“No. No.” The very necessity of Dolores’ denial, however italicized in her consciousness the knowledge that she lied.
As Satan passed his hand under her arm and pressed her bust, she shrank from him with moaned aversion for the thought back of the caress. He was like Vincent Seff. The offense had been the shopman’s on that first day so very long ago, when she had begun to learn of men. Then, as now, she had been speechless from apprehension. Had that apprehension come from subconscious knowledge of herself more than of the man?
On Earth she had lived down certain inherent tendencies because she had not understood. From His Highness’ first touch she had trembled, even as on that day in Dr. Willard’s study when she had implored the hunting parson of All Mankind to teach her the religion said to cover game like her from just such hunters as he. The carnality of mortals she had come to excuse because component of the flesh. Since, instead, it was shown her to be component of the mind—since she was protected no longer by her innocence—since here in the inter-world she was hunted by the most expert of mental sportsmen——
Dolores strove for perspective. How ghoulish an ambition, this desire of Satan for desire! What could be more inhuman than a passion of the imagination without hope? And yet he hoped. What was his hope?
An odious thrill answered the question—a thrill which she knew to be the first farthing of the price she was to pay. The sum total, then, would be the development of her evil possibilities to the utter obliteration of the good. All that she had saved of her better self from her late estate was to be burned to dross by that recognized flicker of passion which had lit this conflagration. The King, by the heat of his diabolical imaginings, would kindle, then fan her with the winds of his swift thought. Her spiritual inflammability was her real value to him, as had been that of her body to men. He had praised, as had they, her beauty, her naïveté, her teasing silences, but had passed without a glance others as exceptional as she. That worst of her which, in the physical, had wrecked her chances on Earth, would wreck those mental which she still had hoped to realize in Shadow Land. Even though she saved The Day to the Great-I-Am, she would not by then be a fit subject for reward. Spiritually ruined, she would be no mate for John Cabot. Well it was that she had not known in time the fullness of the price, else might she have been too niggard-souled to contract to pay.
Forewarned in these premonitions of her fate, the spirit-girl felt, as never in the past, her own impotency. Innocentia gone, the love-lad Amor gone, her babe, gallant Old Sam, and now John—all who might have helped her she had sent beyond recall. Evil expectation was a compelling force; that she had learned from Clarke Shayle. Even now, the Master Mind was compelling her—vehemently, evilly expecting of her. Would she give?
“I am a perfectly free immoral agent,” His Majesty boasted. “You believe that, don’t you, my poor child? I can seize your mind and hold it to the last split-second of Eternity, whether you will or no. You liked that molecule of suppressed power in your love-hound. Aren’t you appealed to by the fact that I am at this moment suppressing all the molecules of power that have run the world?”
Dolores felt shocked by several perceptions. He had licked his lips; had called her “my child”; had concentrated his magnetism upon her; with deliberate intent, was attracting her through the same means used unintentionally by John Cabot. As he argued, he bent upon her a smile no more youthful or friendly than that of the lawyer who had won her confidence only to spoil John’s life and her own. And he wore a scarlet tie.
He was, in his conversion of her to his will, like each one of those mortal men who had converted her. In one consummate personality he combined their characteristics. Everyman was a part of him. He was all men.
Since detached integrals of himself had brought her irrevocably to grief on Earth, what chance had she to resist him as a whole? Despite her guard, the despondent thought must have shown in her face.