"Do you wear your cats'-eyes in honor of the cat-headed deity of the Pagans, Mrs. Greyson?" Rangely asked, as she paused near his chair, watching a burner which seemed disposed to flicker.
"No," returned she, smiling. "I am no follower of your Pasht; a goddess of 'winged-words' attracts me less than a deity whose province is the sacred sphere of silence. My dress is of Mr. Fenton's designing. He is deeply versed in the subject of clothes. I even suspect him of being the true author of 'Sartor Resartus.'"
"That brings up my pet abomination," Fenton observed, with emphasis. "I do hate Carlyle. I've even lain awake nights to think how I'd like to pound his head. The self-conceited, self-centered, self-adoring old humbug! He was the sham par excellence of the nineteenth century, this century of shams."
"It's something to be at the top of the heap in anything," interpolated
Herman, "even in shams."
"The trouble with Carlyle," Fenton continued, "besides his enormous egotism, was that he never got beyond the whim that the truth is something absolute. He could not abide the idea that it is merely a relative thing and must be treated as such. If he'd got above the mass of cloudy vapor he called truth, he might have gained a glimpse of real sunlight; but his aggressive self-conceit clogged his wings. Don't you recognize that a lie is often truer than the truth?" he ran on, sitting up in his chair and speaking more rapidly; "that where the truth will often produce an erroneous impression, a lie will convey a correct one? that to be true to the spirit it is often necessary to violate the letter?"
"Your patron saint should be the god of falsehood," Helen said lightly.
"I fear your allegiance to Pasht is not very sincere."
"Ah! but it is," retorted he, quickly. "My allegiance is to the goddess of 'winged words'; to the glorious mother of fictitious speech; to Pasht, the goddess of splendid, golden lying. A lie is only the truth agreeably and effectively told. Vive la fausseté!"
"Doubtless each interprets Pasht's attributes according to his own light," Herman observed, a little grimly.
He was only half-pleased with Fenton's badinage. But the latter, apparently, did not feel the thrust.
"Let him alone," Helen said, "he believes in nothing; he is a genuine
Pagan."