“Of course,—and I deny it still”—he answered quickly—“I have not a fat living in the church that I should tell a lie on such a subject. I am not a Christian; nor is anyone living a Christian. To quote a very old saying ‘There never was a Christian save One, and He was crucified.’ But though I am not a Christian I never said I doubted the existence of Christ. That knowledge was forced upon me,—with considerable pressure too!”

“By a reliable authority?” I inquired with a slight sneer.

He made no immediate reply. His flashing eyes looked, as it were, through me and beyond me at something far away. The curious pallor that at times gave his face the set look of an impenetrable mask, came upon him then, and he smiled,—an awful smile. So might a man smile out of deadly bravado, when told of some dim and dreadful torture awaiting him.

“You touch me on a sore point,”—he said at last, slowly, and in a harsh tone—“My convictions respecting certain religious phases of man’s development and progress, are founded on the arduous study of some very unpleasant truths to which humanity generally shuts its eyes, burying its head in the desert-sands of its own delusions. These truths I will not enter upon now. Some other time I will initiate you into a few of my mysteries.”

The tortured smile passed from his face, leaving it intellectually composed and calm as usual,—and I hastily changed the subject, for I had made up my mind by this time that my brilliant friend had, like many exceptionally gifted persons, a [p 253] ‘craze’ on one topic, and that topic a particularly difficult one to discuss as it touched on the superhuman and therefore (to my thinking) the impossible. My own temperament, which had, in the days of my poverty, fluctuated between spiritual striving and material gain, had, with my sudden access to fortune, rapidly hardened into the character of a man of the world worldly, for whom all speculations as to the unseen forces working in and around us, were the merest folly, not worth a moment’s waste of thought. I should have laughed to scorn anyone who had then presumed to talk to me about the law of Eternal Justice, which with individuals as well as nations, works, not for a passing ‘phase,’ but for all time towards good, and not evil,—for no matter how much a man may strive to blind himself to the fact, he has a portion of the Divine within him, which if he wilfully corrupts by his own wickedness, he must be forced to cleanse again and yet again, in the fierce flames of such remorse and such despair as are rightly termed the quenchless fires of Hell!

[p 254]
XXII

On the afternoon of the twenty-first of May, I went down, accompanied by Lucio, to Willowsmere, to be in readiness for the reception of the social swarm who were to flock thither the next day. Amiel went with us,—but I left my own man, Morris, behind, to take charge of my rooms in the Grand, and to forward late telegrams and special messages. The weather was calm, warm and bright,—and a young moon showed her thin crescent in the sky as we got out at the country station and stepped into the open carriage awaiting us. The station-officials greeted us with servile humility, eyeing Lucio especially with an almost gaping air of wonderment; the fact of his lavish expenditure in arranging with the railway company a service of special trains for the use of the morrow’s guests, had no doubt excited them to a speechless extent of admiration as well as astonishment. When we approached Willowsmere, and entered the beautiful drive, bordered with oak and beech, which led up to the house, I uttered an exclamation of delight at the festal decorations displayed, for the whole avenue was spanned with arches of flags and flowers, garlands of blossoms being even swung from tree to tree, and interlacing many of the lower branches. The gabled porch at the entrance of the house was draped with crimson silk and festooned with white roses,—and as we alighted, the door was flung open by a smart page in brilliant scarlet and gold.

“I think,” said Lucio to me as we entered—“You will [p 255] find everything as complete as this world’s resources will allow. The retinue of servants here are what is vulgarly called ‘on the job’; their payment is agreed upon, and they know their duties thoroughly,—they will give you no trouble.”

I could scarcely find words to express my unbounded satisfaction, or to thank him for the admirable taste with which the beautiful house had been adorned. I wandered about in an ecstasy of admiration, triumphing in such a visible and gorgeous display of what great wealth could really do. The ball-room had been transformed into an elegant bijou theatre, the stage being concealed by a curtain of thick gold-coloured silk on which the oft-quoted lines of Shakespeare were embroidered in raised letters,—