"The more the merrier," he answered, raised his hat, and went on at a rapid pace up Baker Street.
But with him up the London street went a flock of thoughts, hopes, fears and memories that were hard to disentangle. Lost, forgotten dreams went with him too. He had known that one day he must be "executed," yet with his own hands he had just slipped the noose about his neck. Detachment from life, he realized, keeping aloof from the emotions that touch one's fellow beings, can only be, after all, a pose. In his case it was evidently a pose assumed for safety and self-protection, an artificial attitude he wore to keep his heart from error. His love, born of some far unearthly valley, undoubtedly consumed him, while yet he said it nay....
He had himself suggested bringing together the girl and "N. H." There had been no need to do this. Yet he had deliberately offered it, and she had instantly accepted. Even while he said the words there was a volcano of emotion in him, several motives fighting to combine. The fear for himself, being selfish, he had set aside at once; there was also the fear for her—the odd certainty in him that at last her woman's nature would be waked; lastly, the fear for "N. H." himself. And here he clashed with his promise to Devonham. Behind the simple proposal lay these various threads of motive, emotion and qualification.
Now, as he hurried along the street, they rushed to and fro about his mind, each at its own speed and with its own impetuous strength. It was the last one, however, the certainty that her mere presence must evoke the "N. H." personality, banishing the commonplace LeVallon; it was this that, in the end, perhaps troubled him most. An intuitive conviction assured him that this was bound to be the result of their meeting. LeVallon would sink down out of sight; "N. H." would emerge triumphant and vital, bringing his elemental power with him. The girl would summon him....
"I must tell Paul first," he decided. "I must consult his judgment. Otherwise I'm breaking my promise. If Paul is against it, I will send an excuse...."
With this proviso, he dismissed the matter from his mind, noting only how clearly it revealed his own keen desire to let LeVallon disappear and "N. H." become active. He himself yearned for the interest, stimulus and companionship of the strange new being that was "N. H."
The other aspect of the problem he dismissed quickly too: he would lose Nayan. Yes, but he had never possessed the right to hold her. He was strong, indifferent, detached.... His life in any case was a sacrifice upon the altar of a mistake with regard to which he had not been consulted. His whole existence must be passed in worship before this altar, unless he was to admit himself a failure. His ideal possession of the girl, he consoled himself, need know no change. To watch her womanhood, hitherto untouched by any man, to watch this bloom and ripen at the bidding of another must mean pain. But he faced the loss. And a curious sense of compensation lay in it somewhere—the strange notion that she and he would share "N. H." in a sense between them. He was already aware of a deep subtle kinship between the three of them, a kinship hardly of this physical world. And, after all, the interests of "N. H." must come first. He had chosen his life, accepted it, at any rate; he must remain true to his high ideal. This strange being, blown by the winds of chance into his keeping, must be his first consideration.
"LeVallon" needed no special help, neither from himself, nor from her, nor from others. "LeVallon" was ordinary enough, if not commonplace, his only interest being at those thin places in his being where the submerged personality of "N. H." peeped through. Paul Devonham, he felt convinced, was wrong in thinking "N. H." to be the transient manifestation.
It was the reverse that Dr. Fillery believed to be the truth. He saw in "N. H." almost a new type of being altogether. In that physical body warred two personalities certainly, but "N. H." was the important one, and LeVallon merely the transient outer one, masquerading on the surface merely, a kind of automatic and mechanical personality, gleaned, picked up, trained and educated, as it were, by the few years spent among the human herd.
And this "N. H." needed help, the best, the wisest possible. Both male and female help "N. H." demanded. He, Edward Fillery, could supply the former, but the latter could be furnished only by some woman in whom innocence, truth and a natural mother-love—the three deepest feminine qualities—were happily combined. Nayan possessed them all. "N. H.," the strange bright messenger, bringing perhaps glad tidings into life, had need of her.