“Pardon me, Mr. Gordon. I’ve been going far astray. But the whole question interests me deeply. Strange, strange, what havoc within a man’s brain that war between right and wrong can make, when his own fierce desires get mixed up in it! Will you go on, please? After this first act of cruelty, unintentional doubtless, but afterward concealed, out of cowardice and the desire to advance his own selfish interests—then?”
“Why, it was the beginning of a constantly growing habit of selfishness in thought and action. I could tell you of thousands of little incidents, each of which helped to strengthen his conception of himself as the center of everything and his notion that his wishes must be gratified and his desires satisfied, at whatever cost to others. This didn’t come all at once, you know. It was the growth of years, and kept on all through his youth and early manhood, till it reached its present abominable state. And as it grew, so did I.”
“Yes, yes!” the physician broke in again. “Every impulse toward altruistic thought or action that was denied broke off and attached itself to the other nebula of consciousness. Thus he set up within himself two centers of consciousness, of moral growth, one altruistic and the other egotistic. And, as these grew, certain other mental qualities were caught within them, so that, when the separation was at last complete, each individuality had, intensified, the qualities that, mingled together, ought to have gone to the making of an evenly balanced, highly endowed man.”
“That’s it. And now the question is, which of us are you going to try to save? Which will you allow to live?”
“Why, I’m going to try to put you together again, to mingle you into one proportioned, rounded individuality.”
Gordon’s manner bristled with aggressiveness. “You can’t do it,” he exclaimed abruptly. “It’s beyond human power, now. ‘All the king’s horses and all the king’s men’ wouldn’t be enough for such a job. Felix Brand is beyond saving. He chose his part and wilfully kept in it. Let him suffer the consequences. I was his conscience—the part of him in which conscience abode. He denied me and repulsed me over and over again, until he so calloused himself that there was no point left for attack. And so we have become two separate and complete human beings.”
Gordon’s words were rushing forth in an impulsive torrent and the physician held up an arresting finger. “No, you’re wrong there. You are not two complete human beings. It has come about that he has divested himself of moral sense. But he still has a wonderful esthetic gift, of very great value to the world. Have you any part in that?”
“No, I have not,” was Gordon’s quick reply. “I admit I am lacking on that side of my nature. But is that the most important thing for a man to possess?”
He sprang to his feet and strode about as he went on pouring out his arguments with emphatic, forceful manner. Dr. Annister watched him, wondering at his apparent size. For he looked a considerably larger man than did Felix Brand. The light gray clothing, of looser fit, made some difference, but the physician decided that his manner was responsible for most of the illusion—his self-confident stride, his masterful quality, the impression he gave of abundant vitality and of strength of character and of body. These were all in strong contrast to Brand’s courtly, winning manners, affable tones and leisurely, graceful movements.
“Felix Brand has become a monster, a swollen toad of egotism. He cares for nothing but his own advantage, his own interests, his own pleasures, and these he reaches out and takes, grabs them, without any regard for other people’s rights or necessities. That kind of selfishness is the root of all evil, and Felix Brand is its incarnation. He is soaked with wickedness. Oh, you do not know the half of it, Dr. Annister, though you have guessed something from the change in the expression of his countenance. For years he has been like a carrier of typhoid, spreading the contagion of his own sinful nature wherever he went, himself unpunished, even admired, looked up to and patterned after. Do you want to keep such a man alive? Do you think, do you really believe, Dr. Annister, that the genius of such a man as that, whatever it is, could make amends to the world for all the evil that he does?”