Colin II: A Novel

by E. F. Benson

Mr. Cecil, for answer, merely put the book in the cupboard from which he had taken it, and turned the key on it. Colin’s insistence had increased his determination to keep the book; as a strong sub-current in his mind there was the notion that here was this enormously wealthy young man, who, for some reason of his own, intensely wanted the book. There was no harm in running up the price....

“Ah, my dear boy, you don’t understand the collector’s spirit,” he said. “He is as obstinate as a mule when he has got hold of something he values. The book is not for sale.”

Colin felt one spasm of furious rage. It was for the honour of his Lord and Benefactor that he was engaged, and at that moment he would have stuck at nothing to get his desire. From the depth of his heart he let some voiceless intense petition issue.

As that silent prayer welled out of his inmost soul, his anger fell off him like dead autumn leaves, and through him there spread the clear consciousness of the presence of the power which two nights ago had infused the riot of the wind, and brooded in the calm that followed. What had made him angry was the sense of his own impotence to get what he wanted; what gave him now this sense of perfect confidence, was the knowledge that an all-encompassing power possessed him. He spoke as it was given him to speak, without thought or reflection, but with the irresponsibility of inspiration. His smile came back to his lips, and to his eyes that boyish charm and brightness.

“Ah, we mustn’t quarrel, Mr. Cecil,” he said. “Surely you are wise enough to see that. People who quarrel with me have no luck ever afterwards, and, believe me, I should hate to be the cause, the unwitting cause, I may say, for it is none of my doing, of what might befall you. Don’t force me to break you to atoms—yes, you may stare, but I mean just that, and at the bottom of your heart you know I mean it, and you’re afraid already. Well you may be, for you are beginning to guess what stands by me.”

Indeed, Mr. Cecil was staring at him, and indeed he knew that he was afraid. As he looked, some nameless inexplicable terror began to stir in him.

Colin paused: the power that gripped him grew in intensity as he yielded himself to it, and it now completely possessed him, so that he had no volition of his own, and no consciousness of himself apart from it. Once more he spoke, and though with his outward ears he could hear the words he uttered, he did not grasp their import. He was a mouthpiece only of the power that used his lips. He had no idea what he was saying: all he knew was that his voice uttered the syllables, which, as they were spoken, he heard, but which, once said, passed from his mind altogether. But as he spoke he saw Mr. Cecil’s face change, the ruddiness of it blanched to a deadly glistening whiteness, and suddenly, with a cry, he started to his feet, and fumbled for his keys, and opened the cupboard door.

“Stop, stop! that’s enough,” he said. “For God’s sake, for God’s sake!... Here; here’s the accursed thing. Take it and begone.”

The power that possessed Colin ebbed and sank, and he felt his own individuality restored to him. He did not know what he had been saying; but, whatever it was, it had been sufficient, for this gross little man was as white as paper, and, shaking, he thrust the missal into his hand.

“That’s delightful of you, Mr. Cecil,” he said. “I thought, I was sure, in fact, that when I put the case to you, quite simply like that, you would agree with me. Now I will take this to Quaritch’s, or wherever you choose, and send you their estimate of what it would fetch at a good auction, and with that I will send you a cheque for double the amount. Its value to me, as perhaps I told you, is quite inestimable.”