Sunday."
"Thanks most awfully," said Blitzen, "but we really can't."
Svaroff shook hands. "I'll be interested to know how you get on," he said.
How fresh it was outside of the rooms they had left after the heat and smoke. The morning air seemed like iced wine, the earth newly created. As together they crossed the street they laughed for very joie de vivre. Life was just a glorious game and they had discovered the Universal Joke.
An old beggar man was crouching in a door way—he seemed like a beautiful picture by Rembrandt. A bird flying across the street gave them infinite joy. And what colour there was in the world. Everything was harmonious. There were glorious gold and purple shadows, and the most ordinarily inharmonious sounds now fitted in to a wonderful orchestra whose symphony filled the earth. How marvellous it was! Why was anyone ever unhappy? For the first time in her life Iris felt that she really loved the world—that she loved everyone. "Oh, Blitzen, it's good to be alive," she said.
"Rather, Kiddie," he answered enthusiastically.
Gaily they stepped out together, A passing constable eyed them curiously, then smiled in sympathy. "Love's young dream," he said, addressing a perky sparrow. "Well, we all of us has it. Good luck to them!" And he looked with admiration at Blitzen's broad shoulders and careless stride, and at the slender figure of Iris with her leopard-skin cap, and her dusky curls floating in the wind.
The clock was striking a quarter to six as they reached the beginning of Castlenau Mansions and knocked at the flat of Blitzen's mother. "Who is it?" said a frightened voice. "Me," said Blitzen ungrammatically. There was a slight pause; then a drawing of bolts and bars, and Blitzen's mother in the daintiest of morning wraps stood before them. "Whatever has happened?" she said in a voice of alarm. "Is Iris ill?" "No," said Iris, coming forward. The she looked at Blitzen. Blitzen looked at his mother and back again at Iris and suddenly he and Iris began to laugh. They laughed continuously, holding on to the door post. "I'm awfully sorry, Mater," he at last managed to gasp out, "but we have just discovered the Universal Joke."
Blitzen's mother looked at him severely. "Really Eugene, I'm surprised at you," she said. "Whatever you do yourself, you should have some consideration for your wife. Have you no sense of responsibility? She's little more than a child. Come in, both of you. You had better go to bed. But first I'll make you some strong black coffee." And Mrs. Strickland, opening the door of the sitting room, left them together.
Blitzen looked solemnly at Iris. "I honestly believe that Mater thinks we are drunk." he said. "I'm afraid she does," said Iris. They laughed again.
The drug that Iris and Blitzen had taken was one which, besides giving an expansion of consciousness, and in the jargon of the mystics "loosening the girders of the soul," was also a strong aphrodisiac. It had this further peculiarity that it invariably heightened the chief characteristic of the person who had taken it. In the make-up of the average young man or woman, sex looms pretty largely, however much they may seek to deny it—hence had Iris or Blitzen been at all average, it is not difficult to see what would have happened. Each would have been attracted to the person around whom their thoughts had been centering of late, and the censer being withdrawn (as in dreams) they would have blindly succumbed to that attraction. Had Jealousy been in the foreground, jealousy would have been given full scope; quarrels would have followed, hopeless misunderstandings have been intensified. But as we have said before, neither Iris nor Blitzen were average. In the former as in the latter, love of truth and love of beauty prevailed. The disappearance of the Black Shadow testified to the first, and a realisation of universal harmony to the second.
Above all things Iris loved music and colour; rhythm of form and rhythm of movement. Circumstances had prevented her from learning to play either the piano or the violin, but she knew exactly how compositions ought to be rendered and could she have been given three wishes as in the fairytale, the first of these would have been for power to play with her hands as she already played with her brain. Only two persons had she known in her life who could do this—the great Paderewski and her own mother. She did not hesitate to link them together—she had heard the same pieces played by them both, and she knew. When she thought of how the almost divine genius of her mother had been swamped by the selfish egotism of her father, she hated the latter anew. It had, of course, been jealousy on his part—she saw that plainly now. But the just anger that she felt at the realisation of this was swept away on the crest of a glorious wave of sound, and, like a swimmer in sight of the happy isles, she plunged anew, drowning herself in this sea of light and rhythm and beauty. This ecstasy lasted for the best part of a week.
As for Blitzen he, too, had an expansion of his consciousness, though on a slightly lower rung of the ladder. Lying awake in the early hours of that Sunday morning he painted on the ceiling with the longest of brushes scenes that befitted the dreams of the poets of all the ages, but he knew the brush to be illusionary and he longed for it to be real. For the time, however, harmony was restored.
But to return for a moment to Castlenau Mansions and the well-meant advice of Blitzen's mother. As a result of the mild lecture that both of them had received, they had become wildly hilarious and happily inconsequent, and after a number of suitable excuses followed by a short sleep, they had returned at a respectable hour to the Adelphi. Iris had some hazy recollections of having been attended to at Svaroff's by some rather nice girl whom she had not thanked nor subsequently seen. She felt distinctly uncomfortable about it, for the girl (not a servant, by the way) had been most considerate and sympathetic. At the dictation of Blitzen, therefore, she wrote a short note to Svaroff, again thanking him for the enjoyable evening before and apologising for her omission.
"After this," said Blitzen, "we'll really have to drop them. It was certainly amusing, but we can't afford to know them. You must see that surely, Kiddie? We should soon be placed in a hopelessly false position."
"I suppose so," Iris said, but there was little conviction in her tone. Why was it, she thought, that in regard to The Hieroglyph Blitzen seemed determined always to look on the gloomy side of everything? Personally she thought it would be delightful to continue to know them. However, she would not argue with him, the fatalistic side of her was coming uppermost. If it was to be it would be. When Blitzen asked her not to write to Svaroff again, she gave her promise quite naturally.
Two days after the events referred to, a letter arrived for Iris.
It was written in the strangest and most spidery of scrawls and was worded as follows:
"What an awful fist!" was Blitzen's comment. "He must have made another night of it, judging by the writing. But he probably means well. Of the two, Svaroff is by far the better man. But don't forget, Kiddie, you gave me your promise. You'll keep it?"
"Of course I will," she made answer.
They'll have to write to me about the proofs was her secret thought/. By that time, perhaps, Blitzen will see things in their proper light. Outwardly she appeared to dismiss the subject from her mind. A week passed and then a fortnight, and still no word from Svaroff. Iris began bitterly to regret her easily given promise, but she had not the slightest intention of breaking it. Keeping her word was one of the few things upon which she really prided herself, that, and telling the truth. Often these causes of her pride had landed her in the most inconvenient of situations, but somehow she had always felt that the inconvenience was more than compensated for by the justification of her will power. Now, for the first time, she was beginning to doubt this.
At the end of three weeks the old tug-of-war had commenced anew; at the end of four it was becoming definitely painful; at the end of five, to her great relief, the wished-for letter arrived. Blitzen was out at the time and she read it hastily. Only a few lines, but how they brightened the recently dulled horizon!
In a few happily chosen words she answered the letter, posting it immediately lest she should weaken in her decision. She glanced at the clock as she left the study—a quarter to two it said. With any luck he should get the letter by tea-time, and, who knows, perhaps to-morrow she would see him. It was the first time she could remember that she had ever broken a promise, but now she felt that it was justified. Blitzen had no right to have extracted it—it was almost as though he could not trust her—but of course she would tell him when he came.
At four o'clock he came in with some rejected sketches, looking white and worried.
She told him at once, even before he had time to cross the threshold, but this time he showed no anger, perhaps he looked a little tired—it was difficult to say what he felt. She almost wished that he had shown some annoyance, his failure to do so made her feel, somehow, mean.
"I know," he said quietly, almost tonelessly; "what is more, I can tell you when you posted it. Nearing two o'clock, was it not? Perhaps I should say quarter to two? I knew at once that you had written the letter, and I knew that you would send it. I was at Billy's and I couldn't tell you not to."
"But, Blitzen, no harm is done. You know you can trust me."
"I know."
Blitzen held her at arm's length and looked deep into her eyes. His own held infiniteness, tenderness and sorrow. "No harm is done—perhaps—but, Kiddie, you've broken your word."
For the third time in her married life Iris shed tears. She was tired, she was puzzled, yet she was strangely happy.
"Blitzen, everything will be all right, I promise you," she said, then pulled herself up as though guilty of a falsehood, and blushed. But this time Blitzen understood. He smiled suddenly, almost radiantly. "Come, Kiddie, no use crying over posted letters. Shall we go to Kew? I've not been for ages and the flowers are gorgeous now, especially the roses. Stick on your leopard-skin and the tweeds—we've got five hours at least."
They went out together. If the image of Svaroff appeared from time to time it was definitely at a distance. The day being Tuesday, the Gardens were mainly deserted, and Iris and Blitzen surrendered themselves unreservedly to the beauty around them. Seated beneath a flowering lime tree whose branches swept the ground, they gazed through lazy, half-closed eyelids at the narrowing vistas beyond them, noting with pleasure the dark green of the fir trees showing almost inky black against the deep blue of the sky, the exquisite fairy green of the larches, the wax-like buds of the oleanders. They breathed in the scent of roses, heliotrope and syringa, listening the while to the cello-like droning of the bees and the sharper chirp of the crickets. After a while Blitzen stretched himself full length, and Iris drew his head into her lap. She commenced to stroke his hair, moving her fingers with the lightest of light touches across his temple and behind his ears, lightly raising his hat and letting it fall again, noting with appreciative eye the gleams of gold and the Rosetti-like waves above the brow, the full contour of his throat, the long, well-set eyes and close-set ears, the subtle lines of the chiselled, fainted humorous mouth. Of a truth there were few persons as comely as Blitzen. Why could she not be entirely happy?
"What a wonderfully magnetic touch you have, Kiddie," he said.
"Have I?" she answered. "Laura used to say so, so did the girls at school. They were always asking me to stroke them. Some people don't like their heads to be touched, but one finds as a rule that they are invariably conceited and nearly always selfish. Don't you think so?"
"I do," said Blitzen, "but I didn't realise you were so observant. I can think of quite a number of men who hate to have their heads touched, and they are certainly as you have said. One might almost divide the sex into the touchables and the untouchables. I agree with you that the former are far more pleasanter. Do you realise, Kiddie, that you haven't kissed me for weeks?" he added.
"Haven't I?" She bent down, lightly brushing his eyebrows with her lips. "Close your eyes, Blitzen." He did so obediently. She kissed his closed eyelids, following up the kiss with a flutter of her eyelashes across his mouth. It was what she called butterfly kisses.
Blitzen looked absurdly happy. For the moment he made her think of a great big Newfoundland puppy. Suddenly she felt that whatever the calendar might say she was in reality years and years older than he; she felt she was his mother. Why was it, she wondered, that nice men always looked slightly foolish and utterly bewildered when one kissed them. If they didn't, they were definitely dangerous. The most dangerous type of man was the man who laughed when he kissed you. He was invariably sadistic. Then there was the type of man who looked arrogant and slightly ferocious: she thought of her cousin David. He, too, was dangerous, but not nearly so attractive as the sadist. There was a fourth type, the man who looked pleasantly amused—he was almost sure to be interesting and could be, one felt certain, an excellent companion. It was to the category of the fourth that she relegated Svaroff.
"How did she know these things?" you may ask. The answer is a simple one. Through the medium that she used for the writing of poems—in a word, through intuition.
"Blitzen," she said, "I promised to go to tea with Svaroff to-morrow. Do you mind? Or if you do, won't you come too?"
"I wish you hadn't," he said. "As to my coming, I shouldn't dream of it."
"But you said yourself that Svaroff was all right."
"He is," said Blitzen. "It isn't Svaroff that I distrust, but the sort of people you are likely to meet at his rooms."
"But, Blitzen, I am not a child."
"You are not," he said decisively. "I sometimes doubt if you have ever left the cradle much less the nursery. The trouble is that you will insist on judging people by your own standard. Given a pair of fine eyes and a pleasing voice or carriage, and you straightaway endow the owner of them with all the virtues of the Knights of the Round Table, with not a few special excellences of your own making thrown in. Beauty or attractiveness means in nine cases out of ten absolutely nothing; I wish you could be made to realise this. But seemingly you can't. What is the logical result? The image invariably tumbles, and one of these days it will crush you, perhaps maim you in its fall; and what will the Blitzen do then, poor thing? he finished mockingly, to hide his rather too obvious emotion.
"But surely everyone judges others by the standard of themselves," she answered. "How else can one judge?"
"Of course they do," he replied, "and in the case of 'everyone' it pans out pretty fairly. They know what other persons will do and the reasons why they do them, so the contest works out fairly. But the reasons you have for doing things are not the same as those of the crowd. That is where you get misunderstood, and why you are always getting hurt. Listen to the wise old Blitzen who really love it and understands it, and don't go running after strange gods; no, not even after the gods of The Hieroglyph. Promise?"
"Of course," she answered.
"H.B. and no L.P.?" he asked.
"What does that signify?" she said, smiling.
"Honour bright and no leg-pull," he said.
She laughed. "You're nearly as bad as Newton. But I promise."
"But what did you mean about the persons I should meet at Svaroff's? I didn't notice anyone."
"Didn't you? Well, I think someone noticed you. That boy in scarlet, for example. Take my word for it, he's a thorough degenerate with quite a lot of the Sadist in him. Sadism is never good in anyone, but it is especially bad in anyone so young. He couldn't have been more than twenty. He was watching you just like a vivisectionist."
"He didn't attract me in the slightest," said Iris, "and even if he had I loathe scarlet; besides, he wasn't a bit sympathetic about you. What strange ideas you have, Blitzen."
They stood up.
"Have I?" Well, I'm intensely relieved, anyway. Oh! Kiddie!" and Blitzen suddenly picked her up as in the days of the old assegai dances. He glanced swiftly to the right and left. Nobody was in sight. Holding her firmly in one arm he brought her head down to the level of his own. Then he kissed her on the mouth. As he placed her once more on the ground they laughed simultaneously.
Suddenly Blitzen looked at his wrist-watch.
"Do you realise, Kiddie, that we must have been here nearly four hours? I believe I'm getting hungry."
"I don' t believe it, I know it," she answered.
"Let us go to Antonio's," said Blitzen.
They left the Gardens, ending up the evening at the little Soho restaurant that was their own special discovery. Later they slept the sleep of the young, the tired and the very happy.
At the offices of The Hieroglyph, meanwhile, the masochism of the sub-editor had nothing further to wish for; even Svaroff got a little tired of exploiting the thickness of the shell that hedged his minion about.
"Newton you nauseate me," he said.
"Well, why do you keep me?" was the answer.
It was the last word that either addressed to the other that day.
On the following afternoon Iris called to relieve the monotony. She was met by Newton with a mighty flourish and low salaams.
"Hail! fairest lady, Keeper of the Stars. Hast any new Lyrics from Lesbos?" he queried.
"What does he mean?" said Iris, turning to Svaroff.
The latter looked at his sub-editor with open contempt.
"I don't think he knows himself," he answered.
"By the way," he added, "this is just idle curiosity. Are you tremendously fond of girls and women?"
"Good lord, no," she said; "in fact, generally speaking I loathe them. Why do you ask me?"
Svaroff looked triumphantly at Newton, as much to say "I told you so," but Newton was seemingly quite unabashed.
"Why do you write love poems to them then?" he asked her. Iris looked utterly amazed.
"But I don't" she said; "it's all purely imaginary. One can't very well write poems to a man—I couldn't, at all events. So I just imagine myself a man and write as I imagine he would feel if writing to myself. I choose myself because I know myself best. But, of course, I don't really feel these things; if I did I shouldn't dream of writing about them. I've never written about anything that I've felt. I couldn't; it would be a sort of mental prostitution and in the very worst of taste. I've never even described a landscape that I've seen. It seems to me that only inasmuch as a thing is imaginary is it at all real and lasting. It seems to me that there are universal types. Am I talking nonsense?" she added quickly.
"Not at all," said Svaroff. "Have you read muck Blake?" he added.
"No, why? she answered.
"Only that you seemed to echo his arguments, that is all."
"I'm afraid," said Iris, "that I've never even heard of him. Ought I to have? It's very strange, but I'm always being told that ideas I thought were uniquely my own were really those of somebody else, but usually they belong to Plato and a lot of other persons beginning with a P."
"What? Plotinus, Porphery and Pythagorus?" said Svaroff.
"Yes," she answered. "But however did you know? I think Laura must have been right. You must be a magician."
He smiled.
"Nothing magical about it—it is just a matter of simple deduction. But it's curious the drug should have had no effect. Other persons wrote me reams and reams, and such piffle, most of it. Did you really get Nothing?"
"Of course not," she answered. "We were both of us gloriously happy for one thing, and I knew heaps and heaps of things. I'm afraid I've forgotten most of them now, but perhaps they'll appear later in some poem."
"That's quite possible," he said.
Then she told him about the music and their walk to Barnes.
"And Strickland? What did he get?" was the next question.
"Oh, Blitzen? He got colours chiefly and pictures, I think.
"I see," said Svaroff. "But I wish he'd have written. When in a state of exaltation one sees with the eyes of the angels. Later one cannot always recall the vision.
"So that was Blitzen," he continued. "Somehow I took him for your brother, an older brother," he added quickly. "Are you really married?"
"Of course. Why?"
"It seems strange, that is all." Then he quickly and deftly changed the subject.
"Have you written any more verse?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, and she showed him The Skull amongst the Roses and The Maelstrom. Svaroff read the first named poem in silence—he seemed obviously impressed. Then he read the second.
"Definitely good," he said. "How did you come to write them?"
"Oh, I had the idea for them for a long time past, but I suddenly felt that my brain had been washed and anything I wanted to do I could. It was the same as when I was a child at school. Anything I wanted to do then I could always do. The trouble now is that I can't want to do things. I get tired of everything, quite often of living." She laughed inconsequently, but her eyes were wistful. He looked at her gravely and with seeming sympathy. How easy he was to talk to, she thought. No adopting of superior airs, or making one feel a fool.
"When did you last have a holiday?" he said simply.
"About four years ago," she answered, "and of course I've been ill a lot."
"You ought to get away," he said. "Have you ever been to Eastbourne?"
"No," said Iris.
Then in answer to her questioning look, "My mother lives there," he said. "You'll have to meet her.
"But before you do we must enrol you as chief citizen of the 'Republic of Genius.' What do you say, Newton?"
"Rather," answered the latter.
Svaroff with a mother! How incongruous it seemed. Somehow he had appeared to her as a being set apart. She could not imagine him with any relations. She linked him in her mind with Margrave and Zanoni, and found in speaking of that in speaking of them he shared her appreciation for a "strange story," and of much of the work of Lord Lytton.
"What about that tea?" he said; "whilst you are getting it I'll explain to Miss Hamilton about the Great Scheme. It is only fitting that she should be the first to know of it."
In a few minutes Newton came back, but with rather a blank look upon his face. He said a few words to Svaroff that Iris couldn't catch, but she saw the quick look of annoyance that flashed across the face of the latter.
"Fortnum's haven't sent? How is that? he asked. Then, "Did you remember to phone them?" he added.
"No. I thought they knew?" said Newton.
"How should they know?" said the other; "are they clairvoyant? Phone at once, say that it is most important, and keep out of my vision for a little while."
Newton took the portable telephone in to the next room and Svaroff turned with a word of apology to Iris.
"I hope you're not frightful thirsty for a few minutes," he said. "We appear to have got a few messages mixed up. But you see now; the wisdom of such things as V.H.O.?"
Iris smiled.
For a second or two both were silent. Then, "Has it ever occurred to you to try to problem of genius?" he said.
"No," she answered, "but I have often thought about inspiration and what it stands for."
"Well, how would you describe it?" he asked her.
"I think that it is contacting Divinity," she replied. "One touched the fringe of something very much greater than one's normal self, and one brings one's knowledge back."
"Exactly. But how does one 'contact Divinity'?—to use your own phraseology. In what state is the consciousness at the time of such contact?" he continued.
"I should say," she replied, "to use a musical simile, that one was the equivalent of an octave higher, perhaps several octaves higher, and that one was sensitive to a wider range of vibrations. Isn't that it?"
"You have partly answered my question," he said, "but not entirely, I will try to put it more easily. When, for example, you describe a storm, a particular tree or a wild animal, shall we say, and you do not copy from the original, how do you do it?"
"Oh! I see what you mean," she said; "it's quite simple—one just becomes that thing for the time being, then one writes as one feels. I suppose really it's an intense form of concentration; one shuts out everything else, otherwise of course one couldn't do it."
"Humph!" said Svaroff. He looked at her meditatively.
"Well, if it's so simple, why can't you always do it—why could you do it more easily as a child than now?"
He waited for her answer with considerable interest.
"Because, for one thing," said Iris, "I find it so much more difficult to get away from myself now than I did years ago. Then the higher vibrations were more real to me than the everyday ones; then I could get away from the things I hated whenever I wished by simply shutting them out, and I always did so whenever I was alone. I had a rotten time at school," she spoke almost fiercely, "but I always made up for it at night," she added with a laugh. "They couldn't prevent me from going where I wished then; so I went everywhere and did everything. I quite outdid the Arabian Nights. I expect now, if I ever went to the East, I should be horribly disappointed."
"You would," said Svaroff with decision. "But after you had the drug didn't you get some of that early state back?" he asked.
"Not exactly," she replied. "You see, after the drug it was so very much better. I felt so well. It was like being an Archangel or a god—I felt that for the first time I had found my real self, and the real self was—" she hesitated for the fraction of a second, and then said the words boldly—"the real self, was God!"
"The Reverend would have a fit if he heard me," she added, laughing.
"The real self is the real self," said Svaroff, "and I see that you do understand. But what if by following our certain instructions and by cultivating the will one could contact the higher state whenever one wished. Wouldn't it be worth it?"
"Rather," she said enthusiastically.
"Well, one can," said Svaroff. "Genius is another name for Divinity. Divinity another name for genius. Provided they proceed along the lines laid down for them, that I shall lay down, the most mediocre talent can develop into genius, and the genius become a god. I'm not joking," he said, as he noted her look of amazement. "Look at Newton for example. He did the rottenest work imaginable when he first encountered me, and now it is at least passable." then, as the subject under discussion entered the room, "When he takes the trouble to remember, it is good. Are Fortnum's sending? he said.
"Yes. The goods will be here in about ten minutes, and the kettle takes two to boil. I'll go and fill it." Newton went out again.
"To proceed with what we were saying—the genius can become a god—but the fool only become a greater fool. That is, and always will be, the great difficulty. The majority of persons are fools, and the conceit of the fool out-tops all other concept. I shall hold out to them a mirror. They will see only their own ugly faces, and in their mad fury, monkey-like, they will break the mirror and try to destroy the holder of it. But the wise ones will see a beauteous image, and they will worship. Yes. We all do the Narcissus stunt sooner or later, but not until we have embraced him and lost our own identity do we ever realise that he is not and that we are, that both of us are One." He smiled suddenly and charmingly, and immediately his face looked ten years younger.
"What a solemn little sibyl it looks," he said.
"Won't you smoke?" He handed her his monogrammed cigarette-case in which were two long rows of fat Turkish cigarettes, and as she took one out he lighted a match. What a delightful aroma they had, and how very nice his hands were—just like her Uncle John's, she thought. She lit the cigarette, smiling lazily into his eyes.
He returned the smile with just a ghost of mischief.
"Won't you do it again?" he said.
She shook her head. "I don't see the necessity," she answered.
"No? Perhaps not," he replied. "But if we only did the things that were necessary what a very dull place this world would be. But I never ask for anything twice." he said.
"Neither do I," said Iris, and at this juncture Newton came in with the tea.
Over tea, Iris resumed the discussion.
"Would Blitzen do better drawings? Would he be happier? she said.
"Of course," said Svaroff.
"Well, then, I'll tell him. May I?" she asked.
"Naturally. The more the merrier. But we shan't have too many. What the mob want is something for nothing. They'd like to sneak into heaven by a back door or through the pantry window if the place of their dreams possesses the equivalent of such exits and entrances. But in this instance they'll have to work and they won't like it. That is why we are in no danger of being overcrowded. I shall plant a ladder and put their feet on the first rung of it—they will have to do the rest. Well here's to the Republic of Genius and to the future of its foremost citizen." He raised his teacup, smiling at Iris over the golden tail of the raised peacock.
"All hail," said Newton.
There was a timid knocking at the door and Svaroff looked at his sub-editor.
"Who on earth can that be?" he said. "Better say I am out." Newton went to the door and came back.
"He's heard you talking and he says he wrote you he was coming. His name is Barlow—he's a medium or something."
Svaroff looked profoundly bored. "Very well, tell him to come in," he said.
A little man looking like a retired grocer, dressed in a black-tailed coast and with a black tie, entered the room hesitatingly. He carried a shiny top-hat in his right hand which he uneasily transferred to his left on meeting the blank stare of Svaroff.
"Yes?" said the latter. "You wrote to me? So many people do that. What do you expect of me? Do you want me to procure you a love philtre or produce the Devil from my waistcoat pocket?" He spoke in an even tone, but his look was miles away; he looked through and beyond the little man and in some strange way completely over his head.
Iris felt very sorry for Mr. Barlow. He looked so completely crushed and he was obviously not used to feeling so. Probably in his own little circle he was quite a personage.
He looked nervously at Iris and Newton.
"You can have nothing to say that cannot be said before my friends," said Svaroff, "and I assure you they won't be interested. Well?" His note was challenging and slightly mocking. Not once had he removed the blank stare that was so utterly disconcerting to his unwelcome visitor.
The little man appeared to make a superhuman effort, then he spoke quickly and in a low tone—his gaze shifted constantly away from the face of Svaroff and back to it again; he made Iris think of a trapped rabbit. She caught the words, "séance, entity, evil obsession." The look of boredom on the face of Svaroff openly increased.
The little man appeared to be making some request, and Iris purposely transferred her gaze to the window. When she looked round again he was saying goodbye to Svaroff.
"It has been so nice to see you," said the latter, still keeping his blank stare and speaking in the stereotyped tones of convention.
The medium held out his hand which Svaroff took limply, still keeping his far-away gaze on the other's face. Then he dropped the hand, looked at his own, and absent-mindedly wiped it on the seat of his trousers.
"Good-bye," he said.
Mr. Barlow literally wilted through the doorway. Svaroff smiled with a look of infantile innocence.
"Poor devil," said Newton.
"I don't think he'll come again," said Svaroff musingly.
"I should think not," said Iris. "If it is not a rude question, who was he?"
"Oh, one of those Spiritualists," he answered; "they bring in their train all the foul larvae of the pit. Whew! Open the window, Newton. I want some fresh air." And Svaroff leaned his head out of the window and breathed deeply. Then he turned round and looked inquiringly at Iris, who had risen.
"Must you go?" he said.
"Yes," she answered. "After this I shall be almost afraid to shake hands with you."
"I'm sure you needn't be. Why?" he asked.
Then he seemed to realise something and laughed, throwing his head back. Suddenly his face became profoundly serious.
"It really has been awfully nice seeing you," he said. "I really mean it. You will come again soon, won't you? We shall soon be having another symposium. Come to it, and bring the 'Boy'."
"I will if I can," said Iris.
Later that evening she recounted the day's doings to Blitzen, telling him of the Great Scheme and not forgetting the episode of the medium.
"Poor devil," he said, echoing the words of Newton. "Only I can quite understand Svaroff's behaviours. If he didn't choke them off he'd be inundated with such people, and God only knows what they'd be seeing. The Apocalypse unveiled wouldn't be in it. But I'd have liked to see it if only from the viewpoint of a comic drawing—Absent-minded host: 'So glad you are going!' What?" He laughed happily.
"He wants me to do a book," said Iris, "and I rather think he wants you to illustrate one. Would you if he did? You'd have carte blanche for your imagination, I fancy, and he wouldn't interfere; he's too much of an artist. I think he quite likes you," she added.
"I'm not so sure about that," said Blitzen; "but now that I've met the man I rake back a great deal that I'd previously thought of him. As far as we personally are concerned we have nothing to complain of. Perhaps the experiment was a little unwise, but after all, we took the stuff of our own free will. I hate people who do silly things and then directly they come to harm throw the blame on somebody else. What Svaroff actually does is to hold up a mirror. Most people aren't too pleasant to look at, and so we get hyena howls and worse. I understand the man entirely. In a way he is like my alter ago, the other side of me," he added quickly. "I believe I could say for certain what he would do under a given set of circumstances."
"And could he tell what you would do?" said Iris interestedly.
"No. That's the curious part about it all," said Blitzen. "I don't feel that he could, but he would trust me to do the right thing, anyway," he added.
"Curiouser and curiouser," said Iris.
"What is?" said Blitzen.
"Everything," she replied.
She picked up the small kitten, "Cairo looks as if he knew everything in the world," she said. "How many fat mouses has it eaten to-day? It feels like a small dromedary!"
"Ask it?" said Blitzen.
For answer Cairo purred lustily.
At seven-forty they were ascending once more the stairs which led to the offices of The Hieroglyph. No stately St. Michael greeted their arrival; they were accosted instead by a squat figure garbed in black, whose monk's cowl was drawn across the face, covering seemingly even the eyes. We say "seemingly," for the eyes of the figure were large, black and lustreless, which doubtless caused the momentary illusion. After a moment's dramatic pause, during which they were subjected to a challenging scrutiny, the figure seemed satisfied, for it raised a short red-hilted sword, and with a gesture which was intended to be dignified, waved them to the entrance.
"Pass," is said, or rather barked, for the voice was harsh and guttural.
The door opened as before, and they saw in the distance Svaroff. He also was robed in black, and was barefooted. Then the door of the room of assembly opened. Newton came out and instinctively both stepped backwards.
"Ye gods! Whatever is it?" was Blitzen's reply.
"Satanic, most certainly," was Blitzen's reply.
They were met by an appalling odour like a third-class continental train—stale garlic, unwashed humanity and all the intensified effluvia of the Arab's seventh hell.
"It's quite all right," said Newton cheerfully. "It's only the Pan incense which has got mixed up with that of Saturn. This ought to lay flat even the bravest of the suburbanites. Don't you think so, Guru?"
"So there's method in your madness?" said Blitzen, raising his eyebrows with a quizzical smile.
Newton bowed at the implied compliment.
"Don't you believe him," said Svaroff. "It's just his damned carelessness, and it's just like him to profit by it. He has all the combined cunning of the ten lost tribes, besides the special attributes of his chosen one. But he has his uses, at times, nevertheless, and to-night he has proved it. Get some cigarettes," he said, and as Newton re-entered the large room from which clouds of evil-smelling smoke were still issuing, Svaroff turned once more to Blitzen and Iris.
"Once you're smoking you won't notice it," he said.
"Pan incense," he explained to them, "is the nearest approach one can get to a very aged goat; Saturn—well, we'll leave that to the imagination." Then, as Newton returned with the cigarettes, "The fact is that to-night we're expecting some members of the Press, for whom I have no special liking. They'll be anticipating the Lord knows what, and verily they shall not be disappointed.
"Oh, I shall give them their money's worth," he said, as Blitzen cocked an eyebrow; "have no fear of that! Sundry knockings, ritual they won't understand—plenty of abracadabra, and the incense. Yes. That ought to do it. I don't think, somehow, they'll be too anxious to come again," he finished dreamily and with a far-away look in his eyes.
Iris thought of Mr. Barlow, and both she and Blitzen smiled.
"But before the fun starts we had best partake of the water of Lethe," Svaroff continued.
"No. It won't make you sleep," he said, turning to Iris, "and the only things you will forget are the things best forgotten. It's my own invention, a nectar of the Gods, and not for the imbibing of the herd. So we house it right royally. Newton the goblets."
Newton returned in a few minutes with three Jade goblets and a wonderful jade bowl filled with greenish golden liquor.
"Since the other had no effect, try this," he said.
He dipped two of the goblets into the bowl, then handed them simultaneously to Iris and Blitzen.
"But aren't you joining us?" said the latter.
"Not at this stage of the journey," was the dramatic answer, followed by just the ghost of a smile, "though we all travel the same road sooner or later," he added quickly.
Then, "Salve atque vale," and he left the room.
Ave Casar, Imperator," murmured Newton below his breath.
They drank, and neither Iris nor Blitzen fell down dead—though had this happened it would not altogether have surprised the former. But Blitzen had understood the smile. This little byplay was for the entertainment of Iris.
His liking for Svaroff increased.
"What is it?" he asked, as the latter re-entered the room. "It's uncommonly potent stuff, it seems like everything desirable in turn."
"Isn't it a cocktail?" Iris asked.
"Thou hast said," was the answer. "It's base is liqueur-brandy and there's a touch of Vodka, also Vermouth and good many other things. But these secrets are not for the profane. Perhaps, when you are one of us, who knows?" He smiled mysteriously.
Quite a likeable sort of Casanova, was Blitzen's mental comment.
They continued to talk for several minutes, then,
"Ave soror," said a voice, and in the doorway, stood the tall youth whom Iris knew as "St. Michael." He nodded, smiling carelessly at them both. "You'll have to hurry up, Vincent," said Svaroff, "if you're not to shock the profane ones with your evening dress. You'll find all you need in my room, and call out for anything you don't. How's poor old Ivan?" he added in a low voice.
"Looking pretty glum," was the answer. "I should say he wanted a drink."
"Verily he shall have one," said Svaroff.
He knocked three times on the floor with a black baton.
"Brother Warden without, enter the Sacred Presence; we have need of thee," he called in a loud and authoritative voice.
The black-robed figure without entered with alacrity.
"The bowl of libation—a foretaste," said Svaroff, and passed to him the half-filled third goblet. Then, seeing that he glanced at Iris and Blitzen, "In the realm of Saturn all names are forgotten; but we shall meet anon. Drink, brother," he said.
Ivan drank.
And now a girl with a violin-case, and a younger and shorter girl with her hair in a pigtail, appeared together. "The dressing-room is on the left, Newton's room," he explained to the taller girl. "You've only got ten minutes."
"That's all right," came the answer; "you know I'm used to quick changes."
"True, I'd forgotten," Svaroff said; then he turned to speak to Vincent, who had entered the room dressed in a black robe, similar to his own.
"Musical comedy," was Blitzen's comment; "but she has quite a nice face."
"Isn't the little one pretty?" said Iris.
"Not a patch on the tall one," Blitzen replied. "I wouldn't trust her round the corner. Now that girl with the fiddle has some character. Mark my words and see if I don't prove right. The other ———" but whatever Blitzen had been about to say he checked himself abruptly, and glanced across at Svaroff.
"It's quite clear is it not? the latter was saying to Ivan. "I have my back to the crowd. I drink, I pass the bowl—I collapse, a victim to the Gods; You drink, you collapse. The 'slave of the temple' and the 'guardian of the Flame' rush in together. The guardian of the Flame falls wailing upon the dead body of the Master of the Temple. The slave draws a veil across the mysteries: the play is finished."
"Quite clear," said Ivan, and he returned to his post of Warden Without.
The two girls entered together—the taller one similarly garbed to Svaroff, but the shorter girl, like Newton, dressed in white. She looked remarkably well, with her long black hair hanging loose upon her shoulders and a fillet of silver leaves around her head. Her cheeks, which showed a vivid splash of scarlet against the white. Her dark shadowed eyes rivalled the blackness of her hair.
To the inexperienced eyes of Iris she seemed a Vestal Virgin incarnate, but Blitzen had far other ideas, for she had most definitely looked at him with a lingering glance from beneath her long lashes, and—well, she didn't appeal to him.
"I should advise you to take your places," said Svaroff. "For the present, farewell," and Newton piloted Iris and Blitzen into the front room.
Since the strange liquor they had drunk and the excellent cigarettes with which they were still provided, they quite failed to notice the Pan-cum Saturn aroma, but that the fast-arriving guests had not been similarly provided for was evident from the scraps of dialogue which reached them through the closed doors.
"If you fear to enter, there is still time to turn back," came the harsh voice of Ivan.
"For those who endure there remains the water of Lethe—but from the realm of Saturn only the dead may be carried out."
"Is this a practical joke?" queried a laughing voice.
"Enter and see," replied Ivan.
"Well, Norman," said the voice which had just spoken, "if you can stick it, I suppose I can, but never again."
Two young men entered, hastily lighting cigarettes. Then a man and a girl, then more and more men.
At last the door for the guests closed and there entered by the other door the Vestal Virgin, followed by black-robed attendants, The room was plunged into semi-darkness against which the white face and whiter robe stood out eerily. She began to chant some weird dirge in an effective low-pitched voice, of which the chief refrain appeared to be, "Woe is me, my God, woe is me, for all my song is as the sound of the sea, which lappeth against the dead shore in the darkness," or words to that effect, for though the simile constantly varied, the theme was ever the same. Scarcely had the voice died away than the violin commenced to play Tchaikovsky's "Chanson Triste," and the girl most certainly could play. But these things were merely the preliminaries which took the place of the voluntary in church.
They had, it appeared, the desired effect, for the intermittent whispering which had preceded them, quieted down, and a profound silence reigned. This was the signal for the entry of Svaroff.
The room was arranged as on the occasion of their previous visit, save that on the floor was a carpet of black-and-white squares to emulate the floor of a temple. This carper covered the half of the room farthest from the guests, and continued for about a yard beyond the altar which, as before, occupied the centre of the room. On either side of the altar were long black curtains hanging from ceiling to floor, so arranged as to draw back silently. The electric switches which controlled the entire lighting were beside the fireplace just behind where Blitzen was sitting. He had noted these facts with an appreciative eye almost as soon as he had entered. Now, with the other guests he awaited the denouement.
The door on his left opened, there was a blaze of light which plunged the audience into greater darkness, and Svaroff, sword in hand, entered. He was preceded by Newton carrying the jade bowl, and followed by Ivan and Vincent carrying swords also. By some curious trick of the light, Svaroff seemed preternaturally tall and imposing, and even Ivan seemed to have grown in stature, but Newton appeared what he was—the slave of the temple. Svaroff walked majestically to the north side of the altar, then, "Procul, O Procul, este profani," he exclaimed. The door behind them closed and once more they were in semi-darkness. Thereupon, sword in hand, and tracing strange figures upon the four cardinal points, Svaroff circumambulated deosil chanting barbarous words of power in an unknown tongue. It seemed that the atmosphere lightened a little, and in place of the ghastly aroma before mentioned there was a slight scent of cedar wood. That, thought Blitzen, was quite a good idea; seemingly the Guru had in some measure repented him of the evil he had planned.
"What is he doing?" whispered a voice.
"The banishing ritual of the pentagram," answered another voice which they recognised as that of Norman.
But seemingly he had not finished, for yet again he circumambulated, making yet other signs and sounds. They caught the words, "Isis, Virgo Mighty Mother, Scorpo Apophis, Destroyer," then a phrase which they could not catch, then: "Yod, Nun, Resh, Yod." The scent of cedar wood became mingled with that of myrrh.
"Well, I'm blest," whispered the voice of Norman (he was evidently quite close to them). "He means to do it thoroughly. He's banishing again. Well, he's certainly got rid of Hell's kitchen. Now we can breathe in safety," and he did so audibly.
But we shall not weary the reader with a full account of the evening's doings. Suffice it to say there were various question and answers, knockings of three and counter knockings, searchings for a lost God, suitable poems by Swinburne and Baudelaire interspersed with Russian dirges excellently executed. At last came the great moment.
"Brother Capricornus, what is the hour?" asked Svaroff in solemn tones.
"It is the hour of the triumph of Set," answered Vincent impressively.
"Let us depart," said Svaroff.
Newton, kneeling before the altar, offered the jade bowl, and Svaroff, raising it aloft, drank deeply. When, horror of horrors, "De owl have hoot, de bat have flapped her wings. Pass de bowels of libation," came the guttural voice of Ivan.
One cannot altogether blame Svaroff; the liquor went the wrong way! Quickly Newton retrieved the bowl, but disaster seemed imminent. Not for nothing had Svaroff practised Hatha Yoga, and now that practice stood him in good stead. But it was an awful moment. He did not utter a sound but the muscles of his neck began to swell and the veins on his forehead stood out. He seemed in imminent danger of apoplexy. Newton looked terrified. With quick presence of mind Blitzen switched off the lights and the room was plunged in complete darkness. Swiftly he stepped to the side of Svaroff. "Say when by a knock," he said in a low voice, and he returned to his stand by the fireplace.
After what seemed an eternity, but was in reality but a minute and a half, there was the faintest of faint knocks. Blitzen switched on the lights full. To all appearance Svaroff was dead.
A shuddering gasp broke from the guests. It was the best piece of acting Svaroff had ever accomplished, and even Blitzen had his doubts. But Ivan was not to be outdone. He looked at the Master with despairing ryes, drank also, handed the bowl to Newton, and hand to side fell with a heavy thud across the carpet. His groaning was genuine, for he hurt himself rather badly in the fall.
There were frightened whispers amongst the guests. "I tell you it wasn't acting. I saw his neck—no man could have acted it. And look at the other stuff, the stuff was poisoned. Oh, my God! What shall we do?"
"Let me out—let me out," and a terrified man rushed wildly to the door. He was followed by several others. Blitzen wisely let them out and partially lowered the light.
Ivan was still writhing upon the carpet.
"The Guardian of the Flame" rushed to the altar and flung herself with a despairing cry upon the body of the Master. The curtains fell. From an infinite distance it seemed, yet growing nearer, came the lament for the death of Asa. The wailing sounds fell shuddering upon the still air, which was heavy with the scent of death, with cedar and with myrrh.
"Go!" said Vincent in authoritative tones, and he pointed to the open door. Then as the guests seemed frightened and uncertain what to do, "Go! The Master has departed—it is finished." He spoke with suppressed impatience.
After quick and undecided looks they began to file out, at first slowly, then in more and more haste. Only one man remained, the man named Norman, and he walked with Iris and Blitzen into the inner room.
In a few moments Svaroff joined them, preceded by Newton still carrying the jade bowl. "You have endured to the end. Drink of the water of Lethe," he said, and he handed the bowl to Norman.
"Of a truth it was well and bravely done," said the other, and he drank. Then, "What a tale for the Record! I too must depart or I shan't get the copy in." And he went out.
"So that explains it," said Blitzen. "He was a journalist?"
"Yes," said Svaroff; "I've known Norman for years. As journalists go he isn't so bad, but I've got no great opinion of the species." He turned to Blitzen with a look of genuine admiration.
"Strickland, you're a man of resource; you're a man of genius. You should have been a Bismark! I wish that Newton could be made to take lessons from you—but at the crucial moment he will always fail one."
"Hang it all, I was holding the bowl!" said Newton in an aggrieved tone.
"Yes," said Svaroff. "But it might well have been 'Turn doen an empty glass.' You didn't think of that? Did you? No, I thought not.
Then turning once more to Iris and Blitzen he asked them to stay for breakfast. "I'm off to the Sahara on Thursday next," he said, "and I haven't too much time, but I've a proposition to make which I think may interest you. You're the very man I've been looking for, Strickland. But of this more anon. Where are Ivan and the girls?" he added.
"In the next room," said Newton. "Ivan thinks he has hurt himself."
"Well, perhaps he has," was the answer. "He fell with quite a good thud."
"Poor old Ivan! And he doesn't see the joke even now! I shall take to him the water of Lethe with an extra dash of Vodka—that should help him to recover. But get those girls off or they'll miss their trains. We can't afford to have irate parents bombarding our premises. V.H.O., Newton."
"It shall be done," said Newton, and in a few seconds he returned, escorting the younger girl. The other followed with an amused smile.
"It went off quite well, did it not?" she asked.
"Excellently," Svaroff answered, "but it is time that good little girls were in bed. You'll see her home, won't you?"
"Of course," she answered.
But the younger girl objected.
"I won't deny that I'm good," she said primly and with downcast eyes, "but I'm certainly not little. I'm quite big enough to stay up late, if I want to." she added petulantly.
"I should be inclined to reverse the statement," said Svaroff, but fortunately he spoke in Latin.
"Is that another of those classic quotations?" she retorted. "I hate them They're always full of double entendres."
There was a general laugh in which Blitzen and Iris joined, also Vincent, who had re-entered dressed for the street.
"I'll see you off," he said, "if you'll be really quick. But I've got to get back to Oxford, so there's no time to lose."
In a surprisingly short time the two girls were ready, and the three of them went off together. Svaroff glanced in the direction of Newton.
"Of on another astral journey?" he inquired. In his eyes was the faint flicker of a smile.
"No," said the other. "I was only feeling a little tired."
"Ah. I'm not surprised," was the answer. "You ought to keep earlier hours."
A few minutes later Ivan walked in looking somewhat green about the gills, and having been congratulated on his fine performance and condoled with on the score of his accident, he was introduced to Iris and Blitzen.
He looked at Iris solemnly, then, bringing his heels together with a click and bending in half from the waist. "Ya lublu vas, moya Krasatka," he said.
Svaroff looked at him sideways with an expression it was quite impossible to fathom.
"Since you know a little English, why not speak it," he said, "or have the waters of Lethe done their work too thoroughly?"
"I was merely saying 'How do you do' in my native tongue," said Ivan.
"Oh, were you?" remarked Svaroff with a smile; "then it is I who have forgotten."
"What do you mean?" said Ivan testily.
"Only this," was the answer, "that your sense of humour has a tendency to develop at the wrong time and in the wrong places."
This little criticism was delivered with a good humoured laugh that should have disarmed the words of their sting, but Ivan, for reasons best known to himself, chose to take offence. He bowed to the room in general and without a word of good-bye to Svaroff walked out. A minute later they heard the hall door close with a bang.
Newton laughed impishly. But Iris looked uncomfortable and Blitzen smiled a polite inquiry.
"Don't let it worry you," said Svaroff. "Ivan can't afford to quarrel with me, and he won't. In a few days, when the Vodka has worked itself off, he will be here to express his sorrow."
"What does he do?" asked Iris.
"Writes," was the answer—"prose, and not at all bad stuff either. But the trouble with Ivan is that he has too great a fondness for the nectar of the gods, especially my version of it. It's very foolish of him, because he is quite ruining his eyesight, and in time the stuff will ruin his brain. You are all witnesses that I said nothing to-night to which any reasonable man could object, yet you saw how he behaved! Still, all things work together for good,, for those who know how to make them," he added cheerfully, "and I could scarcely have discussed the matter I have at heart with Ivan in the room.
"Miss Hamilton looks tired," he said, looking at Iris, "would you like Newton to show you to your room? For it will be your room very shortly if things work out as we wish. You're not in a great hurry, Strickland? Well, then, I'll explain."
Iris went out with Newton and Svaroff turned to Blitzen.
"I understand," he said, "that you would not temporarily be averse to a change of residence?"
"It is like this. I have to go away. The rent here is paid up to January. If it suited you and you could sub-let your place for a while, I should be delighted if you could come here and guard the fort in my absence.
"All my tradesmen are at your disposal, and for the time of residence you may regard the place and all in it entirely as your own. All I should want would be news from time to time and the keeping off of the ultra-inquisitive.
"Then, but only if you have time, there is a book I would like illustrated—some magical diagrams—but we can make arrangements about that later. What do you say?
"There are three days in which to decide if you cannot do so now. Just think it over."
"I don't think there will be any diffilculty about it," said Blitzen. "I may be able to let you know the day after to-morrow. Will that do?
"Excellently," was the reply. "What about Newton?" "Oh, he'll be coming with me. We're going to regions where it won't matter if he doesn't wash or shave for a week; he'll be as happy as a child making mud-pies. I shall do the banishing ritual each night with this. He held up a little bottle of patent insect-destroyer. "For if we chance upon the spot where there has been a late Arab encampment there'll be quite a lot to banish—big Qliphoth, little qliphoth, and so ad infinitum. Yes. That's the worst of travel, but we can't have it all ways."
Three days later, Iris and Blitzen, with Cairo in his special travelling trunk, were ensconced at The Hieroglyph, their rooms being let for the time to some artist friends.
Before going away Svaroff went further into the matter he had discussed with Iris. He explained to her and to Blitzen all about Indian Yoga, and gave them useful tests and practices for the development of the will. Finally he presented them with numbers 1 to 3 of The Hieroglyph.
"If you manage to get through those before I get back, you won't have done so badly," he said. "But don't overdo things. The trouble with most people is that they become fearfully enthusiastic at first, and after a little while give the thing up entirely, because they don't become Mahatmas or magicians or whatever it is that they expect to become. As I've said before, it all depends upon yourself. And it's not a bad idea to keep a diary of events, not only for the analysis of the mind, but also for keeping one up to the mark. It's amazing what a number of things will present themselves as excuses for your not doing what you have set out to do. Try it and see."
"It sounds," said Blitzen, "rather like the exercises of St. Ignatius, only treated from the scientific point of view."
"Ah," said Svaroff. "So you've tried them have you? If the question is not indiscreet, what was the result and how far did you go?"
"Not very far," said Blitzen. "I got most horribly depressed—suicidally so. I think that they start at the wrong end. They should allow man to realise his divinity first, afterwards he will be strong enough to sustain the burden of his manhood. It is no use stressing the fact that we are miserable worms and then expecting us to aspire to Godhead. The psychology is all wrong. I'm convinced of it. I have travelled quite a long way, but I've never done it through the help of an inferiority complex. No, and I never shall. Lucifer was an angel of light—the greatest of angels. Once an angel always an angel. There can be no good or bad about it. Such petty distinctions are for the slave minds of mortals. Odi profanum vulgus. Yes, et arceo.: He spoke with a scorn that was virulent.
Svaroff looked at him with interest. "What made you leave," he said, "and how long ago was it?"
"When I was sixteen," was the answer, "but I'd rather not talk about it—I was profoundly disillusioned. Still, of the creeds, I think it is the only one worth considering—it is the only one I could ever tolerate."
"I agree," said Svaroff.
For a while the two men were silent, each wrapped in his own thoughts. At last:
"Well, I'm glad that that was your creed," said Svaroff. "When one does not get bigotry there is always a definite poise and balance about the Roman Church's adherents—and, thank God, they are not afraid of beauty and do not overstress the sins of the body to the entire exclusion of the sins of the soul. Every harlot was a virgin once and every virgin may well become a harlot when the opportunity arises. But for the mean man and the smug man there is neither hope here nor hereafter. Their god is director-in-chief of the co-operative stores, and they look to him always to give them overweight and sometimes unlimited credit as well."
He laughed, lighted a cigarette, and going over to the big table, commenced to write.
Strickland getting up also, accidentally shook the table.
"I'm awfully sorry," he said.
"Not at all," said Svaroff. "Do it again!" and he went on writing.
Strickland looked at him quizzically.
"No, I mean it. Go on shaking the table, shake it harder. Yes, that's better; I'll tell you when to stop."
For the space of some five minutes Blitzen continued to shake the table whilst Svaroff continued to write, a smile of quiet amusement upon his face. At last:
"I think that will do," he said, and put down the pen, at the same time handing over for inspection the letter he had just written.
To all appearances it was the writing of an old, old man or one in the last stages of neurasthenia. It was to a well-known firm of solicitors and was worded as follows:
"How's that?" he said.
"Excellent," replied Blitzen. "You're a genius."
"Yes," was the answer, "I've had serious suspicions to that effect myself before now.
The two men smiled in mutual admiration.
"Post that the day after to-morrow," said Svaroff. "I'm ill—I've gone away to recover—there can be nothing of importance requiring immediate attention. I leave everything in your hands. Open all my letters, even those that seem as well as those that are marked private. I leave it to your discretion how to deal with them. If anything very unforeseen should happen, of course, acquaint me with the fact and I will post on instructions—but I don't somehow think that anything will."
"It's very flattering to be the repository of so much trust," said Blitzen. "But are you being altogether wise?"
"You're not Newton," was the answer. "If you were, perhaps not. But I know N. and I know you and I'm not in the least likely to get you mixed."
"Well, good-bye, and all good luck to you."
"Good-bye, I. H. and S.," said Newton. "By Jove! that's a happy combination! Together you should do some quite good salvage work! Eh, Guru?"
"At times," said Svaroff slowly, turning to his sub-editor, "you have definite flashes of wit; I hadn't noticed that before. Not only will they, but they have already! Even you show signs of improvement Newton."
He ran lightly down the stairs, turning to wave to them once more before getting into the waiting taxi.
Newton followed, looking like a happy buy dishevelled elemental. They drove off.
Iris and Blitzen smilingly returned to the big front room. Iris seated herself in the sun chamber.
"Mark my words," said Blitzen, "he'll be back in less than three months, and he'll walk in one morning quite unannounced. I know the man far better than he knows himself." He laughed amusedly.
"I shouldn't be surprised," said Iris; "it was just the sort of thing he used to do with Laura."
Are you surprised that they are referred to as 'the vermin of the Press'? Look at this," and Iris held out to Blitzen a copy of The Record.
It was the Sunday following the events related in the foregoing chapter, and seeing some sensational headlines about an amazing orgy in a West End flat, she had bought a copy of the paper.
To her astonishment she found it was a garbled account of the invocation of Saturn of the week before, so garbled that it was scarcely recognisable. There were deliberate falsifications—the obvious symbolism of the whole performance had been overlooked, and foul innuendoes were scattered copiously throughout the narration.
Iris read it, an expression of cold contempt upon her face; then she put the paper down.
"Blitzen, you've a good memory, especially for time and figures—for how long was the light switched off?"
"For about a minute, or at most a minute and a half," was the answer.
"I thought so. Just listen to this." And again picking up the paper, with an expression of disgust that she made no effort to conceal, Iris read out the following extracts:
"If the room was in darkness, how could they possibly see?" commented Iris. She continued reading a good deal more to the same effect. Then followed paragraphs of pious disapproval. But this was not all. There were faked photographs, calculated to stimulate the jaded appetites of Mayfair and to provoke the smug puritanism of suburbia.
She turned to an earlier page. It contained an account of the pretty little flapper who, as Vestal Virgin in company with a number of youths, as scantily dressed as herself, had opened the proceedings in a room specially darkened for the occasion. The fact that amongst the performers were the scions of several of England's oldest and most illustrious houses did not detract from the spiciness of the tale.
The liqueur of which they had both partaken: (and concerning which they were in a position to judge) was referred to as a dangerous narcotic, calculated to induce drug-forming habits.
"It was time"—the write continued—"that we awakened to the dangerous degeneracy in our midst." And so on, ad nauseam.
"Poor old Guru! It's a damned shame."
"And to think that that fellow Norman professed to be a friend. Upon my soul, I honestly believe that in order to get a story some of these creatures would violate the corpse of their own mother. Anything for sensation. We live in an age of hopeless vulgarity, and that is the truth, Kidde-wee."
In writing to Svaroff he touched as lightly as possible upon the subject, and received in return this characteristic reply:
Iris and Blitzen laughed.
"All the same," said the latter, "I am sorry that it has happened. That fool Norman has started the ball rolling—it will gather both momentum and size, and God alone knows where it will end. It is all very well for V. S. to treat the matter with contempt, but there is such a thing as underestimating one's enemies, especially their malevolence. When will he learn sense? Never, I fear, and if he did, would he possess half his charm?" Blitzen felt that most definitely he would not.
About a fortnight later they received a most amusing letter from Svaroff:
Blitzen told him.
"Ah! well, quien sabe? Perhaps it is all for the best. At least we know where we stand. Christ had but twelve disciples, and of those not all were honest. In the hour of His supreme trial all deserted Him. If I can rely even upon three I shall be lucky."
"You can rely upon two," said Blitzen.
Svaroff looked at him gravely. Then, "I believe you," he said.
Later in the day he spoke of some work he wanted done, and explained to Blitzen about the Elemental Tablets.
"It is not a matter I would entrust to anyone—there are apt to be results. I should be especially on my guard when painting the Fire Tablet. You smoke, so does I. H. Well, be careful, that is all."
"What do you mean?" said Blitzen.
"Wait and see," was the answer, "but don't say that I didn't warn you."
In the weeks which followed, Blitzen had cause to remember these words.
He was not a careless person; neither was Iris. Realizing that their goods were not insured, and that most of them would be irreplaceable, they had never run foolish risks. Cigarette ends were always stamped out, a guard was placed over the fire, and all reasonable precautions were taken. Yet, despite all this, fires were constantly occurring.
Early in the summer they learned through the medium of a well-known London daily of the suicide of the Flapper [Jeanne Heyes]. She had married soon after the "rites" [The Rites of Eleusis]; she had left her husband to live with Newton. The husband had brought a divorce, and on the eve of it, Newton had fled to the Continent. The Flapper was a neurotic little thing, with free love ideas, which, unlike Iris, she had put into practice. She did not care to face the exposure of Courts. On the morning of the trial, she had shot herself in a Chelsea studio, and a few weeks later, Newton had written a satirical poem on the subject!
Iris and Blitzen were disgusted, and even Svaroff who afterwards discussed the matter with them, spoke out plainly. "It was the action," he said, "of a thorough-paced little skunk; he might at least have helped her to face the music! Well, I am glad that he was not still in my employment. It's more than a year since he left."
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