"You talk about mastering us, man. Master your own evil spirit. You know that you loathe it, that you've loathed it for years, that you are miserable and wretched under it. It is life or death for you to-night, I tell you. You know that as well as I."
For one moment, a brief flashing moment, Harkness met for the first and for the last time the real Crispin. No one else saw that meeting. Straight into the eyes, gazing out of them exactly as a prisoner gazes from behind iron bars, jumped the real Crispin, something sad, starved and dying. One instant of recognition and he was gone.
"That is very kind of you, Mr. Harkness," Crispin said. "I knew that I should enjoy this quarter of an hour's chat with you all and truly I am enjoying it. My friend Dunbar shows himself to be quite frankly the young ruffian he is. It will be interesting to see whether in—say an hour's time from now—he is still in the same mind. I doubt it; quite frankly I doubt it very much. It is these robust natures that break the easiest. But you other two—really how charming. All altruism and unselfishness. This lady has no thought for anything but her friends, and Mr. Harkness, like all Americans, is full of fine idealism. And you are all standing round me as though you were my children listening to a fairy story. Such a pretty picture!
"And when you come to think of it here I am quite alone, all defenceless, one to three. Why don't you attack me? Such an admirable opportunity! Can it be fear? Fear of an old fat ugly man like me, a man at whom every one laughs!"
Dunbar made a movement. Harkness cried: "Don't move, Dunbar. Don't touch him. That's what he wants."
Crispin got up. They were now all standing in a little group close together. Crispin gathered his dressing-gown around him.
"The time is nearly up," he said. "I am going to leave you alone together for a little last talk. You'll never see one another again after this, so you had best make the most of it. You see that I am not really unkind."
"It is hopeless." Harkness turned round to the window. "God help us all."
"Yes, it is hopeless," Crispin said gently. "At last my time has come. Do you know how long I have waited for it? Do you know what you represent to me? You have done me wrong, the two of you, broken my hospitality, betrayed my bread and salt, invaded my home. I have justice if I punish you for that. But you stand also for all the others, for all who have insulted me and laughed at me and mocked at me. I have power at last. I shall prick you and you shall bleed. I shall spit on you and you shall bow your heads, and then when you are at my feet stung with a thousand wounds I will raise you and care for you and love you, and you shall share my power——"
He jumped suddenly from his gilt chair and stuttered, waving his hands as though he were commanding an army, towards the macaw who was asleep with his head under his crimson wing. "I shall be king in my own right, king of men, emperor of mankind, then one with the gods, and at the last I will shower my gifts. . . ."